Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student preparedness (you know...)
Message-ID: <16033@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 27 Dec 88 03:59:35 GMT
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 66

I don't really want to keep this up, but...

First of all, let me say that I have been thinking more of elementary
school students than college students.  By the time they're in college,
I assume they're there because they've decided they want to be educated
(not always correct, I realize).

Second, Mark Kaufmann reads his straw men into what I write...
>	[...]
>If I'm not mistaken, you are essentially stating that an intelligent
>child whose parents do not possess the wealth to send him or her to
>a finer private school should not enjoy the privilege (or is it a right?)
>of being educated at anything approaching his or her own level.

GADS!  NO!  You are utterly mistaken.

>The bright students should be dumped into the gutter and forgotten
>while our tax-supported schools try to resurrect children who are
>already YEARS behind in their studies and make worthwhile, contributing
>individuals (maybe even Nobel laureates :-) ) out of them.

I'm not talking about Nobel laureates, nor am I trying to dump anybody
(ANYBODY!) into the gutter.  Since we as a society have decided to send
all the children to school, we as a society ought to do it right.
Adults who can't read are enough trouble; adults who actively resent
anyone who can lead to a permanently burdensome "lower class" and a next
generation that won't want to read either.  An under-educated bright
student may be more of a lost opportunity, but she or he is also a lot
less of a drain on society as an adult.  (N.B.  I talk about "society"
educating students because the U.S. educational system is mostly the
work of groups, generally trying to represent what they perceive as the
will of their community.)

>Horseshit.

You said it -- all of it.  Not me.

None of what I said was meant to imply that good students should receive
any less than the best education they can, which is certainly a very
different education from what weak students need.  But we sow the seeds
of our own destruction if we assume that the weak students should be
written off as "dead weight" and dumped in the gutter just because
they'll nver be Nobel laureates.  Quite aside from their putative worth
as human beings, they are part of our society, and likely to become part
of the most troublesome part of our society; the earlier and better we
deal with them, the less troublesome they will be.  (I also happen to
think they have some innate rights as human beings, but I'm not prepared
to defend that attitude in this forum.)

I had a few years of good schooling (and they were a joy, and they
included some time in a public system), and some years of miserable
schooling.  I might be a much better person if my high school had taught
me something, but I'm not a drain on society, and my freshman classmate
who couldn't multiply but could and did get pregnant did add to the
welfare rolls.  I survived high school and went to college anyway.  She
didn't survive grade school in any useful sense.


>Sorry this has been so long.  It didn't start out that way.

Ditto.  I just wanted to take some words back out of my mouth that I
didn't put there originally.
-- 
--  bob, mon	(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
--  RAMontante,  Computer Science Dept.,  Indiana University,  Bloomington
--	"In this position, the skier is flying in a complete stall..."