Re: Visualizing

On 8/09/2024 12:50 am, john larkin wrote:

On Sat, 7 Sep 2024 10:03:51 -0400, Ralph Mowery
<rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
 

In article <vbgm7r$16mcv$1@dont-email.me>, bill.sloman@ieee.org says...

>

I think the original IQ test was for the military.

>
Baloney.

>
Thank you for your thoughtful insights.

>
He happens to be right. The idea was invented in France in 1904 and used
to sort educationally sub-normal kids so that they got the kid of
educational help that they needed and could get some advantage out of.
>
>
>

>
I wish that school when I went had a way to educate children in what
they were interested in.  I was great in math and science but could not
remember the people's named or dates in history and did very poor in
English.  I did go to two sumers of what was called enrichment studies
where we did not get graded but was exposed to many things that came in
hand in later life such as speed reading and general information about
other countries and some science. I really enjoyed those two years.  The
ones in that program were ones that seemed to be at the top of the
school class.

 I went to one of the first fw "magnet" schools in the USA, with IQ and
achievment  tests to get in and they required minimum grades (72
average) to stay in.
 The freshman washout rate was about 20%.
 I was great at math and science, terrible at English, and basically
helpless in French.

But you can make yourself understood here, which doesn't entirely work to your advantage. Your English expression is fine, but what you have to express is somehwat superficial.

I know for a fact that the staff met and fudged grades to retain the
kids with asymmetric talents.
 It's tragic to force kids to do things they can't, and tell someone
that they are a failure because that don't understand the symbolism in
Moby Dick, when they could be dynamite engineers or airplane
mechanics.

Actually it is merely stupid to try to force kids to do thing that they can't.
Good teachers don't work that way - they offer less able kids less demanding tasks, that they can manage, and can frequently get them quite a long way by progressively making the tasks more demanding as the kids get more competent.
I doubt if anybody has been locked out of a career in a practical subject because they couldn't understand the symbolism in Moby
Dick, but then again it never featured in any class in any school I went to. I have read the book, but wasn't all that impressed.
Thomas Love Peacock is more to my taste.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney