Gaashk
1yr ago
I remember some controversies about that as well.
If the problem is something like that it's actually quite difficult to find enough people who are both willing to work with small children all day, and willing to follow rigid instructional scripts, this seems like a good opportunity for technological augmentation. If the lessons are scripted, why does it have to be the childcare worker reading the script? Couldn't some kind of anthropomorphic chatbot say the script, and the childcare worker gets to focus on ensuring the kids are actually doing what they should, settling disputes, ensuring some degree of order, emotional regulation, and so on?
Gaashk
1yr ago
I had the misfortune to sit through a two hour lecture with no breaks about The Science of Reading (tm) with a room full of elementary school teachers a month or so ago. I immediately forgot almost everything, but the part I retained was that children are more likely to be able to read passages if they know something about the topic. This seemed blindingly obvious, but apparently educationalists only now realized it. They gave an example of an average elementary school teacher trying to read a passage about cricket, written for an audience of cricket enthusiasts, along with referencing some study where the thing found to be the strongest indicator of high schoolers ability to decode a passage about baseball was not so much reading level in general, but rather knowledge of baseball. They recommended organizing books more by topic than by reading level, and teaching kids actual things about the world. My father, who taught rather low skill high school readers, had moderate success getting them to read A Child Called It. Simple common words, shocking emotional story, likable narrator, familiar settings of home and school. They could generally decode the phonemes, but didn't have very much background knowledge, vocabulary, or tenacity.
The district is using LETRS (phonics based) and CLKA (core knowledge) curriculums. I was working in the school for over two years before finding out what any of the CKLA topics were. I had asked a couple of times, but both teachers and children seemed confused by the question. It turns out they're studying normal things like Greece, Rome, Astronomy, Geology, and so on, at predictable times of year, which is actually useful for me to know. We have a full time "instructional coach," but had never heard this mentioned before, despite asking.
Anyway, probably part of the issue is that Science of Reading types are lumping together several different things under "reading." A person can't read if they can't convert arrangements of letters into sounds, and then into already known words. Hence, schools that skip phonics are in bad shape. They also can't read if they don't know the meanings of enough of the written words yet, hence the CKLA and sportsball passage examples. Apparently some teachers prefer teaching the latter to the former, but still accept lower elementary positions, then neglect the phonics in favor of the "language rich environment" and "background knowledge" stuff.
Some smaller schools try to mitigate the "teaching phonics is dull and uncreative" effect by having teachers follow their students up the grade levels, only having to teaching phonics once every six years of so if they do it right. The preferred method seems to be to "offer more professional development" and "gather more data,"and occasionally yell at teachers.
Gaashk
1yr ago
Yes, this. Also, liability. Also, group size.
It's easy to get both men and women to teach things like sports clubs, 4-H, or scout clubs -- with some other adult volunteers present and have similar cultural norms around behavior, families buy and maintain their own supplies, student choice, and groups of 10-12 kids.
It's when you're alone teaching mandatory scripted curriculum to ~20 kids, several of whom don't want to be there, with 504s, BIPs, IEPs, and MLSS procedures, all with their own reporting and compliance requirements that things get dicy.
Gaashk
1yr ago
I'm too late to participate in the contest, but am somewhat interested in the topic, and wanted to at least mention a few things.
A while back I was looking into intuition in the context of Jungian personality type theories. It is the oddest category by far, with different people meaning different things by it, but everyone agreeing that it's one of the four major psychological functions, and that there are many people who strongly favor it, as much as a person might favor "thinking" or "sensing" or "feeling". No-nonsense postmoderns tend to talk about recognizing and internalizing complex patterns. Jung's meaning is less likely, but far more interesting, about seeing around corners of reality, perception via unconscious thought, and symbolic understanding in parallel to rational thought, bypassing thought. For instance, an account of a woman using introverted intuition.
A good place to go looking for "snake in my abdomen" sorts of intuitives seems, then, to be in poets. I used to read symbolic poets, and was pleased to see this essay on Charles Williams in the latest ACX link roundup. George MacDonald is an excellent . A bit of TS Eliot. Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich comes across as strongly intuitive in Jung's sense.
