
What's Wrong with Students? - jseliger
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/12/whats_wrong_wit_24.html
======
tptacek
I went to Catholic college prep high school in the 1990s. My kids, public high
school (albeit: a suburban public high school) over the last 6 years. I had to
write a shitload of papers. My kids have to write a shitload of papers. If
anything: their education is more rigorous than was mine. If my kids get(/got)
"cats" vs. "cats'" incorrect, they'll get dinged for it.

I kind of want to call bullshit on this analysis.

~~~
mintplant
Yep. Relatively recent product of the American public high school system here
[0], and soon-to-be product of the public university system. If anything I had
to write many more papers in my high school classes than in my college ones. I
don't know what planet these guys are living on.

> Well, the night before, I studied probably pretty close to an hour." And
> with that the scales fell from my eyes.

> "An hour? Do you realize that when I was in college it was common to start
> studying for big exams a week or more before?"

I suspect the professor has forgotten just how much college students have on
their plates at any given time. An Intro to Philosophy class may not be
everyone's top priority.

[0] Starting in Louisiana and finishing in California.

~~~
x0x0
College students also frequently work.

Four decades ago, you really could pay for college with a minimum wage summer
job. Now, it would require far more than a year's full time work.

[https://newrepublic.com/article/122814/how-many-hours-
would-...](https://newrepublic.com/article/122814/how-many-hours-would-it-
take-you-work-todays-college-tuition)

------
jancsika
> Answers: Listened to records, watched videos, talked about movies and
> current events.

Amazing-- a class of (apparently) 30 students mysteriously synchronized on
_three_ answers to a wide open question. And alarm bells didn't go off in the
professor's head that _maybe_ there's some confirmation bias going on in this
non-scientific survey.

Also amazing-- once the professor figured out that his students didn't have
the prerequisites to understand the material, his next question was _not_ how
much debt the students had taken on in order to pay for this and presumably
other classes they have no chance of understanding. This is especially
irresponsible given that a) if they can't read on a third grade level it is
certain they can't calculate compound interest and b) freshmen were enrolled
who the professor could have at least convinced to drop out before
accumulating so much debt they'd never be able to pay it back.

But instead of a courageous act of dissuading them from continuing down what
is clearly the wrong patch-- an act which no doubt would have brought the
dean's wrath-- he shames them for not having had a quality education--
something that is safe to belly-ache about to colleagues. _And he left
teaching anyway!_

Question: did he give the money back to those students who had no chance of
learning anything from the class he was paid to teach?

~~~
anonred
> his next question was not how much debt the students had taken on ... But
> instead of a courageous act of dissuading them

Can you explain how you arrived at this conclusion from the letter? The author
literally transitions from "... watched videos, talked about movies and
current events" to describing another event. There's nothing about what he
said or did after realizing his students' academic inadequacies.

------
danieltillett
I was going to post the great Socrates quote on this topic - _The children now
love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show
disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise._ [0], but like
all quotes that follow Tillett’s Law [1] Socrates didn’t say it.

0\. [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-
childre...](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-
ancient-times/)

1\. The more famous the authority quoted the less likely it is accurate.

~~~
edflsafoiewq
This attitude (let's not call it a quote) seems to often be offered up as
evidence that there isn't much merit to such inter-generational kvetching. But
if this attitude was contemporaneous with Socrates and Plato, then the
Hellenic world was indeed in decline (Rome would conquer Greece in only a few
hundred years and in Spengler's regime the whole Apollonian world had already
entered its autumn period) and why should the recurrence not be because our
own world has reached a homologous point in its development?

~~~
lmm
Socrates is far from being the pinnacle; the pre-Socratic philosophers are
seen as having accomplished little, whereas Plato and Aristotle are immensely
influential, and presumably part of the generation referred to.

------
eximius
Something I don't think people here are taking into account is the bias
inherent in this forum and the variance in education.

I had to write a ton of papers in high school (less in college, but that
happens when you study math).

Some childhood friends of mine who went to a different school got stressed
because they had to color a map (with colored pencils). The difference in
rigor levels was astounding.

