Are you smarter than an 8th grader?

Tide1986

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/o...-are-you-smarter-than-an-8th-grader.html?_r=0

The Educational Testing Service released a global report finding that young adults from the United States rank poorly in reading but are even worse in math — the worst of all countries tested. This is the generation that will be in the labor force for the next half-century, struggling to compete with citizens of other countries.

It’s not just that American results are dragged down by poverty. Even American millennials with graduate degrees score near the bottom of international ranks in numeracy.
Public debates often dance around basic statistical concepts, like standard deviation, because too few Americans understand them. And people assume far too much of “averages.”

After all, American adults have, on average, one ovary and one testicle. But try finding such an “average person.”


This article is depressing. The pop quizzes contained therein are simple, yet today's children have a low success rate in answering them.
 

Bama Reb

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/o...-are-you-smarter-than-an-8th-grader.html?_r=0



This article is depressing. The pop quizzes contained therein are simple, yet today's children have a low success rate in answering them.
There's a very good reason for this, of course, and that reason is that for several decades, the true purpose of the public school systems in the US has NOT been to educate our kids, but to only keep them (just) barely above ''stupid''. Under the guise of education, our kids have been taught what to think instead of how to think.
What's really sad is that very few people in the US today have the ability or focus to stand back and look what is happening in and to our country.
 

Tide1986

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Here are the three pop quizzes in the article:

What is the sum of the three consecutive whole numbers with 2n as the middle number?
How many degrees does a minute hand of a clock turn through from 6:20 a.m. to 8 a.m. on the same day?
A piece of wood was 40 centimeters long. It was cut into 3 pieces. The lengths in centimeters are 2x -5, x +7 and x +6. What is the length of the longest piece?
 

seebell

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According to the quiz I am dumber than a rock. Guess I shouldn't be allowed to vote. But it's been a really long time since I had to think about those kind of problems. When I was in the 8th grade I would have scored 100.
 

Jessica4Bama

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According to the quiz I am dumber than a rock. Guess I shouldn't be allowed to vote. But it's been a really long time since I had to think about those kind of problems. When I was in the 8th grade I would have scored 100.
People just don't use this stuff in everyday life. I don't know how many times in school I remember thinking when will I use this in the real world? I didn't know the answers but back in school I would have. I was a very good student now I'm dumb. :)
 

seebell

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People just don't use this stuff in everyday life. I don't know how many times in school I remember thinking when will I use this in the real world? I didn't know the answers but back in school I would have. I was a very good student now I'm dumb. :)
Thanks Jessica. I feel better now. I feel the same way. Like 'Why are we reading some 14th century story by Chaucer?"
 

selmaborntidefan

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True story (and I'm a sorta history buff): when I was in college, the Western Civ prof said, "When was Rome sacked?" I muttered, "Who gives a damn, they shoulda had a better offensive line."

Broke up my section of the class.
 

seebell

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I just now actual read the link. Sounds like we are going backwards in relation to the other countries in the study. That is depressing.
 

DzynKingRTR

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According to the quiz I am dumber than a rock. Guess I shouldn't be allowed to vote. But it's been a really long time since I had to think about those kind of problems. When I was in the 8th grade I would have scored 100.
10 years ago I still would have gotten 100%. Now my brain is filled with sports facts and the nonsense I read on tidefans nonsports.
 

crimson fan man

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There's a very good reason for this, of course, and that reason is that for several decades, the true purpose of the public school systems in the US has NOT been to educate our kids, but to only keep them (just) barely above ''stupid''. Under the guise of education, our kids have been taught what to think instead of how to think.
What's really sad is that very few people in the US today have the ability or focus to stand back and look what is happening in and to our country.
This is so true, the number one enemy of the United States is not anyone around the world but our own government. Washington dc should be considered a enemy state to this Country moving forward with the rest of the world.
 

crimsonaudio

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Yes.

The problem is, many current middle school students would struggle with these sorts of relatively simple problems.

What is the solution? I have no idea. I do know that we have home-schooled our kids and they blow the standardized tests out of the water, each child being at least one grade-level ahead of where they would be in the public or private schooling sectors, with some being multiple grade-levels ahead.

Truly individualized education is the ultimate answer, but few wish to pursue it - it's expensive and time-consuming. It's easy to blame the government but in my opinion we've 'given our kids to Caesar and are now upset that they are behaving like Romans'...
 

92tide

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Yes.

The problem is, many current middle school students would struggle with these sorts of relatively simple problems.

What is the solution? I have no idea. I do know that we have home-schooled our kids and they blow the standardized tests out of the water, each child being at least one grade-level ahead of where they would be in the public or private schooling sectors, with some being multiple grade-levels ahead.

Truly individualized education is the ultimate answer, but few wish to pursue it - it's expensive and time-consuming. It's easy to blame the government but in my opinion we've 'given our kids to Caesar and are now upset that they are behaving like Romans'...
it has long been acceptable to basically be proud of being "math illiterate" and no one thought twice of it. hell, i made myself valuable in my first job out of college (around '93) because i could use excel to sum, average, allocate and "project" the sales team's number (about 8 sales folks).

from the reactions of the owners and sales staff (they were all in their late 30s and 40s at the time) you would have thought i was merlin
 

Tide1986

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Here's a response to the article that I originally posted to start this thread:

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...th_test_america_kids_are_performing_well.html

"We know Johnny can’t read,” says Kristof, in that finger-wagging way perfected by the current cohort of New York Times op-ed columnists; “it appears that Johnny is even worse at counting."

The trouble with this narrative is that it’s utterly, demonstrably false.
He has a narrative of American underperformance in mind, and if the overall test results don’t fit his story, he’ll just go and find some results that do. Thus for the examples in his column, Kristof literally went and picked the two questions out of 88 on which the United States did the worst, and highlighted those in the column. (He gives a third example too, a question in which the U.S. was in the middle of the pack, but the pack did poorly, so the United States’ absolute score looks bad.) Presto! Instead of a story about kids learning stuff and doing decently on a test, we have yet another hysterical screed about Americans “struggling to compete with citizens of other countries.”
 

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