Starting from scratch in the minimum wage system

[Henry]

If you were trying to control others, inducing them to believe that they are helpless, is top priority. The more people believe they cannot, the more they depend on you. By appealing to our natural desire to save face, we can be led to enslavement.

And I am willing to recognize the other side of the argument. Anyone who has listened to Thomas Sowell who grew up in Harlem has heard him say that the LBJ's Great Society programs did irreparable damage because they sent the wrong message ie certain people cannot work their way out because they do not possess the ability to work their way out. He makes the argument that affirmative action is a bad idea because it puts people in strenuous academic environments they are not handled to equip. Better to get a STEM degree from a college you can learn than be discouraged at one that you can't handle. It's a tight rope. Obviously, equality of opportunity is not commensurate with equality of outcome and the "system" should not be manipulated to try to achieve those ends.

[7Wannabe5]

Another reality many may not realize is that it is necessary to pass a standardized math test to join the military. So, even this path is not available to young people who have not achieved approximately 6th grade bare competency in math. For instance, you would have to be able to solve a problem at the level of :

Every soldier receives 3 dress shirts for each pair of dress pants she is given. If Sandra was given a total of 12 items of dress clothing, how many pairs of dress pants did she receive?

I worked with a very nice, very determined young man, for several months trying my best to get him up to this level, and I don't think I succeeded. The growing complexity of the 21st century world is outpacing our ability to prepare all humans to find a path to success. The level of class segregation in our public schools is enormous and growing, and it is hugely contributory to this problem. Even the brightest students in the worst districts are at an extreme disadvantage, because they may be two years ahead of their classmates, but barely scraping the median level in a better district. Even high school level courses such as Algebra are watered down or souped up in alignment with district or private school demographic.

I also encourage one of my 5th graders by showing him the military exam, but then his mother was evicted and he had to leave my school for an even worse district.

The main problem is wealthy people who favor their own stupid kids. Desegregation now!

[jacob]

@7wb5 - I looked at an ASVAB sample test and most of the math questions were like that (your example was on the more difficult side, because division). About 20% of adults are not able to calculate at this level. However, in terms of world wide innumeracy percentiles, the US is not particularly bad. The US military generally prefers recruits with an IQ over 91, which corresponds to a certain ASVAB score. This is also pretty close to the 20% percentile. It may be that the limit here is not the lack of ability to do 'rithmetic but insufficient intelligence to deal with complications---most of the questions requiring combining two simple operations to get to the result.

On the other hand, Japan stands out with 95% of adults surpassing that level, so they've clearly figured it out.

[Ego]

I worked with a very nice, very determined young man, for several months trying my best to get him up to this level, and I don't think I succeeded.

Is it possible that the reverse Pygmalion effect played a part? Is it possible that the idea of privilege, or belief in a lack of privilege, can have the same effect for individuals and for society as a whole?

[Jean]

@jacob, Isn't it just that japan's IQ bell curve is tighter?

[7Wannabe5]

It may be that the limit here is not the lack of ability to do 'rithmetic but insufficient intelligence to deal with complications---most of the questions requiring combining two simple operations to get to the result.

Yes, but a lack of familiarity with the tools at hand will also make the extension of operations more difficult. For example, I had little difficulty with first year college-level physics, but the lab section which was based on auto mechanics was more difficult for me, because as the typical suburban girl of my era, I had no prior exposure.

However, since I was cognizant of this likely difficulty, and because my time with him was limited, I did encourage the hopeful-soldier to memorize some formulas related to the conceptually easier problems related to conventionally higher level topics. For instance, the exam also includes problems requiring straight-forward calculation of the circumference of a circle and similar. A counter-example would be a second-grader who was referred to me, because tested around 25th percentile. Once I determined he had a learning disability that was greatly inhibiting his ability to read, I verbally tested his math ability, and found that he was able to hold two-step addition and subtraction problems in his memory, manipulate the symbols, and determine the correct result. At the next standardized testing, in which his inability to read was taken into account, his score jumped to 78th percentile.

