education is primarily a barrier to entry: true or false

so alternatively we could just say that different classes have different dialects, without needing to say anything about "expressive power"? i mean it's just as hard for me to slip into the dialect of a different class/ethnic group.

different classes have different discourses - those fluent in the dominant discourse like to believe it's dominant because it has advantages over the others

in my experience, too, whenever teachers brought up "code-switching" it was to hastily push the students' experiences, culture, identity to the side so as not to have to deal with it. i think i've said elsewhere on ilx that a lot of what the teachers did in the classroom was explicitly tell the kids they needed to take on "middle-class culture" in order to be successful and then model it for them, in pretty patronizing ways.

right

a chemistry teacher in his 70s once said to me "our job is tough because chemistry is the realm of the intellectually elite"

o_O

* concerned with the introduction of new knowledge which goes beyond existing shared meanings

* relatively anonymous institutions which may not share many taken-for-granted meanings in their formal structures (although quite a lot in their informal structures within the staff and student groups)

like one thing i've noticed is that hispanic, white and asian students seem equally adept at learning new knowledge and new meanings ...

when it has to do w/ pokemon, halo, warcraft, OFWGKTA, clothing brands, etc etc

i'd argue that a lot of the standards of written English are coded tho, and that the main reason to become fluent in formal written language is for pragmatic advantage

i have a horrible story at secondhand where another student teacher, who was teaching math at an urban charter school, had a cooperating teacher tell her class when some kids were talking through her lesson that "this is why black people aren't successful." she was white btw.

haha yeah "LOUD BLACK STUDENTS" is *the* racist bugaboo of the 90s, we studied the case of "LOUD BLACK STUDENTS" in one of our classes on equity

it basically just studied how LOUDNESS "codes" to teachers, when white kids were loud the teachers used words like "excited" and "squirrely" to describe them and when black kids were loud the teachers used words like "distracted" and "disruptive"

give us an example then

i mean maybe pokemon is less complicated than the periodic table you learn in HS but i doubt it, from what i can tell pokemon is intensely complicated

er sorry that was two posts that got merged, the "give us an example" is for noodle v

Take, say, sports -- that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it -- you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about -- [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in -- they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues.

you can guess who that is

he is otm though

Shakey is more erudite than usual there

(i just want to say, chomsky is OFFtm about the whole conspiracy aspect of this, as usual)

right, sports is another example

how can people who understand baseball statistics not be able to understand "real" statistics

how come people can do math in their head w/ dollars and cents but not w/ numbers or variables

because they're culturally conditioned to believe that they can't

ppl have no understanding of context

also many ppl can't do math in their head w/ dollars and cents, or maybe it's just the ppl I go out to dinner with

haha yeah and they are probably ivy leaguers too, right?

the one that trips me out is when the annenberg foundation went to harvard and interviewed a bunch of science majors leaving their graduation and just asked them "where does the mass of a plant come from as it grows" and 95% of them didn't know the answer

haha yeah and they are probably ivy leaguers too, right?

haha enough of them are for it to be embarrassing

like, dude you have an MD, why can't you divide by 5

on the other hand, if we treat high school science class as an opportunity to learn science in a way where the kids have a more level playing field - making it not about learning specialized vocabulary and memorizing the names of the parts of the cell, but instead making it about "what do you notice about the world around you" and "how can we think about systems of things and categorizing things and making conclusions that are repeatable and confirmable" then maybe this is something that would help

i don't know, the problem is that the second type of science class i describe is in the "pie in the sky" stage, and if you back off of rote / procedural learning for a second in this current political climate you immediately open yourself up to accusations of not preparing our kids to compete w/ china or something like that

― the late great, Friday, March 16, 2012 8:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, yeah. ideally, a good science curriculum does both: teaches about the scientific method in an accessible manner, and also drills important basic information into kids' heads so that they don't have to take high-school level classes in college. and i do think that high expectations and a strongly competitive emphasis on college prep are good things in a general sense. our schools should work to cultivate excellence wherever possible, as well as provide a basic level of educational service.

