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Is Cooperative education, the institutional encouragement of bullying and sexual manipulation?
In a competitive education environment, based on individual understanding of concepts and achievement, one human being is incapable of physically intimidating another into supplementing their grade. One human being is also incapable of sexually manipulating another human being for the purpose of padding their grade.
The second work is assigned to groups… This breaks down. The second a small group of human beings male and female, can work together on a project and share responsibility, without immediate oversight, it becomes very easy for the strong and the sexy to manipulate the smart into sharing credit for their ideas.
More over, institutions which engage in co operative learning, are unlikely to respond well to children who suggest “Well… I did all the work, why are they getting an A?”… because, that isn’t a co operative attitude. Does this institutionally teach smart people to be slaves to the attractive and the strong?
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James Zhang 30+
The premise is that people need to respect each other's similarities and differences. Differences being each other's strengths and weaknesses. Each strength is as valuable as the other's strength. Similarities in that we are all human beings in this predicament and that none of them are perfect.
David Hamilton 50+
Evaluation in the category Math, should have little to do with, the category "Ability to create threatening eye contact that scares a 12 year old"... Should it not?
While I will admit that sexual manipulation and intimidation exist as tools, I would hesitate to call them strengths. A strength is what is successfully taken advantage of by a brute or an emotional manipulator... In my humble opinion. In general I think I'm going to get a lot of disagreement though.
James Zhang 30+
If such bullies or manipulators exist, then we should design a kind of system, where these kinds of people would, by design, fail in their attempts at such intimidation or manipulation.
Usually there's teacher intervention, but that isn't totally reliable.
It's not that I don't agree with what you're saying, I'm just a little skeptical if these kinds of people are THAT dominant atm as you make them to be, I mean.
David Hamilton 50+
I have seen many discussions lately about bullying in the school system, and no one seems to be suggesting that through cooperative learning teachers actually encourage this behavior.
Teachers are judged based on the grades of their class. Thus, there is an incentive, when the class splits into group work to pair the high performers, with the low performers to pad the grades of the class. When this happens the low performers try to manipulate the high performers into doing their work for them.
Thus, I am suggesting the only institutional answer to bullying, if one is to take the threat seriously, is to return to academia as an institution for individual growth, rather than group think... In my opinion.
James Zhang 30+
I think you bring valid points. I think cooperative learning can be great, but it can be as vicious as you've said. Cooperative learning by itself probably can't support people being vicious towards one another, so there needs to be something else that can fix that. I don't want to dismiss cooperative learning because I've seen its power and its necessity, we need to figure out a workable way to harness that power.
I don't like to think that traditional academia is the best solution either, cuz I know for a fact that this solution is flawed and I want it to be better.
David Hamilton 50+
I believe traditional academia, may be the best solution for 11-16 year olds... I understand the value of cooperative learning, especially as you mature into the business world, cooperation is an absolutely necessary component of life... but, cooperation of like minded individuals, with similar experience.
Since, the public school system, is not always composed of like minded individuals, and it is not composed of adults who have learned the self destructive aspects of bully and manipulative behavior. I think public junior high, and high school, are bad places to force cooperative learning. Maybe at the end of the month I'll change my mind on this one... I'm gonna bring the noise though, because this is probably the number 1 masculine issue in modern society.
Every psychological study we do on young men, suggest that they hate cooperative learning, and perform horribly at it. In education circles, this is often considered the primary reason male drop out rates are so high. I'll throw some links up later today if I get a chance, but I've got some work to do.
James Zhang 30+
And I just wanna remind you that it's perfectly fine with disagreeing with the idea. It allows others to reconsider and possibly change for the better thanks to your disagreement. Or else, if you were proven wrong, then you have learned something new. So, win-win :D
As for the psychological study, what was the cause for their hate for cooperative learning?
Oh yeah, and I've also experienced bad cooperative environments myself. It sucks being the one guy doing all the work, when everyone else gets a free ride. But at the same time, I've been in some groups where everyone did their roles and everyone was kumbaya and we rocked. That was one of the best feelings you could ever experience, when we all accomplished something awesome and we couldn't do it without each other.