I do currently have two affluent private students who attend a private high school. By contrast the sort of problem an 11th grader at this school might be asked to solve would be:

One car heads out from a garage heading east at 20 mph at noon. Another car heads out from the garage heading north at 30 mph at 2 pm. At what speed and bearing will the first car have to proceed at 6 pm to reach the second car by 8 pm?

Is it possible that the reverse Pygmalion effect played a part? Is it possible that the idea of privilege, or belief in a lack of privilege, can have the same effect for individuals and for society as a whole?

Good question. I actually have a copy of "What Is It About Me You Can't Teach: An Instructional Guide for the Urban Educator?" which refers to the Rosenthal study on page 11, on the shelf of books in my tutoring cubby.

...Just as Henry Higgins followed his words with actions when he transformed Eliza Doolittle from a street-talking flower girl into a polished socialite who fooled the experts, so too many educators work to transform all their students, including those who present the most significant learning challenges, into active, engaged, and successful learners.

The belief that "all children can learn" springs from the positive point of view about learning potential. When the pessimists look at children and see the glass half empty, they go into a blue funk. "See," they say, "these children have limited intelligence. According to the statistics graphed on the bell curve, people with limited intelligence contribute the least to our gross national product and the most to crime and welfare. Education, then, does not good." On the other hand, the optimist looks at the glass and sees that it is half full. "There is much we can do," they beam. "It may take more work, but let us use the best tools we have to educate each child to the fullest."

- my emphasis.

In the particular example I offered of the hopeful soldier, I did not have the option to immerse him in the study of mathematics 24/7, entirely under my dominance, as with Eliza and Henry. I also had no preconceived notions regarding his abilities. He was a private student, paying for the test prep himself, and as far as I knew going in, he might have just wanted to boost an already decent score to get a better placement. His social presentation was very clean cut, very fit young man, whom I almost expected to address me as "M'am", he was so well-mannered. So, I didn't think "Oh dear,..." until he started "counting on" with his fingers towards solving basic problem. I did what I could for him, working forward from that basis, in the 20-25 one hour sessions I had with him.

One thing the Rosenthal (Pygmalion effect) study revealed was that the perspective of the teacher made the most difference with the youngest children. This is likely because EVERYTHING you can do to help somebody succeed is more effective when directed at the very young. It's much more difficult to compete in our individualist economy as an adult, if you are not granted equal advantages as a child. There is no math tutoring program at the middle-school level in the community where I teach, largely because there is nobody to staff it. Many elementary school teachers are a bit wobbly in math past the 5th grade level themselves. Virtually everybody (including me) who has the required competence to tutor math to disadvantaged kids for $18/hr can also earn $40/hr doing tech work for a corporation*. Virtually all of my co-workers are retired semi-volunteers. I'm not trying to communicate that individuals as adults can't get ahead. I'm trying to communicate that many children are in situations in which they will likely fall further and further behind if they don't get help. By the 5th grade, the highest level students in the best districts may be as much as 8 years ahead of the lowest level students in the worst districts, not even taking into account those individuals who have been identified as having special educational needs. How does an individual overcome that level of disadvantage in adulthood?

I know I often come off in writing as somebody who resides in a cloud-based world of theory, but this is a realm where I am actually out there on the front line, and I am telling you that there is a shit-ton of needful work to be done, and putting it off until these children pop out into our capitalist system as adults is too little, too late and highly wasteful of resources.

*Therefore, I definitely currently qualify as being in the Helpless (hurts self while helping others) quadrant of the Cippola model, which IMO is actually a stupid, because short-sighted model, in alignment with how linear Modern functioning is in its entirely also stupid-because-short-sighted/individualistic.

[7Wannabe5]

Deleted due to grouchy and off-topic.

[loutfard]

I teach too part of my time. Optional subject, after obligatory school hours. Years of experience. Not divulging more.

This year, for the first time ever I had a student that made me thoroughly appreciate a wise now-retired colleague's technique. He would sometimes tell a student or would-be student: "Wouldn't you THAT be something for you?".

"That" being something completely different, as far away from his area of expertise as possible, requiring very little intellectual, fine motorical, or other ability, nor financial effort by the parents.

It sounded harsh, and the reality certainly was harsh. The kid usually took it to heart. The parents sometimes got angry and only later understood.