Wednesday 14 September 2011

grading on the curve or trivial pursuit

According to a study (EN/DE) just released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), trends suggest that Germany is on track to make less significant contributions of highly skilled and literate individuals into the workforce. Such talents are of course hard to quantify, and I think it is more troublesome that the brute ignorance and general surrender of the American education system (and the dominant attitudes of a post-education populace) are being underestimated by making light comparisons.

The cautionary tale of the American education system, dissected honestly and fearlessly, should be enough to scare any student to work-harder and collectively retain that cutting-edge. The OECD may be just trying to frighten Germany back in line too with its prognosis. Though to feel over-secure in any critique, especially on teaching, is done at one's own peril, I do wonder if the change has less to do with the rigour of instruction than shifts in the way people reason and remember. There was another study concluded a few months ago from a university neurology department (the fact that I don't need to really say which university or when, exactly, sort of illustrates my point) that suggested internet search engines, the miscellany of everything, have transformed the way people try to retrieve information. Subjects were asked quiz questions, like: name a national flag that consists of only one colour. I thought that one was easy, since there is/was only one: Libya's green flag. For many subjects, however, the process of formulating an answer had turned (as far as such things can be seen and measured) from searching ones memory and extrapolating a guess to rather thinking of where and how they could find the answer, presumably what search parameters to use on the internet and where they could look, and regarded that space as an extension of his or her own mind. Recalling facts and figures and precedent is certainly different than appreciable skill or artistic talent, but maybe there is a similar phenomena in play: that engineers, tinkerers and doctors are too part of a continuum, requiring a different approach and metric.