~~~
gizmo686
I wrote more in some of my high school math classes then I did in all but one
of my college classes. My college English classes felt like going back to
middle school.

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SubiculumCode
My writing was appalling out of high school, but it is passable today. That
was only achieved after writing chapter after paper after chapter in my Ph.D.
work. Writing takes practice, and is hard work and time consuming.

I worked with my high school son on a report recently. His writing and
organization was also appalling, yet this is a very bright kid; I've
administered a number of cognitive and IQ batteries on him. Only after showing
him how to arrange his arguments cohesively and logically, did he start to see
the flaws in his writing. It takes practice and instruction, and I don't think
that the school system makes it a priority. I could excuse my high school,
coming from an impoverished district, but I see it also in the children of my
son's school in an affluent school district.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
I recently went back to school (a nearby state university) after a 15 year
absence from academia to get another degree.

In one course, a number of my fellow students were pursing their ME. None of
them were there out of a zeal for knowledge. Rather, New York State requires
teachers to obtain a master's degree in teaching (or a related discipline)
within five years of the completion of their initial degree. Without
exception, the literacy and critical thinking skills of these students
(several of which were already teachers), was absolutely atrocious. I was
astounded at the total inability of these teachers (and teaching candidates)
to read and write coherently. Granted, this was a state school and not a
respected Ivy League university, but the lack of even basic literacy among
these graduate students was shocking. Most struggled mightily to get through
the class. Several dropped out to take courses with less demanding professors.
To my knowledge, they all got their degrees, and are today teaching in our
schools.

How can we expect our children to become literate if those who teach them are
not? The most important facet of education is teaching a child how to think.
It is far more important to teach a child how to absorb the thoughts of others
(reading) and express their own thoughts coherently (writing) than saturate
them with information that they cannot retain or process properly. We are
depriving our children of the tools they need to be thoughtful, and our
society is suffering as a result.

------
chatmasta
Perhaps the question should be rephrased to, "What's Wrong with [secondary
school] Teachers?"

In the US, we only compensate our teachers $20-40k a year. For a skilled
practitioner in a field, teaching presents an untenable opportunity cost. Most
fields pay their experts at least four times the salary of teaching. Therefore
the only reason for an expert to apply his skills to teaching becomes passion
or a sense of duty. On the other hand, a non-expert may become a teacher
because it is his only option. So we either get teachers who are both expert
and passionate, or teachers who are non-expert and possibly even non-
passionate.

How can we expose students to more passionate, expert teachers?

The clear solution is to reduce the opportunity cost of teaching for the
expert. He should be able to engage his passion or satisfy his sense of duty
without also sacrificing the benefits of a career in industry.

The obvious way to reduce this opportunity cost is to pay teachers more.
However, blindly raising salaries is an expensive and lazy solution. It risks
attracting the group of passionless semi-experts who can barely get a job in
industry.

A more targeted approach would be to make it _easier_ for experts to engage
their passion, or satisfy their sense of duty, by participating in short-term,
low-commitment teaching. Why should working and teaching be mutually
exclusive?

I propose that schools allocate a small budget for a new class of "temporary
teachers," who keep full-time jobs in industry, but also attend class on a
weekly basis to augment the permanent teacher.

For example, a programmer could come to class once a week to teach or interact
with the students. This would benefit the students by exposing them to a
skilled practitioner in the field, help the practitioner by satisfying his
passions or sense of duty, and utilize the permanent teacher for his
specialty. It seems like an effective and cheap solution.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_schools allocate a small budget for a new class of "temporary teachers," who
keep full-time jobs in industry, but also attend class on a weekly basis to
augment the permanent teacher_

Adjuncts, in other words.

------
lunchladydoris
Make sure you read Bryan Caplan's article in The Atlantic too [0].

[0]:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-c...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-
college-good-for/546590)

------
gumby
A TL;DR for the apparently irony impaired: The letter writer is a self-
described humorist and appears to be doing an elaborate “kids these days”
joke. Giveaways ate things like the 10-second pause for “cats, cat’s...” and
the lovely ‘“What did you do in English class?" I asked. Answers: Listened to
records, watched videos, talked about movies and current events.’

------
learc83
I think the most likely explanation for this story is that the students
thought the professor was asking a trick question, so no one wanted to raise
their hand.

I went to high school and university in Georgia (our high school graduation
rate and quality scores consistently rank in the bottom half of states). I
have never heard of an English class where the students "Listened to records,
watched videos, talked about movies and current events" and never had to write
an essay.

~~~
gizmo686
In my experience, "English" classes is a broad catagory that refers more to
literature (broadly defined) then the language.

Granted, in my highschool practically every class involved essays, but my
movies "English" class didn't involve any more than my math classes did.
(Admittedly, I do not know how to compare the length of a math paper with the
length of an English paper).

>I think the most likely explanation for this story is that the students
thought the professor was asking a trick question, so no one wanted to raise
their hand.

This example reminds me of my syntax (linguistics) proffesor, who would
frequently ask "are people not answering because they don't know, or because
it is obvious". It also froze me for several minutes as I tried to figure out
what is going on with cats/cat's/cats'. (I gave up because I cannot figure out
how I pronounce cats'. There is either nothing weird going on, or some weird
morphology).

------
lewilewilewi
It's ironic that the author misuses the word 'comprises' in his rant about the
quality of English education. Things never comprise _of_ \- a group comprises
the parts, or it is composed of the parts. The parts compose the whole.

~~~
msla
The things people get pedantic about are never the things which are the actual
rules of English. In simple terms, if something were an actual rule, nobody
would need to be pedantic about it, because everyone would follow it
unconsciously, like they follow the rule that adjectives precede nouns in the
simplest possible case, not the opposite, or in any other order: "The big red
ball", not "The ball red, big", or "The red ball big".

The things which pedants go on about are best seen as a failed attempt to
"improve" the language, an exercise in conlang construction using an extant
language as the base. This is how it was with the prohibition on splitting
infinitives: A split infinitive is perfectly good English, but it is
impossible in Latin, where the infinitive form is one word. So, operating on
the dogma that Latin was more fashionable... more _correct_ than English, the
pedants attempted to modify English to be more Latinate by insisting that
splitting infinitives was ungrammatical in English. It was only ungrammatical
in their little conlang, which never quite caught on.

The pedants did have one victory: The Latin word for "debt" is spelled with a
'b', "debitum", whereas the former English spelling was fairly phonetic:
"dette", or similar, with no 'b'. The pedants got most English speakers to
accept the conlang spelling, "debt", as "more correct", as part of their
larger, largely unsuccessful, program to Latin-ify English.

------
mikerathbun
My son is graduating this year from the #5 ranked public High School in a top
10 population sized city in the US. In his four years he has never had to
write a research paper or read a class assigned book. When he fails a test he
is allowed to correct the errors and receive a 70% for the final test grade.
His AP Computer Science class was mostly playing games and learning to create
websites in HTML.

I went through the same school district in the early 1990s and had a vastly
different experience and did well in college. He is absolutely not prepared
for college but the kid is a master at taking state standardized tests.

I wish I had taken a more active role with his education instead of just
assuming his school was getting him ready. My advice to moms and dads who have
kids getting ready for High School is to participate and monitor what they are
learning and find a way to fill in any gaps.

~~~
nerdponx
Don't assume it gets better in college. It's very possible for a smart kid to
go to a good school and not get a good education. If your son does in fact
plan on attending college, make sure he has an advisor who is willing and able
to take an active role in his education. Not every kid knows what they want,
and not every kid figures it out on their own. Source: I was that kid.

------
thebeardedone
Amusingly I had a similar experience while holding a tutorial for math 2 at my
university. After an hour a student asked me what the integral symbol is, as
if she has never seen it before. Now I do not find this very tragic as I would
gladly recap anything and working throughout my studies I know one might not
be able to get through all of the content, but good luck studying when you are
missing the basics to even understand the problem at hand.

~~~
WalterBright
In freshman physics at Caltech I cancelled out the d's in dx/dt. But I knew
something was terribly wrong, and I sought out the professor after lecture. He
asked me if I knew what a derivative was, and I said no. He suggested I come
to his office later.

