Weren't Things Easier When We Could Just Decide Who Was Dumb and Teach Them Less?
It sure was. Gosh, back in the good old days in the 1920s or so, educators whipped out those handy IQ tests, administered them to young children, assigned them a number, stuck them in an "appropriate" educational track, and took credit for the appropriate outcome. Never mind that the tests may not have been as well-designed as they could have been. Never mind that the brain, it turned out, was "plastic" and demanding teaching might have resulted in improved learning and cognition. Nope. Why waste precious educational resources on raising up the low intelligence people when you have all these smart kids who could do so much more?
Oh Charles Murray, he's hoping to turn the clock back 100 years with his series of op-eds in the WSJ, here, here, and here.
In order to make these statements, Murray must believe that:
Birth is destiny. Wherever you are born, that's where you stay. Because otherwise, how could he support limiting educational resources and opportunities for a congenital situation?
Teaching is pointless. I mean, if you can't improve kids knowledge and abilities, what's the point?
What follows from the teaching is pointless is that we, as a society, assume that nothing can be done about knowledge. IMagine if the legal profession, or medical profession took that stance toward the difficult, and the apparently hopeless cases it takes on?
"Oh, this patient is "too fat, too old, too sick" to treat. Let's just do the minimum and let it play itself out."
"Forget it. Your case against the government for legalizing segregation is impossible to win. Let's just forget it, and work on getting those separate lunch counters to serve hotter coffee."
Or suppose someone had said to Einstein, you'll never make that theory stick.
Maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Maybe Murray isn't smart enough to figure out how to educate children, so he's saying it can't be done rather than do the hard work.
Check out D-Ed Reckoning and Gadfly on this, and Joanne Jacobs.
Oh Charles Murray, he's hoping to turn the clock back 100 years with his series of op-eds in the WSJ, here, here, and here.
In order to make these statements, Murray must believe that:
Birth is destiny. Wherever you are born, that's where you stay. Because otherwise, how could he support limiting educational resources and opportunities for a congenital situation?
Teaching is pointless. I mean, if you can't improve kids knowledge and abilities, what's the point?
What follows from the teaching is pointless is that we, as a society, assume that nothing can be done about knowledge. IMagine if the legal profession, or medical profession took that stance toward the difficult, and the apparently hopeless cases it takes on?
"Oh, this patient is "too fat, too old, too sick" to treat. Let's just do the minimum and let it play itself out."
"Forget it. Your case against the government for legalizing segregation is impossible to win. Let's just forget it, and work on getting those separate lunch counters to serve hotter coffee."
Or suppose someone had said to Einstein, you'll never make that theory stick.
Maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Maybe Murray isn't smart enough to figure out how to educate children, so he's saying it can't be done rather than do the hard work.
Check out D-Ed Reckoning and Gadfly on this, and Joanne Jacobs.
posted by Jenny D. at 1:29 PM
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