Poor Choices / Poor Outcomes.... Never Had A Chance....

[Bruce]

This is an off shoot of the rap music thread / Bloods and Crips in Cebu.... and some members belief that rap music does not negativally effect children.When I first came to Phils in Feb of 2009, I too was hit with the poverty and population and the thoughts that go with such things. But I also was struck by the general happiness of the population.When I arrrived on Samar, and of course to Jollibees.... I was mobbed by the kids. I did hand out a few coins, but I mostly fed them. Grew to about 50 a day. Now, in 2012, I feed a smaller group of hard core street kids at the local dead fish and rice stand for 27p each... much cheaper.But the real disappointment here is the boy I took off the streets. 12 when I found him. Now 15. Loves rap music and screams it or along with it when I am not here, when I am here he turns it off! Can't stay in school... so he can't read or write AND that also means no txting! So he really is left behind socially. No future at all. Mom long gone, dad a drunk pedicab driver.I buy him slippers and clothes. He is a house buy and happy at that. Has no thought of any better job. All because... and this is important... from a baby on, he did not get any proper stimulation or challenges. No rules, no bounderies. No supervision. All things that kids need to develop properly. If he had not met me, he would be a boy toy for some older man or a petty criminal. When he was younger, he was cute enough to beg. Now, not so cute. No one wants to give money to a 14 yr old boy. Of course his story is certainly not unique in the Philippines. And rap music is not at fault. It is simply a part of the problem.His days are listening to rap, and working in spurts when a task is given to him. Task over back to rap music. Dumbed down music for a dumbed down brain. He has no interest in any complex music and I believe it is simply 'too complex' for him grasp.Listening to rap music for the 1st time in teenage years, while not good in my opinion, it certainy is better than being raised listening to it. Adults are not as easily infulenced by the negative things in rap. On tv the more wild and acting out behaviors shown by rappers, the more interest this boy shows in the music. In 20 years from now, where will he be? multiple his story with millions of more kids.... Like I said in another post. America is DONE! How far behind is the Philippines?In the US now, there are multiple reports of kids in high school that can't read or write. Math is being ELIMINATED in some areas due to it being TOO HARD for the current kids... all of which has a future negative effect on the country. Rap rap rap..... dumbing down the kids, dumbing down the country..... and next... the Philippines! Rock and roll was said to promote sex! Rap promotes violence and degrading treatment of women. WHICH is worse???

[billten]

This sounds cruel but, poor nutrition does actually make you stupid. It lowers your IQ and takes away your initiative, trust me, where we live we see it all the time and it is so sad. This kid probably never had a chance...

[Tatoosh]

So are math departments and courses being eliminated or are certain tests being eliminated? There is always some controversy about how tests are constructed and how to use the resulting data. It can be used to help rank students, or it could be used to eliminate under performing teachers. Of course, some teachers, such as those in areas of high poverty, simply won't have well prepared students to run through the mill and produce high test results. So even an excellent teacher in a low income school may get whacked simply because her students don't test well enough. Like bean counters, tests can be skewed toward certain outcomes, interpreted to meet a particular agenda, and so forth. It would be sad to see that occurring in wide areas of the USA. Of course, parts of the USA are in decline, that is the nature of societies. Parts grow, others decline, wealth will flow toward centers of work and ability. The fall of Detroit is a perfect example of the bad economics, poorly run companies, and social decline. It was the equivalent of an economic Chernobyl.Sorry if this is tangential to the Original Post. My only defense is Detroit is well known for producing some infamous rappers!

Edited February 24, 2012 by Tatoosh

[Genius]

Absolute and utter rubbish.Can you show any empirical justification for your many ridicolous statements about rap music?You may not like the genre of music or the themes of violence and sexism, but rap is not exclusively concentrated on those aspects; just as all other types of music aren't all about love and peace. Ever listened to any Sepultra or Slayer or Ministry recently?

[Bruce]

Absolute and utter rubbish.Can you show any empirical justification for your many ridicolous statements about rap music?You may not like the genre of music or the themes of violence and sexism, but rap is not exclusively concentrated on those aspects; just as all other types of music aren't all about love and peace. Ever listened to any Sepultra or Slayer or Ministry recently?

Spend some time on the rap web sites for fan uploads and youtube to see rap... working..... BEAT DOWN to music! Rap in and of itself is 'dumbed down' for the masses.... It is not just rap per se, but the culture that embraces it.... YOU invite 'them' over to dinner one night and see what happens....