David Hamilton 50+
In a cooperative environment... The reality is that the teacher has no idea what you're talking about, and I don't know about you, but when I was in groups at 12, we didn't always stay on task : )
I agree with you on good group experiences being even more impactful than good individual experiences. The problem really only hits hard, when you group people at random, with no shared purpose, in a poor public school system, with a high drop out rate. When you group 4 people in a school with a 30% + dropout rate... Everyone who intends to graduate... gets screwed.
For some reason men respond more aggressively to this injustice than do young women... but it is an inherent injustice, so it really is explicable. Men pretty much respond more aggressively to everything. They're giving 3 times as many of us ADHD meds, hehe.
James Zhang 30+
So in that first setting, the one where you get punished for making jokes, is a wrong environment setting imo. You'd be surprised how much you learn about things from Internet Memes. Sometimes it's great to joke about the most serious things to accept them. But I know you weren't really talking about those kind of jokes.
"The reality is that the teacher has no idea what you're talking about." Perhaps, this is mostly true, and I think that should change. I think teachers should make an effort to understand what people have to say. If a teacher can listen to them, chances are they may listen to teacher much more effectively. And when I was 12, we didn't really have much of any group projects, or at least I don't remember any...
Yeah, it's hard to know what to expect when you're grouped with total strangers.
In the ones you refer to as "lower classes," I think the biggest problem that needs to be fixed that would solve all the issues you brought up with them, is that we need to increase their motivation to learn. Or more specifically, self-motivation to learn.
As for Men being more "aggressive," I'm not totally sure about this because I've seen both aggressive men, and women, and passive men and women. I think there needs to be some accurate statistic on this...
And as for ADHD, yeah, I've heard about the ridiculous increase in ADHD people... very interesting...
David Hamilton 50+
Women are aggressive, but rarely in that "f society, I'm leaving" way, which men off the deep end indulge in. This in my mind explains the drop out rates. Also, men go to war all the time against "injustice"... When 12 year old boys experience it, it only makes sense they rebel.
The statistics are tough to track down, apparently. What I can link to, is
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012006.pdf
Statistics from 1970-present, showing incredibly slow gains to graduation rates overtimes, with huge distortions based on race, and more noticably... State. The most important items to point out, are how many states have 70% or below graduation rates. Everyone in those schools, is being forced into an education which absolutely loves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_learning
The history part of this wiki, discusses how cooperative learning was accepted as proven better, in the 1970's. Dewey, Lewin, and the Johnsons are constantly sited in cases, and arguments against laws designed to encourage charter schools and private school influenced overhauls of the public school system. In the field of education, these names are sacrosanct, everyone "knows" cooperative education works better, you can't get a masters degree in education without pretending to believe in cooperation, over competition... Yet...
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm#math scores
We have the most cooperative education system in American history, and we graduate more students than we ever have before... So, we're getting better, right?
No, we have some of the worst science and math scores in the civillized world, in an age completely dependent on science and math.
David Hamilton 50+
Notice that Florida graduates 60% of its high school students.
James Zhang 30+
In the first one, the dropout rate is diminishing annually, so that means we're doing something right. So the question is what is the cause for these existing dropouts, and what is the cause for some to not dropout?
Also, why are hispanics' numbers greater than the others? Do you think they counted the Black-Hispanics or White-Hispanic as Hispanics?
Then on pg 22 in that first pdf, it shows the male vs female dropout rates in different races. Overall, you're right, males are dropping out more than females. Asians have the lowest dropout rates overall. America Indian/Alaska Native, etc. have pretty high numbers too for some reason, but their male dropouts are less than females. Then two/more races have less male dropouts by 2%. So what is causing each of these guys to have less male than females?
I can't really think of a great explanation, other than that females in general could be more booksmart, while a lot of guys can be streetsmart. And you're right, there's a lot more male agression/physical violence than females. But females can also be "aggressively violent" with words and other ways. There was this one comedian who said that, males will beat you up but at least your dignity is still in tact. Females on the other hand are vicious, they can crush your dignity, and just stomp on your feelings, attack where it really hurts, lol.
