Posted by special_k on March 23, 2006, at 15:16:56
In reply to Re: Subject close to my heart » special_k, posted by Dinah on March 23, 2006, at 14:29:03
it works out great for your son.
i'm not contesting that.
really.
it is a good thing for your son.
i'm not contesting that.
really.
i just don't buy into the whole system...
i personally think that when you consider the population as a whole... that kind of testing harms more than it helps.
i think it would have a better use as a dx tool for people coming up low...
so that they have more resources thrown at them...
but i'm just not so sure...
i get the whole boredom at school thing.
i went from a private school between 4-7 to a public school... where i repeated the same stuff for the next however many years.
and i learned to be lazy yup.
better would have been to...
encourage me to help others with their work.
would have kept me occupied...
and studies and stuff...
rather than the same old problems and just a whole bunch more of them.
sigh.
i guess it is just that i think of these tests as a way of legitimating the status quo...
like the GRE.
that is a personal bug bear of mine.
it is supposed to be predictive of success in grad school.
gee i wonder why... because a grad school won't take you unless you do alright.
and there is a cultural bias.
it was apparant to me.
then there was the point that people in the US can take courses to prepare for it. they are schooled in those kinds of tasks for many years in anticipation...
personally... i worked my butt off grappling with work in the field i wanted to be studying.
and yeah... i feel a little resentful that i couldn't apply to more schools because of that.
and yeah... i feel a little resentful that they charge you over one hundred dollars for the privelage of receiving a score.
and yeah... i feel a little resentful of how much money they make in running courses to prepare people (in the us) selling study guides and so on and so forth.
it is used as a screening tool.
as are other kinds of intelligence tests.
it does affect peoples futures...
because imo people have too much faith in these tests...
self fulfilling prophecy.
i really think that is the main thing responsible for generalisability etc.
poster:special_k
thread:622738
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060322/msgs/623740.html