[JJReyes]

My business associates are retired university curriculum researchers. We are familiar how education statistics are manipulated for political and economic gain. The objective is to get more money from the state legislature and federal government. If everything is great, the money flow dries up. Educators keep telling us everything is bad. The latest outcry is how China has surpassed the United States in mathematics.The China math scores are from a small selection of schools from Metropolitan Shanghai and Beijing. They are public in the sense that their funding is from the national government. Only children from wealthy families and Communist party members can gain admission. The select China schools are the equivalent of elite private schools in the United States. Then they compared the math results with test scores from American public schools. It's impossible to get good scores when 11% of your students are Limited English Proficient. These are students from Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander and new immigrant families. They speak little or no English. They reside in linguistically isolated households. They speak a language other than English at home..If you compare the China math scores with those from elite American private schools, they are about the same. Now, in the earlier grades, Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese students have an advantage. The education system is "knowledge base" (memorization) and the students do well in standardized tests. Most American public and private schools have already switched to "inquiry base" (discovery). For college and university, eveyone wants to go to the United States. How many Americans go to China to learn collegiate level math? An acclaimed Japanese writer once asked a simple question, "If the Japanese education system is so superior, how many Nobel prize winners have we produced?" The answer was one and the person was actually educated in the United States and, at the time of the award, his research work was at an American university. Yes, there are problems with the American education system, but it is not that bad.

Edited February 24, 2012 by JJR

[Bruce]

So are math departments and courses being eliminated or are certain tests being eliminated? There is always some controversy about how tests are constructed and how to use the resulting data. It can be used to help rank students, or it could be used to eliminate under performing teachers. Of course, some teachers, such as those in areas of high poverty, simply won't have well prepared students to run through the mill and produce high test results. So even an excellent teacher in a low income school may get whacked simply because her students don't test well enough.Like bean counters, tests can be skewed toward certain outcomes, interpreted to meet a particular agenda, and so forth. It would be sad to see that occurring in wide areas of the USA. Of course, parts of the USA are in decline, that is the nature of societies. Parts grow, others decline, wealth will flow toward centers of work and ability. The fall of Detroit is a perfect example of the bad economics, poorly run companies, and social decline. It was the equivalent of an economic Chernobyl.Sorry if this is tangential to the Original Post. My only defense is Detroit is well known for producing some infamous rappers!

There have been some news articles about the entry level applicants for universities being SO far behind in math that it was easier to change the curriculum (dumb down) than to not have students enroll and loose the $$$$. Same for nursing programs starting in the 1990s.... The applicants into nursing programs were SO LOW CLASS, that the powers that be made a dramatic decision to reduce the qualifications into the nursing programs to allow these people into the programs..... because there was a projected shortage of nurses in the future AND of course, the government grants and loans that are available for the bottom of the barrel people, that most of us can't qualify for.Most anyone who can read or has been in a hospital in the past 15 years has a horror story to tell about the nurses. This is a suprise to no one who was aware of the lowering of qualifications to get into these programs.

[Bruce]

My business associates are retired university curriculum researchers. We are familiar how education statistics are manipulated for political and economic gain. The objective is to get more money from the state legislature and federal government. If everything is great, the money flow dries up. Educators keep telling us everything is bad. The latest outcry is how China has surpassed the United States in mathematics.The China math scores are from a small selection of schools from Metropolitan Shanghai and Beijing. They are public in the sense that their funding is from the national government. Only children from wealthy families and Communist party members can gain admission. The select China schools are the equivalent of elite private schools in the United States. Then they compared the math results with test scores from American public schools. It's impossible to get good scores when 11% of your students are Limited English Proficient. These are students from Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander and new immigrant families. They speak little or no English. They reside in linguistically isolated households. They speak a language other than English at home..If you compare the China math scores with those from elite American private schools, they are about the same. Now, in the earlier grades, Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese students have an advantage. The education system is "knowledge base" (memorization) and the students do well in standardized tests. Most American public and private schools have already switched to "inquiry base" (discovery). For college and university, eveyone wants to go to the United States. How many Americans go to China to learn collegiate level math? An acclaimed Japanese writer once asked a simple question, "If the Japanese education system is so superior, how many Nobel prize winners have we produced?" The answer was one and the person was actually educated in the United States and, at the time of the award, his research work was at an American university. Yes, there are problems with the American education system, but it is not that bad.