What's still bugging me is why are hispanics' so low?? Hmm, I think I may know why. I had a friend in high school in my gym class. He was a blazing fast track and field runner! But then he told me one day that he can't do track and field or anything. He said that he needs to help out his family, and probably get a job. I don't remember if he graduated or not, but the end result doesn't matter, he's trying to find a job to help out his family, or help out with their family business.
I'm not sure how many hispanics are the same, but this one example could give insight.
James Zhang 30+
I can see the percentage of the southern states be lower, because they have more hispanics and immigrants from there from Mexico, which we've learned have the highest dropout rates of the other races in the statistics.
Why the heck is Vermont so beast in its graduation rates? 89.6%! Completely blows the other states around them.
Hmm could this possibly be due to easier curricula in their respective states? Could the ridiculously good graduation rate have something to do with Canadians on the northern states? And good god, why is Nevada 56.3%? It's like 20% lower than all the states around it.
James Zhang 30+
Hmm, and you're right, this is a problem that they're getting master's for something that they don't really fully understand it. My opinion is, cooperative learning is very powerful if done correctly. Cooperative learning depends entirely on the students' willingness to cooperate. So when someone else is slacking and one guy is doing all the work, that's wrong. I've been there before, I really hate doing all the work for freeloaders lol. So how can we fix this? We need to communicate to the "freeloaders" that they need to do their part and they need to understand their role. Well, I dunno, this is why I think teachers should be a little more personally involved with kids, but this can be hard when the teacher's gotta teach 40-50 kids in one class.
And as for Math/Science grades, you're totally right. I've heard that US sucks at math really bad. When I look at China's math textbook, it's like only this 50 page packet (exaggeration), and when I look at our Algebra book, it's like 400 pages of worthless bs. The hell do you need 400 pages to teach Algebra??!? Our curriculum is making math WAY harder than it should be. Then as for Science, I've been there too, and I hated high school science. I hate Biology curriculum but I love evolution and the concept of organisms in general. I just hated memorizing a bunch of fancy terms. Chemistry, it was just another hate-love relationship lol. I hated memorizing a bunch of periodic tables and stuff, but the kinds of things you can do with chemistry was cool.
James Zhang 30+
Our curricula is making these subjects harder than they should be. -_-
Hell, science fiction is one of the coolest things ever. Why don't they apply some science fiction to real Science classes? You'd be surprised how much of science fiction is really not fiction lol
David Hamilton 50+
It's funny, some of the stats I had, really supported my theory, but I still felt disappointed. I had heard from numerous credible sources, that male dropout rates were getting atrocious, and that they went up every year. Looking at the stats... I thought I had been had.
It turns out... If you look a bit deeper... I haven't. The male dropout rates were exaggerated from some sources, the worst difference, of 2.6% was nothing compared to what I had heard. That's because it's not the real number, to be fair though, the real number is only 7%... still not as bad as I thought, but awful. 72% of women graduate traditionally, 65% of men.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm
The dropout rates aren't accurate either... If you look really closely, I mispoke, and the numbers, are actually trying to lie to you... but, as numbers, they simply can't pull it off. Dropout rates have skyrocketed, at the exact same pace as GED rates have skyrocketed.
If you look at the map of America... It doesn't add up there are only 4 states over 80%, but our graduation rate is 88%... That's because, as I had previously suggested, people are giving up on the system. Only 70% of students are "graduating high school" meaning, in 4 years... countrywide... It's way worse than I thought.
Especially if people are getting GED's, what this suggests is that smart people are dropping out. They know they need a diploma, and they're capable of getting one but... they're sick of the system.
Also, I didn't mention this, but the thing about international test scores further supports my point because they say, we do "satisfactory", until 8th grade... Puberty, almost exactly as I predicted.
Furthermore, if you lay onto our current situation, the fact that young intelligent men, are giving up on the educational system, traditionally men have been cornerstones of math and science... It's a bleak picture.