There was a period of my life where I was reading those poets, and listening a lot to an excellent self-described introverted intuitive priest reciting TS Eliot and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Jung, and there was a sense of numinosity. This was very lovely, but apparently not sustainable. American culture is inhospitable to numinous intuitive poetry, and it turns out that I am not myself a poet. Even actual poets are struggling with disenchantment; I tried reading Wendall Berry, who people assured me was a great poet of rural America, and the whole book he was complaining about tractors and synthetic fertilizers, with no symbolism at all. Perhaps he is not an intuitive poet in Jung's sense.
In any event, if I were to attempt writing more about intuition, it would be in the Jungian symbolic vein. It seems like, as a civilization, we have relegated Jungian intuition to the sidelines of people arranging crystals and talking about chakras and astrology and tarot. I've been following someone like that lately, a woman I know in real life but don't interact with very much. She writes lovely, deep, insightful intuitive, poetic prose posts, but then goes on also about astrology a lot, in a way that seems poorly integrated. Possibly if there were some sort of details about the symbolism of the planets it would be less deeply off putting, as I have nothing against using celestial bodies as a storytelling framework. Intuitive energy is wasting away in boomer women coming to schools to talk about chakras, but then failing to convey any actual sense of the symbolism that attracts them to it; just some sterile disconnected handouts about what they "represent," staying rather firmly in the "thinking" sphere we moderns are comfortable with, despite that not being an appropriate treatment of the subject matter. This seems related to not having a shared religion to keep things on track, and I've read at least one person [paywalled] with an actual religion complaining about Jung's Red Book going off the rails very badly into utter nonsense, which seems to be his attempt at strongly intuitive, mythopoetic writing. I have not read The Red Book, and am not in a position to comment.
Old stories seem to suggest that ancient people were much more mythopoetic/intuitive storytellers, and it seems like the stress on more rational thought has to some extent crowded that out. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes is very suggestive in that respect. There was a link from the December ACX roundup that seemed quite interesting in a similar vein. but nobody knew what to say about it, and neither do I. Probably the right thing to do in this situation is go sit under a tree, look at the seedheads and read a poem, rather than write an essay, though as I say I don't have any more access to intuition than any other modern who likes spending time on rationalist adjacent forums, so this may not happen.
Gaashk
1yr ago
With small children, while holding something heavy and/or cold, and especially while trying to hold something heavy and/or cold with children, yes. When old and feeble, also yes. I barely made it from the car into the library today with a one year old, three year old, and stack of books. My older family members often need to be dropped off at the entrance of the place we're going, since just walking across the parking lot is rather difficult. The two states combined might make up about a quarter of a person's life.
But, yes, a moderately healthy single person living in a European style town will not find walking while carrying things difficult.
Gaashk
1yr ago
I'm not sure teaching is the best example.
There's been a lot of historic success from getting brilliant tutors for up and coming brilliant students. Finding someone impressive to tutor John von Neumann or lecture at Harvard is great, but not really a government employment problem, and basically solved.
Luring someone away from finance to teach in a euphemistically challenging inner city school... this does happen. You mention Teach for America. But... why, though? What are they going to teach? Phonics? Remedial high school algebra? Fractions, attempt 5. Basically college AP classes at a well off high school?
Largely hispanic and working class high schools often like to get people to teach things like culinary arts and shop classes. Sometimes they have trouble with this, because it pays less than being a chef or a mechanic, and they have to pass background checks, and do a bunch of certification nonsense. It would probably make sense to pay these positions more, to the extent that they're difficult to fill. Some states accept some years of industry experience instead of a bachelor's degree for these positions, and that makes sense.
The economy as a whole is, in some sense, a zero sum game, and if you're luring people away from lucrative, high prestige positions working with people like them, to go teach children or teens not much like them, you need to consider why.
Maybe a better case to consider is the military. It used to offer (maybe somewhat still does) 18 year olds camaraderie, structure, a paid college education if suitable, and a chance to attain a higher rank where they were lives are literally at stake. That works, but they seem to be actively trying to alienate their base lately.
Gaashk
1yr ago
I voted for TheDag, but, yes, this. It was very difficult to get through the shower thoughts introduction, it took me a few tries.
Mild disagree on this specific instance being gender coded in the way you imply. I like dreams and experiences posts as much as the next person, but the post in question did not hit any of the right beats for that. Descartes style exposition on how the writer was thinking some thoughts, and then had a few drinks, and thought some other thoughts, but then deleted them, and now is thinking some different thoughts isn't necessarily a bad essay (I enjoy Descartes), but doesn't describe any actual experiences or elicit any care. A feminine Connection themed intuition post would recount times the writer had used (or failed to use, despite an inner knowing) their intuition to make decisions and take actions that were important to them, and convey a sense of that importance through personal narrative.
Gaashk
1yr ago
It depends on the age -- I like basically nothing aimed at toddlers. As a toddler, I liked The Little Fur Family because it had a furry cover, but the new edition no longer does, so I haven't bought it. My three year old daughter likes Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstock, and books with flaps and hidden doors.
Favorites that hold up for both children and adults:
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The Wind in the Willows
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The Princess and the Goblins & The Golden Key
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The Little Prince
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The Hobbit (obviously)
I remember liking Little House on the Prairie, or at least my father liked reading it to me, but didn't feel any interest in revisiting it afterwards, so am not sure if it would hold up or not.
Gaashk
1yr ago
We're having one at my school next week, so I suppose I'll look if there's anything like Roald Dahl's work there. I didn't look very closely at longer stories last year, but my impression was a lot of pop science kinds of things with slime or toys attached. I got something about the ocean because there was a shark with moving jaws on the cover. If a publishing company is trying to get more book fair or B&N money out of parents, toys, magnets, pop-ups, furry covers, and fun gimmicks generally seem like the way to go, especially for older works that are easy to check out from the library.
Gaashk
1yr ago
My almost four year daughter has expressed an interest in learning to read. I am lazy, and don't particularly want to teach her to read, but also can't afford preschool any time soon, so probably should.
Recommendations for methods/curriculum/concrete actions would be appreciated. Preferably that doesn't include a lot of small pieces -- my mother is really into teaching reading, but tends to give us a bunch of matching letter toys that are instantly scattered throughout the house.
Gaashk
1yr ago
At that age, edutainment is where it's at. Sesame Street has been the gold standard for decades. LeapFrog's Letter Factory and Word Factory are also solid choices (though their more recent stuff is reportedly hit-or-miss). If your daughter can use a mouse, you should also let her play these games at Starfall.com, especially the alphabet and learn-to-read games and "books." (If she can't use a mouse, teach her--if she has a PC with a keyboard and mouse, she's got all the tools she needs to learn whatever she wants, provided sufficient motivation!) Once she knows the basics, the Scribblenauts games can help with her vocabulary and spelling. If she has siblings, friends, or cousins who will play multiplayer games with her (like Minecraft or Roblox, where much communication is done via text messages), that can also present an opportunity and motivation to learn to read, spell, and type better.
This is interesting. She's at home with my husband all day, and this is much more his style than the kind of thing my mother did with me. She currently has a tablet, and likes to play games where she's supposed to trace letters, but then gets frustrated because it's actually kind of hard and not very useful to trace letters with fingers (it doesn't let me pass about half the time). Lately she's been binge watching Octonaughts. Husband has lots of opinions on computers, games, and Internet stuff broadly, and I'm sure can set her up when she's ready. (I probably shouldn't... he makes fun of me and my rose gold Macbook with only trackpad and no mouse). She watches him play computer games a fair bit, and he has way more opinions than me, especially about "fremium" sorts of things.
I have a mild lingering feeling that TV watching and video game playing are vices compared to reading books, but am not sure exactly where that comes from, or to what extent it's true. Other moms I know also seem to feel that way, but it seems implicit, perhaps aesthetic and related to class in some way.
Gaashk
1yr ago
That looks interesting, thanks. I find it appealing that it's one book instead of a set of 50 books or something.
My parents are book hoarders, and while I do own children's books, I mostly prefer to check books out from the library, and still have trouble managing even the ones we have, and those my parents have given us.
Gaashk
1yr ago
Thanks -- it looks like both daughters might be eligible for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (quite the mouthful). I only recognize a few of the books here https://imaginationlibrary.com/usa/book-list/ and am wondering why The Snowy Day, a book about a black boy, is tagged "Hispanic." Or why there needs to be a special tag for "Hispanic" at all. It's odd that the procedure is to print and mail an application or deliver it in person, but maybe it signifies a certain level of commitment that suggests the person will actually read the books?
Gaashk
1yr ago
This is the first I've heard of it too. Tried looking it up, and all the links are self referencing back patting by "day of resolve" people, so it's unclear if it's real or fake.
Gaashk
1yr ago
Among those with Theatre Kids tendencies, or whose parents went too far, and mostly a combination, yes. See, for instance, https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/
Gaashk
1yr ago
I was surprised by how much I liked her new album.
I've been listening to Farya Faraji on Youtube recently -- lots of Byzantine and Balkans music, and some other folk music, for instance from Canada. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to buy or download his music to listen while traveling.
Gaashk
1yr ago
The proposal itself is odd. Why allow taxis to pass freely? How are they better than private cars? Also "private hire vehicles" -- is this something like Uber? Why are these better than regular cars? If it's because they don't need parking spaces... charge more for parking?
It starts by talking about specific hours and days, like the way some rush hour lanes work, but then those hours and days are every day of the week 7am - 7pm. It talks about "unnecessary car travel," as though people were just gong for a drive, but would anyone actually do that through a congested main street? It also says vans are exempt? Vans? This is the kind of rule that ended up with areas in America full of extra huge trucks, because they weren't subject to the same rules as smaller trucks. If I were commuting in Oxford, I would buy a van immediately. I suppose vans are much more expensive in England than the US?
All this seems separate from trying to create "15 minute cities" by, say, incentivizing shops in the lower story of apartment or office buildings, or building more public plaza areas. Both those things seem desirable, and I would fully support some kind of incentive for subdivisions to be built more in a village format. I assume they're not because it's cheaper and more convenient for people to drive 20 minutes to the big box store, than buy from a local baker and butcher and so on, so it's hard for those kinds of places to stay in business. If people value quantity over aesthetics, that's valid, though.
Anyway, I haven't noticed any culture war tensions around urban planning in the communities I've been a part of. Everyone assumes that families will have cars, even if they're poor by US standards, and indeed they do have cars, even if they're terrible and junky. This is an equilibrium that isn't aesthetically appealing, but is livable, and seems likely to continue indefinitely. I prefer the Eastern European system of mini-busses, but everyone already has a car.
Gaashk
1yr ago
I'm grading some district reporting requirement art tests. Each art teacher has an identical test, and grades about 300 of them a year. The current iteration is marker, crayon, pencil, and paper, where we grade them by hand, then manually enter the number for each question into a database. It is horribly tedious, because grading them requires judgement and ambiguity (is that doodle textural? It's not very good texture, but they aren't very good at drawing...), but we aren't actually learning anything very useful from them, and they aren't actually aligned with the national standards. The other teachers and district office are open to a different approach, as long as it produces a numerical score and is less useless than the current iteration. The kids have Chromebooks they could bring, if needed.
Ideally, we would be assessing the national art standards (students can come up with an idea, produce something using that idea, connect it to some existing art, and articulate what they made the choices they did), but we haven't been able to figure out a way to assess that in half an hour or so and grade it in about two minutes, so currently we're assessing elements of art and a few common concepts (line, color, texture, symmetry, variety, geometric vs organic shapes).
It there a way to design an automated test in the future, which isn't primarily a reading comprehension test?
Thanks!
Yeah, that sounds way too advanced for us, we could probably make a lot more money if we had those kinds of skills.
The second proposal might be possible -- my mother said that at her school they were given paid PLC time to do that with a test, and we spent three hours arguing about the test already this year. I we had assembly line graded them instead, they would be graded already by now.
These tests don't have to effect the kids' grades, so I don't think it will be problem from the kids' perspective.
Ideally, we would have a school approved app where we could upload a picture of a landscape, and say "Find the horizon." Maybe more than one for multiple versions. We would mark an area close enough to the horizon to qualify as right. Then it would show another picture: organic shape. We would designate which parts were the organic shapes, they would click, and it would grade based on if they clicked in one of the specified areas. Something like that. This seems like it should exist, but this is the only test I'm involved in making, so don't know for sure.
This sounds concrete enough I might be able to ask the educational technologist about it, which might be a lead, anyway.
Gaashk
1yr ago
Thanks!
I think that might be too advanced for these kids -- I teacher perspective in 4th grade, and accurate portraits in 5th grade, and have a fairly high non-completion rate in both cases, so wouldn't be willing to go much younger.
The test in question is for second graders, so many can't write coherently either, which is why I mentioned not wanting a reading test.
