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from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.
In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.
These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."
The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.
Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.
On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.
No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VanderDecken on Friday July 01 2016, @02:26PM
Don't forget that the population that has continued with a university education is already self-selected. Even those that graduate at the bottom of their class have still done better than the average population overall (keeping in mind the numbers that don't go to university at all). At a certain point, the measurement of IQ becomes a "meh...".
I would contend that after a certain threshold has been achieved, it is far more important to have someone who has the gift of teaching, the aptitude and patience to do so for the their target age group, Someone who knows that they don't know everything in all fields, but can inspire their students to go further than they can.
In secondary school, I had more than one teacher who I'm reasonably confident had a lower IQ than I but that loved teaching, knew their limits of their current knowledge, guided me the best they could, and encouraged me to do things that were beyond their current experience. It made a world of difference.
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @02:52PM
For elementary school maybe. A teacher with a 120 IQ has to put a lot more effort into knowing what they're talking about than a teacher with a 160 IQ. And they largely do not. They also utterly fail to see more efficient/effective ways of tackling problems than their more intelligent counterparts.
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well. Once I hit middle school they were largely just taking up space and keeping the room quiet so I could nap. The textbooks and my own insights did almost all of the teaching. In short, they were overpaid babysitters to me. Hell, even my CS courses I only bothered listening for the first week or two because that's when the basics you need to understand to grok the more complex bits of the course are introduced.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:19PM
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well. Once I hit middle school they were largely just taking up space and keeping the room quiet so I could nap.
Its laughable that you think you can literally measure the IQs of people just by seeing them in one specific context. You talk like you never matured past middle school.
When everybody else is the problem...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @03:24PM
If you can't tell if someone's bloody stupid over the span of nine months, I can already tell where you fall in the distribution curve.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 01 2016, @08:47PM
... I can already tell where you fall in the distribution curve.
Speaking of inability to detect stupidity...
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @09:21PM
Nah, I detected yours long ago. Somewhat above average intelligence with delusions of grandeur and a pathological inability to see the world as it actually is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 01 2016, @09:28PM
....delusions of grandeur...
Conceded.
...and a pathological inability to see the world as it actually is.
That's rich coming from a guy who's view of the world could losslessly fit within a 1-bit .BMP file.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by VanderDecken on Friday July 01 2016, @03:35PM
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well.
In using the phrase "I am reasonably confident that ...", the point was not the IQ spread but the fact that the most important thing in play was not their IQ.
A good piece of advice: "Start with the assumption that you are the dumbest person in the room." While it may be far from wrong, that perspective makes it less likely that you will be convinced of your infallibility and more likely to listen to the ideas of others. And even when you come to the conclusion that the other guy is on par with a sack of hammers, still treat him with respect and don't let that opinion come through. A good leader is pushed up from below. He doesn't trample and climb over others.
And to avoid the irony, maybe it's time to change my .sig ...
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 01 2016, @04:02PM
IQ in my opinion doesn't mean dick if you're teaching a bunch of people who (mostly) know less than you do. Can you teach the material in a way which makes them want to learn it? Can you show empathy? Can you answer their questions about the material?
This is a true story. I posted above that my experience with teachers was mostly good. However, there were a couple exceptions - Jews. One Jewish English teacher made the class read Ellie Weasel's Muh Holocaust, by far one of the most boring books I've ever read. She was also mean and frequently sent students to the office for nothing. The other was a Jew, and to give this guy credit, he taught the Holocaust so passionately that he made it interesting. I still have vivid and verbatim memories of his lectures to this day. But he too was an asshole, and although he was smart, he was such a fucking dick that everything besides the holocaust was a terrible slog and I didn't remember a goddamn bit of it. Students have a harder time learning shit when they're associating it with bad memories.
Long story short - if smart teachers are raging assholes, then they're not good teachers.
That was before I was aware of the Jews, so I didn't know they were Jews. But I did know that they were assholes. Come years later, upon learning new facts, my confirmation bias gained an extra couple points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:57PM
Well I had one intelligent university linguistics teacher that was Jewish. She was a very good, down to earth, teacher and was very compassionate and intelligent. Though who knows why she decided to study Japanese as her area of focus (not relevant to our class though, our class was a more general linguistics class). I felt that I learned a lot from that class.