David Hamilton 50+
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/juveniles.html
I forgot to mention the issue with hispanics as well... It's mostly just the language gap. Many families continue to speak predominantly spanish in the home for generations, so even second and 3rd generation children start kindergarten with a smaller english vocabulary than their peers, which makes them fight an uphill battle. Most parents in the United States have also decided that leaving a child back, causes more psychological damage than letting him move on unprepared for the next grade. If you're child doesn't understand the language of his peers though, he's going to have a difficult time, and without tutoring, leaving him back can be a big leg up.
Its actually little niche issues like this that made me start identifying myself far more as a libertarian than a hippie. As a white male, it's really weird, and hard, to say guys are getting screwed... because, I'm not. Caucasian men, are doing alright. I personally, have no right to complain about my groups place in the world. Guys may do a bit worse than girls, but in general, government programs work out fine for us. Anything that is bias against men though, really screws over poor minority men.
I found that a lot of the hippie staples, social security, medicare, public education... all things designed to help the poor and the needy... with good intent, don't really seem to distribute wealth or support to the people you would expect them to. I'd rather fix them, but I understand why people go off the deep end about them somethimes.
I think we can be pretty certain group work sucks where there's a 50% dropout rate.
James Zhang 30+
James Zhang 30+
I guess you can never really trust statistics 100%. They're still good to know though, but they can definitely be misleading. Also we should keep in mind the dates of these statistics. That Manhattan one was from almost 10 years ago.
And perhaps, there are generally more females graduating than males because females are more "booksmart" than males. I feel like the current public education system is very supportive of booksmart people, not so much the other learners.
Hmm, your correlation between GED rate and dropout rate is very interesting indeed...
"If you look at the map of America... It doesn't add up there are only 4 states over 80%, but our graduation rate is 88%... That's because, as I had previously suggested, people are giving up on the system. Only 70% of students are "graduating high school" meaning, in 4 years... countrywide... It's way worse than I thought."
I'm not quite sure I follow on this one. There are only 4 states over 80% what?
Yes, that language barrier among hispanics would definitely make things harder to learn, and the fact that they are still moving up to the next grade level illegitimately can cause all sorts of problems...
David Hamilton 50+
Then, on page 25, in the map discussing the actual performance of high schools in each state, they use the stat, that I think you and I meant to talk about "Average freshman graduation rates of public high school by state"... People who stay in the system for 4 years, and then graduate. These numbers are from 2008-09, and only 2 states are above our "national average" of 88%. Because these, are the real numbers, and only 75.5% of us are "graduating high school"... The way I define it.
The biggest problem here is that GED's, will never get you into an actual engineering or math college... Not unless you get straight A's in Community College for like 3 years.
So I'll actually add one final layer on this, that is interesting to think about. Who signs up for PhD level experimentation in new cooperative learning strategies? Whose parents encourage those sorts of thing? Advanced placement parents of course. Well off, high grade children... They do great in groups.
So I don't think there is any conspiracy or bias in play... I think their samples are incredibly biased, towards people with a serious interest in learning. Thus, as we continue, to move towards this group strategy, I think the cities and well off areas, will continue to do well. Poor and minority neighborhoods, with 50-70 graducation rates, will continue to have some of the people who used to carry the group, give up and leave, and that's a big detriment, in my humble opinion.
David Hamilton 50+
I have just heard that way back when we first integrated the school system, there was a big debate over this. Women used to be forced into all girls schools which were cooperational and group work oriented... but also didn't really teach anything. Men were in the traditional bell curve, lecture, shut up, environment... and when we integrated, first we ran tests.
Women did better cooperationally, men did better with competition. When women and men were brought together to compete, men did even better, than by themselves, but only by a tiny bit, but the women were defeated by men who already had the institutional bias of a being better educated. When men and women were put together to cooperate... men did a bit worse than alone competing, but it wasn't that bad, and women took off. Of the 4 strategies tested, the average test scores, dramatically favored cooperational heterogender...
They should have. It was definately the right thing to do at the time, but their sample was biased by poor education for women that existed previously. Now that women have pretty much caught up, and surpassed us, at almost every level of education, but black and hispanic male dropout rates are still so high... I think there is time to re evaluate what it was about the competitive, and dictatorial education model of the passed that for some reason at the time tested so much better for men.
I'd bet on math and science being things, that simply have to be drilled. Other subjects, are more conceptual, and you can attach to emotion to remember... If you want to know the periodic table... drill.
James Zhang 30+
I'm glad you came to that self-realization :)
Honestly dude, I'm extremely impressed by your statistical analysis and how much information you've dug up. This really introduces an interesting and important viewpoint to the conversation. Now it all makes sense to me. A lot of the arguments you made were backed up via statistics. But don't let statistics completely cloud your opinions and beliefs. Because there are the good and the bad in any race. Just call it how it is, that's what I typically do.
"I found that a lot of the hippie staples, social security, medicare, public education... all things designed to help the poor and the needy... with good intent, don't really seem to distribute wealth or support to the people you would expect them to. I'd rather fix them, but I understand why people go off the deep end about them somethimes."
Yeah srsly. People need to realize what's REALLY going on behind these things. I still think Public Education needs to focus more on curiosity and collaboration, that needs to be the new paradigm.
I'm not giving up on group work just yet. A lot of the dropouts I bet are because the guys thought school was dumb. School/learning should be a fun thing. Group work is one of the most fun things I've ever experienced... when it works... But it's tough man.
James Zhang 30+
David Hamilton 50+
I'm pretty much out of juice though. When I figured out that the same department of ed study which talks about how we've slowly risen to an 88% graduation rates over the last 30 years... Also tells us that the average "freshman who graduates high school with a diploma within 4 years" is only at 75%... That's about as close to a smoking gun as you can get with an obscure behavioral theory.
13% GED and adult ed, is nice, and it's an improvement over nothing... but if the entire country is at 75%, and the south is mostly in the 60's... I can't imgagine group work is going to be sucessful there.
The really telling thing about this conversation however, is that, despite the 2 of us going on and on for awhile, and me getting 2 thumbs up from you... That's it. I've never written anything so unpopular. So... The truth is it doesn't matter if I could absolutely prove this point... No one's buying.
Everyone in the inner city has to work in groups of 4... With 2 people who are going to drop out... Because we've "proven" it's best... by testing suburbanites. Sometimes life is funny that way. I'll pop on to the doc after I throw a new summary at the top of this so people don't have to read it all if they want to respond.
James Zhang 30+
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ec027R1IidofiPaOVwtnp0hSI-MPvAn9CXpb3_V7ZOM/edit#
James Zhang 30+
HOPE!! :D
"The really telling thing about this conversation however, is that, despite the 2 of us going on and on for awhile, and me getting 2 thumbs up from you... That's it. I've never written anything so unpopular. So... The truth is it doesn't matter if I could absolutely prove this point... No one's buying."
That's not true at all. It matters significantly! You can only fail 100% if you stop trying, as cheesy as that sounds. Sorry, I try to refrain myself from spamming thumbs up, because I know I can get carried away :P There's also just a lot of content/things for me to go over myself, so responding is quite timeconsuming. That's why continuing on Google Docs is much easier imo.
The only reason we're probably the only two guys following is because this is a lot of content to go over and follow and extremely time-consuming. So what we may need to do is condense it in a more presentable fashion, and represent it with a new thread.
I think you got really great statistical analysis, I feel like it comes easier to you than me. Your revelation is really big, it's an "idea worth spreading." And I bet Elizabeth Muncey might still follow this conversation at least, perhaps.
Point is, when you have a will, find a way. By the words of King Leonidas: "Never retreat! Never Surrender!"
elizabeth muncey 10+
James Zhang 30+
elizabeth muncey 10+
James Zhang 30+
Ok *rant done*
With Social Media, I know for a fact that the Chinese government will die out soon. Chinese Government is gonna issue another BS test, but this time, people are just gonna talk about it on their social media, and eventually enough people will think that it's totally wrong and may soon protest. Government will just try to suppress conflict or try to shut down social media, but by then, it's too late. I can easily see that happening within the next 10-20 years maybe...