I'm not sure the code-switching thing has to be taken as classist/racist. business-speak is exactly as 'restricted' as the language inner-city kids use with each other. and people have access to 'elaborated' code and certain types of analytic thinking due to their life experience, not due to some innate ability. isn't the opposite be far more problematic?

wouldn't the opposite be*

re: discussion of "elaborated" vs. "restricted" codes

some social groups (of whatever "class") probably do promote the idea that "code-switching" is important, and that elaborated codes are important. others probably do not. to the extent that certain contexts - such as school, for instance - require a comfortable familiarity with elaborated codes, those who have such familiarity and/or can code-switch easily, may well be more successful in general. i do not see this as in any way a "classist" idea, even if it seems to be true that certain supposedly "lower class" cultural groups tend to stress the importance of restricted codes.

^ some questionable comma placement there

i also don't buy into the idea of a "restricted" vs "elaborated" code

chemists and auto mechanics both use complicated shorthand for what they do

yeah iatee i think the position you are taking is more reasonable than what i posted though. the quote above really made it sound like poor kids only have access to a language which makes it difficult for them to formulate new ideas as such.

Elaborated codes have a longer, more complicated sentence structure that utilizes uncommon words and thoughts. In the elaborated code there is no padding or filler, only complete, well laid out thoughts that require no previous knowledge on the part of the listener, i.e., necessary details will be provided. According to Bernstein (1971), a working class person communicates in restricted code as a result of the conditions in which they were raised and the socialization process. The same is true for the middle class person with the exception that they were exposed to the elaborated code as well.

FFS how is this not offensively classist?

haha yes, middle-class people speak w/o padding, in well laid out thoughts that require no previous knowledge, just like most real estate agents, land developers and investment bankers i know

ok this sounds much better

It is not primarily about restricted-code users' inability to understand elaborated code. They are exposed too much to the media for that (although some tabloid newspapers and radio stations affect a particular restricted-code style to suggest intimacy with their readers). It is however about their unfamiliarity with using it (speaking it rather than hearing it) to explain complex ideas.

Don't over-simplify: it's patronising. Remember that when teaching the misunderstandings may come not from your use of elaborated code, but from your use of your restricted code, adapted to your own speech community (jargon, abbreviations, etc.), rather than a properly and appropriately elaborated code.

this is a HUGE issue in science and math education - we call it "the expert blind spot", or "why your engineer dad got so frustrated trying to help w/ your math homework"

tbf i think that is saying that middle-class people can communicate in their own restricted code but were also exposed to the elaborated code and so can use that too?

but it's still offensively classist

FFS how is this not offensively classist?

it absolutely is, but i don't care about messengers. the basic idea, once removed from that sort of bullshit framing, strikes me as both valid and interesting. communication within groups of close peers does tend to be "restricted" in a sense. otoh, the kind of communication employed by most entry-level textbooks is relatively well "elaborated". it's code-switching that i'm most interested in, as an idea. i would imagine that those taught from a young age to be comfortable with a wide variety of code types and varying degrees of restriction and elaboration will have a leg up in school.

how can people who understand baseball statistics not be able to understand "real" statistics

how come people can do math in their head w/ dollars and cents but not w/ numbers or variables

because they find understanding the context easy, and because they ALREADY understand the context they can work out how to look at it in complicated ways?

whereas with "real" (textbook) stats and maths they have to understand the complications straight off

why your engineer dad got so frustrated trying to help w/ your math homework"

OMG ONLY 25 YEARS TOO LATE

would 'working class people are *more likely* to commuicate in restricted code than, idk, the children of academics' still be classist? like I agree that the way it's written there is pretty awful but if you look at this as a theory w/ soft edges and not "all working class people are always like this. all upper class people are always like this." it doesn't seem particularly offensive to me. like there's nothing magic or innate about access to elaborated code, it's just due to having life and cultural experience.

it's just due to having life and cultural experience.

well, certain types of life and cultural experience, right?