My actual priorities for lower elementary are something like:
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Write their name legibly, on the front, right-side up
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Some ability to use the materials (will paint the paper, not something else; won't destroy the tip of the brush, mostly won't go over the same spot until there's a hole, spread out the watercolors with water, rather than using it all up dry and complaining about not having any left, that kind of thing)
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Roughly follow the instructions. If we are painting a large monochromatic blue cat, they will not paint little stick figures of their family with a white background, and complain about not having the colors they want)
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Keep with it until it's done, even if it's not what they want. Don't crumple it up and throw it in the trash, then sneak up to get another paper or throw a tantrum and cry or something. Don't cross out the drawing they didn't like in permanent marker as though it were a word in a written draft; erase it or else work with what's there.
The current test is about labeling various things with elements of art words, and following instructions to, for instance, color one part with primary colors, another with cool colors, another warm, another cool, and so on. The vocabulary covered is basically alright (though unrelated to the standards). It turns out many second graders aren't able to label, and a large part of the test was spent on teaching them to label, and about half still couldn't/didn't want to/were sad that their art time, which they only get twice a month or so, was spent on trying to label things. It is also confusing, because it involves doing a set of 12 different tasks (label, color, draw, "add texture") all on the same pre-outlined paper. Many are distracted by trying to make some part or other pretty. One ended up with five Sonic the Hedgehog people on it. I think this is developmental.
Every year we, the art teachers, talk for several hours about whether we have to do this (yes, we do), and, if we have to do this, what might be the easiest way to do it that could be useful, or at least harmless. Every year we don't know, and go back to this test. Given that it's not testing anything we or the kids much care about, we would prefer that it be something self-grading, which doesn't require writing or typing, or perhaps even reading skills. Like it would say, out loud, to the kid "color the butterfly with the three primary colors" and the kid would drag red, yellow, and blue onto the butterfly, and then it would score that.
What I think we might go to is a dozen little boxes, with a task written over each box, which might at least mitigate to confusion of having to do all the tasks on top of the same picture.
Gaashk
1yr ago
Holiday crafts, board books, a nice rug they like, stuffed toys, snacks, storytime, free toys. A lot of library events are aimed at toddlers, I assume so that they and their parents have a positive feeling about libraries and physical books. I'd also rather check out kids books than buy a bunch of books they'll outgrow in a couple of months.
Gaashk
1yr ago
As others say, this and your previous post seem to be lacking context. It looks like maybe you're worried about masking in the West? But it really didn't seem to be a bunch of East Asian officials forcing that on Westerners, but the Westerners' own leaders, of different ethnicities, largely European ancestry, and the people themselves.
There is a certain repetition of theme through some of these veiling and binding practices of various cultures, which is often tightly bound up with class and leisure. Well off people who can have food delivered and work from home mandating masks, dressing their daughters in burkas, binding their daughters' feet, loading them up with 20 lbs of neck rings, tight lacing their corsets. What's the big deal, surely you don't have to walk and work outside like peasants? Castrate your son and he'll never have to do any physical labor, he can just sing full time and be paid well for it. As others mentioned, this shows up sometimes in various times and places. Now that Western culture has become unusually permissive about (lack of) veiling, people's anxiety is coming out in things like anorexia, bulimia, cutting, dysphoria, and whatever else. Apparently humans get really neurotic and destructive when stressed about mate choice and social standing.
The best solution I've heard of is to have smaller social units that are explicitly told to be kind and understanding to each other like church communities, and have as many different small hierarchies as possible, so that everyone isn't competing for the same couple of attractive husbands/wives or the same slot at the Ivies or the same job at the New York Times or whatever, there are plenty of ways to succeed. My impression is that middle upper class Americans have been feeling the squeeze lately, writing stressed out articles about not being able to get into an elite university, wearing masks in public, and finding new and interesting gender expressions to enforce with zeal. Perhaps next year's fashion trend will be tight laced corsets.
I'm not saying that some ethnic groups don't do more stressed out status competitions than others, but calling it a foreign moral universe seems a bit much.
Fair enough, it doesn't sound like we fundamentally disagree. I worked at a charter school for a while with the A-C class system, based on math skills. It seemed fine and reasonable enough as far as I could tell, though the teachers were all a bit frustrated with the behaviors, more than the ability, of the C class. Having a class like that all day every day in elementary school tends to drive teachers with other options out of the profession. It might work to pay the teachers with lower ability classes more to compensate, and this does to some extent happen, with public schools paying more than private ones.
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