He gave me a half hour lecture illustrating the basics of integration and
differentiation. It was the most useful half hour of my life, and it got me
through the semester. Prof. Gomez pretty much saved my @ss.

No, my public high school had not offered calculus in any way, shape or form.
My fellow freshmen couldn't believe I had come to Caltech utterly ignorant of
calculus.

~~~
mreome
If you were allowed in a calculus based physics course (some schools offer
non-calc versions for non-science/engineering students) without ever being
asked if you had taken calculus, there was an issue here other then you not
having taken calculus. Calculus is not part of the standard curriculum at many
US high schools. I attended one of the top 10 engineering schools in the US,
and it was not that unusual for students to need to take calc before taking
their first physics course. This kind of basic prerequisite verification is
something any major university should be doing.

~~~
WalterBright
Calculus was required in pretty much all of the freshmen classes. There was no
possibility of deferring that in order to learn calculus - it should have been
done before the fall. Remedial classes were not offered.

As far as I recall, I was the only freshman who did not know calculus. I can
only infer from that that I did not get the message, or ignored it. I
certainly received no useful guidance from high school.

------
yodsanklai
> I often said that, in my experience, out of a class of thirty students only
> about five would normally possess the minimum requirements for a college
> student

The question is what to do with these students... What should a teacher do
when half of his students don't have the prerequisites to follow his class?

~~~
danieltillett
When I as an academic I used to run extra classes at lunch time for the keen
students covering topics that I thought the students needed to learn about,
but for which we didn't have time in class. Theses topics were not covered in
the exam so only those students interested in learning came.

As for those students that don't have the prerequistes or the motivation to do
the work to catch up, you fail as many as the university will allow and then
scale up the class mark so the rest pass. At my university I couldn't fail
more than 3% or 4%, but in some classes more than half really failed.

------
guuz
I suppose I've got just a normal third world education, but even with my poor
background I considered the cats example somewhat extreme. Is this kind of
thing really common?

~~~
trymas
I guess there is quite a paradox, that non-native English speakers know some
grammar concepts better than the native ones. I also think that it's an
extreme example and somewhat I refuse to believe that college students do not
know the difference.

I also was told that non-native speakers can better distinguish between 'well'
and 'good', and the usual suspects 'you', 'your', 'you're'. The latter is so
basic that I am bewildered when native speakers cannot understand the
difference.

~~~
guuz
I did not know this, quite interesting. I will try to find an explanation of
the phenomena

------
nmstoker
The article has some grains of truth but seems to overlook many areas, but the
three I'd highlight are that numbers have dramatically increased, facilities /
organisation is much improved and students for the large part work very hard
now (in higher tier institutions at least). It's such a diverse field I'm sure
people could debate over examples for ages but it probably does benefit to try
to simplify it this way. Where I'd suggest society might want to look is how
we ensure that the overall higher education offering can be optimised to
obtain the best outcome for the greatest number of people. Clearly it isn't
for all and not treating alternatives (eg apprenticeships and other channels)
as interior is a start. Something also needs to be done about the spiralling
costs from the arms race between institutions and the increasing portion taken
by senior staff at the expense of average staff.

------
jseliger
I'd add that both teaching well _and_ learning well are difficult skills:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2011/01/24/why-dont-students-like-
sc...](https://jakeseliger.com/2011/01/24/why-dont-students-like-school-
daniel-t-willingham)

Many teachers and professor also develop unfortunate carapaces; if a student
wants real coaching and mentoring, it helps to think about those carapaces:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-
professor...](https://jakeseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-
professors%E2%80%99-attention-or-how-to-get-the-coaching-and-mentorship-you-
need)

------
pfarnsworth
One of my coworkers who is in his early/mid 20s didn't know what Leap Year was
until his Junior year. He went to elite private schools in the Bay Area,
probably among the most elite, and then went to a very good college. The idea
that he could escape knowing what Leap Year was made me question whether I
should home school my children.

~~~
phil248
Once we teach kids how to do their taxes and vote we can move on the hard
stuff like Leap Years.