yes

i guess it is an open question, the extent to which a "real textbook" is an elaborated code and the extent to which it is a restricted code

i think "real textbooks" tend to basically be in "restricted code" from the start, because they start w/ "adult thinking" and work their way down toward "student thinking", whereas a "constructivist" teacher (like myself) would want to start w/ "student thinking" and work up to "adult thinking"

that would hopefully redress the gap between people who had been exposed to the restricted code of adult thinking (like me learning about hydraulic lock because i was lucky enough to have a mechanical engineer for a dad)

newer textbooks seem to be doing a better and better job of doing that ... the problem or drawback with that then is that it can be interpreted as doing a disservice to kids who already have an in to that "restricted code" which comes back to the question of whether education is a race with an end-goal (a race to the top?) or whether it's a life-long process w/ no "ahead" or "behind" in the race

the second idea is a tough one to sell though because we're used to comparing ourselves and our kids with other people and their kids

as a math teacher i always have a problem with that, because people are like "i want my kid to be in multivariate calculus by the time he is in 11th grade" and i want to be like "i got an A in that class at berkeley and i only really figured out the geometric proof of the pythagorean theorem at age 29"

people are like "i want my kid to be in multivariate calculus by the time he is in 11th grade" and i want to be like "i got an A in that class at berkeley and i only really figured out the geometric proof of the pythagorean theorem at age 29"

those two statement don't seem at all oppositional to me. they have their desires, and you have your experience.

yeah but their desires are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics and my experience is based on many years of professional and personal engagement w the field

their desire is for their kids to "get into good schools and have the choice of pursuing science & tech careers"

those two things are contradictory

baseball stats are pretty much just ratios, right? things like independence and covariance and sampling error and fat-tailed distributions and whatever don't figure in like they do once you dive into the "real" stuff. On the other hand, I do think we could make real stats more widely taught and accessible, and it would be very useful to people in all walks of life.

even the popular scientific press likes these "guys! power laws!" stories when often it turns out there aren't power laws involved at all, but other, less sexy distributions.

yeah but their desires are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics and my experience is based on many years of professional and personal engagement w the field

...their desire is for their kids to "get into good schools and have the choice of pursuing science & tech careers"

those two things are contradictory

― the late great, Friday, March 16, 2012 11:59 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

first line seems a bit presumptive, and i strongly disagree w the second. basically everyone i know that has a career in the sciences went to a "good school" (i.e., a high competitive one). and i know lots of people doing that kind of work.

My brother's finishing up his PhD in computer engineering and he got his undergrad at BYU-ID. The only people who are competing to get into there are Mormons who couldn't get into regular BYU.

Oh, one other thing I would say about law schools, is that for a large law firm (and maybe for a certain kind of smaller one too) it's partly a marketing thing to hire from "top" law schools, you know, so you can say to Citigroup "The associates we have working on your deal graduated from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia" etc. That said, I don't completely discount using law school as a proxy for ability. It's hardly a perfect proxy, but when you have to do a lot of hiring at once you go with the easiest measure that gives you the best odds of getting someone good. Someone from Brooklyn Law School might be smarter and harder working than someone from Harvard, but the odds are better that the opposite is true and how the hell are you going to choose otherwise? Interviews are notoriously bad determinants, and anything else would be too time-consuming. So you hire 20 kids from Harvard and one from Brooklyn rather than the other way around or 50/50. Yes, a few of the Harvard kids will turn out to be entitled little shits who don't want to do any work, and the BLS kid who just missed the cut might have been the dark horse who would have headed up a practice group one day, but they're still using the best and most cost-effective methods they have of choosing.

basically everyone i know that has a career in the sciences went to a "good school" (i.e., a high competitive one)

many people i know who work in the sciences went to third or fourth tier schools (or even community colleges) for undergrad and elite schools for graduate school

in fact one guy i know who is now a prof at davis was a HS dropout who did not start at a community college until 23 or 24, when he got tired of getting high all day

things like independence and covariance and sampling error and fat-tailed distributions and whatever don't figure in like they do once you dive into the "real" stuff

in high school it's ratios, standard deviation and possibly chi-squared

which should go great w/ baseball, video games, etc

also contenderizer i don't think it's presumptuous at all

i don't presume to know what my parents want, i know what they want

i don't presume to understand the difference between "school mathematics" (based on memorizing and repeating procedures) and "real mathematics" (based on intuition, persistence, looking for patterns, approaching new questions, approximating, combining approaches, etc), i know the difference