JJR.... How do you define 'not that bad'? :mocking: I have a relative (now dead) who spent about 35+ years teaching in an associate degree nursing program in Baltimore. She had a doctorate in Ed and 2 bat degrees in nursing and something else. In her last 2-3 years teaching (95-98) she had students who had multiple suicide attempts and allowed to continue, students OPENLY on major psych medications and allowed to continue, one male student who said his name was Ben Hur and refused to sit any where but on the floor. Single mom students who never did any homework as they were too busy taking care of their kids..... And then...... she was told she was not allowed to fail ANYONE (you know who anyone is.... right) because it would result in another lawsuit for discrimination! The entire secondary education system was taken over, gradually, by affirmative action hires who had by then spent years in the system. Never mind there was a MAJOR issue when it was found the majority had bogus degrees from mail order schools (internet was not huge then)....In Broward County Florida the LPN program was a day class and a night class. It was discovered that Haitian students would take the day test and then tell the night class Haitians the questions. 30 + students involved in the cheating.... NOTHING was done due to $$$ issues and negative publicity if they expelled them. Many of these people are now 'nurses'.In Miami there was a phony Haitian school for LPNs. Never accreditied... But the owner discovered a loop hole in the Tennessee (if I remember correclty) nursing requirements. So these students would apply to take the Tennesse boards, get a Tenn licenese and then transfer to another state. Lucky for the public that a state employee who processed the applications started seeing 20+ Haitian names appearing on applications and she started asking questions.... Also in Miami, it was discovered about 5+ years ago that a huge number of teachers had bogus degrees and bogus cont. ed credits. Again... nothing was done. I get spam now from some company in Algers (spl?) offering me a Masters in Nursing for 2k..... They must have bought a mailing list of nurses. I never responded... but I wonder how many did. The lowering of admission standards is the same as the lowering of the criteria of diabetes! Both = $$$$$. With the students, the system is set up so that the worst candidates have the best access to government money for education. So it make sense, financially, to cater to them. Many get financing, then drop out (still owing huge student loans now) and the school keeps the money!With diabetes, every time 'they' lower the diagnostic criteria.... $$$$$ rolls in from the many many thousands of people that 'yesterday' were not diabetic, but as of today with the new lower standards... they are diabetic and put on an oral medication that the insurance company pays for. 30 years ago blood glucose over 140 and higher.., 20 years ago... 120 and now some are talking about lowering it to 100! Millions of dollars to the drug companies...

[JJReyes]

JJR.... How do you define 'not that bad'?

Students taught using the knowledge method achieve higher scores in standardized tests. You memorize information and the questions asked in the tests determine how well you have retained the information. Math problems are solved by knowing which formula to apply. Inquiry teaches you to think, analyze and to discover whether or not there is more than one possible solution. This is contrary to standardize testing, which is premised on finding only one (multiple choice). A more accurate comparison for American students using the inquiry method is to examine data from other schools using the same system. We are in the top 20 percentile.Florida is problematic. Look at the number of non-English speakers who are required to take standardize tests in English. The state solution is to lower the standards rather than raising the bar and asking students to work harder. We hear little about public education in Wyoming, Oregon, Washington State where most schools are above the national average.The fraud, abuse and waste of education money is staggering. The expenditure is now in the $500 billion level. We can reduce our national debt at the rate of $50 to $75 billion a year through meaningful reform, but this is against the interest of politicians and others who are benefiting. I offer no solution to the problem, but I will always remain thankful because our two sons received from America the finest education that money can buy and it was all free. Edited February 24, 2012 by JJR

[i am bob]

There are those who are there to learn... And these I appreciate!!!And there are those who are there to use the system...Who is right? (Duh! Easy answer to that one but I bet a lot of "normal" people would get this wrong. And I don't mean members here!)If the Education system held pat and refused all the outside social justice groups and politicians (who are just looking for more votes) from telling them what is acceptable for marks, who to accept for students, and what to teach to these students, well, would we still have the same mess as we have today? And, for those students who insist on disrupting class for their own interests, I feel nothing is wrong with detention, expulsion and, yes, sometimes making them stand in the corner in front of the rest of the class helps! I'm even in favour of bringing back the strap in certain situations! Am I the bad guy to them? Tough! If I'm paying for it, they better not keep others from accessing it accordingly! And this I believe will help alleviate all those problems that this post was created for! I, for one, am done listening to some person who has lived off the welfare system all their lives... who have taught their children how to do the same.... and who scream about their rights because they deserve to have anything they want because they weren't as fortunate as someone else! I'm sick of big mouth idiots getting whatever they want because they scream louder than anyone else and, if denied everything that they want for themselves, scream to the press about some form of prejudicial actions directed at them! If they can't get off their "fat' derrières and do something for themselves, too bad! If they don't like it? Then move!!! (where have I heard that before?) Just don't move to the Philippines!!!Sorry bout that folks! My soapbox is now closed! :508: