vienna
08-12-13, 03:07 PM
Thought some of you might find this a bit interesting:
http://www.eonline.com/news/447942/eighth-grade-exam-from-1912-surfaces-are-you-smarter-than-a-middle-schooler-from-100-years-ago
The approximate age range for those students would be about 13-14 years of age, just before entering a four-year high school. I genuinely doubt there would be many students of that age today who would handle the test with any ease. I have long decried the decline of education in recent times. I was lucky enough to have had my early education, up to 8th grade, in and old-line Catholic Jesuit school with a classical educational curriculum. The amount of knowledge we were expected to learn would be unbelievable to todays students and parents, yet, learn it we did and with an atmosphere of old-school Catolic discipline...
Today, schools have rather lax discipline, educational expectations are inclined to the lowest common student level, and expectations are therefore equally low. One of my exes is a school teaher and has, in the past, told me stories about the ordeals she has had to endure at the hands of inept or uncaring administrators, out of control student who seem to be beyond discipline, and parent who, when confronted with the failings and misbehavior of their students, are most often inclined to balme the teachers or the school rather than take responsibility for the little monsters they brought into the world. While many extoll the virtues of "modern education", very few of them seem to be able to explain why the "old", "outdated" methods seem to have produced far better results and better students (if not better people) than the new methods whose results have been rapidly declining test scores, grade averages, and general discipline. Maybe "touchy-feely", "I'm OK, You're OK", "Kumbaya" isn't really working and we need a new (old?) solution...
[steps down off soap box, goes for a pint...]
<O>
http://www.eonline.com/news/447942/eighth-grade-exam-from-1912-surfaces-are-you-smarter-than-a-middle-schooler-from-100-years-ago
The approximate age range for those students would be about 13-14 years of age, just before entering a four-year high school. I genuinely doubt there would be many students of that age today who would handle the test with any ease. I have long decried the decline of education in recent times. I was lucky enough to have had my early education, up to 8th grade, in and old-line Catholic Jesuit school with a classical educational curriculum. The amount of knowledge we were expected to learn would be unbelievable to todays students and parents, yet, learn it we did and with an atmosphere of old-school Catolic discipline...
Today, schools have rather lax discipline, educational expectations are inclined to the lowest common student level, and expectations are therefore equally low. One of my exes is a school teaher and has, in the past, told me stories about the ordeals she has had to endure at the hands of inept or uncaring administrators, out of control student who seem to be beyond discipline, and parent who, when confronted with the failings and misbehavior of their students, are most often inclined to balme the teachers or the school rather than take responsibility for the little monsters they brought into the world. While many extoll the virtues of "modern education", very few of them seem to be able to explain why the "old", "outdated" methods seem to have produced far better results and better students (if not better people) than the new methods whose results have been rapidly declining test scores, grade averages, and general discipline. Maybe "touchy-feely", "I'm OK, You're OK", "Kumbaya" isn't really working and we need a new (old?) solution...
[steps down off soap box, goes for a pint...]
<O>