You could also send your kids to public school and then supplement their
education on your own, a tactic sometimes referred to as "parenting".

~~~
pfarnsworth
You obviously don't have kids going to a public school in the Bay Area. The
local school superintendent literally begged for money from the parents
because they didn't have enough money. Class sizes are huge, and they only
care about standardized tests because that's how teachers and schools are
evaluated. It is not the same public school system that I grew up on, that's
for sure.

------
mschuster91
Now good luck with students who were homeschooled, that's yet another huge can
of worms waiting to explode (and it's bigger than "just" not being able to
spell correctly). Next to no quality control, plus parents are free to "teach"
their kids by religious rules.

Poor kids.

~~~
sheepmullet
Homeschooled kids as a cohort do very well compared to kids in the public
system.

And what do you mean teach by religious rules?

While it does depend on your state most states have a set curriculum for
homeschooled kids.

~~~
mschuster91
> Homeschooled kids as a cohort do very well compared to kids in the public
> system.

The problem are those that fail miserably because their parents are rednecks
with a deep trust towards the state combined with a fanaticism towards the
Bible. They get overlooked when one only looks at the cohort/average.

> And what do you mean teach by religious rules?

Kids homeschooled (or, even worse, religiously schooled) by religious sects of
any color: Jehovahs Witnesses, Twelve Tribes (these caused a major child abuse
scandal in Germany a couple years ago), Amish, ultraorthodox Jews, salafist
Muslims, Scientology or whatever. Basically, anything ranging from "you must
not see kids of other faiths/gender", "you must not interact with kids being
homosexual/non-cisheterosexual" to "you decide to leave our sect, you're dead
to your family".

Or, in Amish (or similar) communities: the kids actually never interact with
normal kids and experience _freedom_. With state mandated schools, the parents
cannot withhold that experience from the kids.

~~~
sheepmullet
> They get overlooked when one only looks at the cohort/average.

Ok, so can we compare the bottom 25th percentiles?

A few of my family members went to public school and are functionally
illiterate.

Are these homeschooled kids worse off than that?

> Kids homeschooled (or, even worse, religiously schooled) by religious sects
> of any color

Oh so you weren't talking about education at all then.

You were talking about the benefits of the state pushing its moral values onto
kids.

I'd rather err on the side of the parents than on the side of the state.

I went to public school and was violently assaulted at school at least a half
a dozen times and verbally harassed dozens more.

I wouldn't give the state any moral authority.

~~~
mschuster91
> Are these homeschooled kids worse off than that?

They were both f..d up by the system and I'm sorry to hear that. No kid
deserves having his life destroyed by a screwed up education.

> Oh so you weren't talking about education at all then.

Creationism, for example, is not education (and yes, I know, some public
schools have been forced to teach that crap too, but that's actually the
perfect example why religion should not touch education in ANY way).

> I went to public school and was violently assaulted at school at least a
> half a dozen times and verbally harassed dozens more.

Violent assaults are _nothing_ exclusive to public schools, they happen at
private schools too. And when I look at scandals of sexual abuse and violence
(from teachers!) here in Germany, most of these have happened in private
schools.

> I wouldn't give the state any moral authority.

At least I would give the state more authority than the churches or religious
nutjobs.

~~~
sheepmullet
> No kid deserves having his life destroyed by a screwed up education.

And yet it is not uncommon.

Where I live if you look at overall education homeschooling provides the best
results, followed by private schools, and then public schools bring up the
rear.

> Creationism, for example, is not education

That's neither here nor there. Millions of people who went through the public
system here believe in creationism and it certainly wasn't taught in schools.

Like I said in my original post the curriculum is still determined by the
state for homeschool and private schools.

> Violent assaults are nothing exclusive to public schools, they happen at
> private schools too.

Of course they do.

I guess my point is the media will focus on teacher related scandals etc.

However, the overwhelming majority of physical and sexual abuse is student on
student.

As such the likelihood of physical or sexual abuse while homeschooled is
likely an order of magnitude lower than at public school.

> At least I would give the state more authority than the churches or
> religious nutjobs.

The authority belongs with the parents.

If your parents are horrible and abusive then you are in for a rough life.

It is horrible and true regardless of whether you go to public school or not.