(Score: 2, Funny) by BigotDetectorGoesBing! on Friday July 01 2016, @07:10PM
> That was before I was aware of the Jews, so I didn't know they were Jews. But I did know that they were assholes.
Bing!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @06:17PM
It's not a matter of "do they have something I can learn" so much as "can I have a nap and then learn an hour's worth of their teaching in five minutes of reading". Most everyone you ever meet will know more about something than you do but if they can't impart it quicker than you can learn it on your own, they're useless as a teacher.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:33PM
"can I have a nap and then learn an hour's worth of their teaching in five minutes of reading".
That has got to be the most narcissistic way to evaluate a teacher.
Just because you are a special snowflake doesn't mean the teacher should neglect the entire class to cater to you.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:25PM
Oh bull shit. You do not teach to the lowest common denominator or even the median. You teach to the top and let the rest either work harder or let their grades reflect their inferior mastery of the subject. Fuck participation trophy teaching.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:38PM
Easy for someone (who thinks) they are at the top to say.
Why aren't you a teacher?
They are so over-paid and the competition is so obviously shit.
You'd be a rockstar!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:49PM
I lack the patience with stupidity to teach. It's a limitation I practice overcoming daily. Thank you for assisting me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Friday July 01 2016, @08:54PM
Teaching to the lowest common denominator screws everybody else. Classes do need to be divided by skill level. Elementary school is a prime example. Teaching kids to read all at the same pace is near impossible. My oldest is a first grader reading at a fourth grade level. Some of the kids in his class aren't reading at a first grade level. By dividing them by ability, you can help the kids that are having a harder time and push the kids who are really doing well.
If they didn't do it that way (and I am thankful that they do), I'd be doing a lot more of it at home, and my kid might become a discipline problem in school due to boredom.
I am grateful to my parents, teachers and administrators who realized that I could do the work with my eyes closed, and got me into a program that was designed to push the kids at the top of the class, even as early as second grade.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @09:26PM
Damn but that would have been nice. I learned almost nothing outside social studies classes besides how to use commas and curse words properly during my first five years of school. My parents had already taught me that far at home by the time I started kindergarten.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @03:12PM
True that. Non-college FB buddy of mine posted some meme about how "Just because you went to college doesn't mean you're smarter than me." a while back. That's true...but people who are smarter than you are more likely to go to college, so yeah, people who went to college are on average smarter than people who don't. It's not that college makes you smarter. It's selection bias.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 01 2016, @04:17PM
While I believe that was true in the past, it may not be any more. Is it an intelligent choice to rack up a huge student loan debt for a piece of paper from a degree mill? I spent two years at a trade school and am comfortably supporting my family as the sole breadwinner.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @04:48PM
That's a fair point, but I suspect the numbers of people like you who have made the informed choice to do something other than college even though they'd be suited for college are relatively small. We still live in an era when the default expectation for a lot of people is that they should and will go to college. Some people choose to go to college because they don't want to get a job yet.
I'd also disagree with characterizing all colleges and universities as degree mills. I initially chose not to go to college, but finally did because I found not having the degree was a barrier to getting better jobs. "Fine. I'll get the stupid piece of paper.", I thought. Turned out I actually learned a lot.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 01 2016, @07:55PM
It's not that college makes you smarter. It's selection bias.
Where'd you learn 'bout this 'lection buy-ass'? In yer fancy college, college-boy?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 01 2016, @04:35PM
And it's also useful to remember that when we say "university education", in the case of most teachers in the US that's a master's level education (and in a few rare cases you'll find doctorates), which means it's rare to have a teacher that's a complete fool.
I'm not saying there aren't foolish teachers out there, but usually the universities and education schools weed them out. And when they don't, they often get caught in their first couple of years when many union contracts allow bosses to fire teachers for incompetence.
How do I know this? I as a student was involved in having one of my teachers in her first year fired for incompetence, specifically for trying to teach chemistry without having sufficient grasp of mathematics to pass high school algebra. Which, as you might have guessed, is extremely difficult if not impossible. Especially after I demonstrated quite conclusively that what she was doing in one derivation implied that 2=1. How she got her certification I will never know, but that was the end of her time in the teaching profession.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.