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Jan 2009
Reassessing College Admissions
January 27, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: College
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I just read where Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps two of the most prestigious universities in the world, have succumbed to asking admissions questions of prospective students that are quite frankly, stupid. As an educator, I’m sure you will agree that we are seeing a decline in the intelligence levels in leadership, even at the world’s greatest universities. Are there no smart people left in the world? |
The Assessment: Recently, it was reported in a CNN news segment that Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the United Kingdom have begun asking prospective students some rather unusual questions during the interview process, including, “Would you rather be a novel or a poem?” and, “What would you do if you were a magpie?”
Because of the prestige of these universities, many expect them to ask questions like, “Explain Keynesian economics,” or “Compare and contrast poets Byron, Shelley and Keats.”
Supposedly, interview questions are used to ascertain the knowledge level of a prospective candidate. Answers are thought to indicate a prospect’s ability to achieve and be a successful student at the respective college or university he or she wishes to attend.
Unfortunately, spitting out information on such questions as “What is the theory of relativity?” or “Name two ways to prove the Pythagorean theorem,” is useless in most cases because the answers have been memorized, or worse, the prospective student is simply reciting a teacher’s opinion, position or preference or truth. This reveals absolutely nothing about the student’s most important knowledge capacity – to think of the unthinkable to create new knowledge, let go of the obsolete and be fearless and relentless attacking new territory with originality and uniqueness of each person’s one and only perspective. Equally important is the ability to think on your feet without the being judgmental of a neophyte at facing the unexpected.
Yes, I know thinking on one’s own is a dying art. This is evidenced in the cattle-like or herd mentality of most students coming out of our high school and colleges.
This country, and much of the so-called first world countries, including the United Kingdom, seems to be determined to continue educating children as it has for the last four decades – based on an outdated education paradigm.
What To Do: Reassess your criticism that Oxford’s and Cambridge’s leadership is declining in intellect because they are now asking questions of this nature. These are questions that will demonstrate to them whether or not a student has really learned and can apply past instruction to create new knowledge and/or handle even the most out-of-the-box question that intuitively may lead to discoveries, such as leaders did when they challenged scientists to put a man on the moon or the Human Genome Project.
It is time our leaders pull their intellectual heads out of the sand and realize that teaching to tests and accepting the most narrow of answers is producing what amounts to a lobotomized individual. This is a student who cannot apply what he or she has learned and cannot do a thing without being specifically instructed on what is expected. While teaching to the tests may put out a straight A student, what good is this if he or she cannot think on their own, be responsible, continually learn on the job, and be so innovative as to make oneself virtually indispensable?
While I agree we are seeing a decline in the level of ability (not intelligence) of our best and brightest children, I do not agree with your assessment that there are no smart people in the world … only those that are the product of an old, outdated teaching model forced into the box by the “power of the doorknob” where teachers grade our children based on the answer they want to see or the one the book says is right.
I applaud Oxford and Cambridge for asking questions that demonstrate how well prospective students can think that all is possible, not just how much they have memorized from teachers. This shows brilliant leadership at these universities.
Maybe this will shake up a few of the so-called education leaders in this country holding on to the old paradigm. The new Education Secretary, Arne Duncan would do well to take note of this, make a bold move, and call for a new education model. He would do well to dump No Child Left Behind, which only produces a lobotomized individual who cannot see the forest for the trees but sure can find the right bubble to fill in on worthless tests.
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Pink-Slip doesn't void education
January 20, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: College
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I just was “pink-slipped.” I have a college degree and two masters degrees. I have worked for the same company for 16 years with excellent performance reviews, having done everything the world said would give me job security. I have taught these values to my children since they were able to listen and talk. Now I have to tell my children that everything I said to them about getting a good education is as worthless as the garbage I have been treated like. Where did I go wrong and what do I do now? |
The Assessment: The news is bleak at best and the reports are for more companies and corporations to lay off more people.
Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, first used a pink slip. At the end of the workweek, assembly-line employees received a white slip indicating a satisfactory job or a pink slip for unsatisfactory work and “the boot”.
Now, Ford and the other American Vehicle Manufacturers have not done their jobs well enough to be competitive and with foresight to “plan for a rainy day.” They should be getting “pink-slipped.” Instead, they are groveling for bailouts from the American Taxpayer, along with company leaders in the housing and finance industry and what for? So they can continue flying around in million-dollar corporate jets and partying like rock starts leading bling-bling lifestyles that leave God, ethics and obligations to employees, vendors and the American public out of the equation all together.
It appears to many that having the proper education, being good at your job, and teaching your children ethics is useless because this country’s leadership in business and government has a “I personally deserve a bling-bling life” mentality with no regard to others.
The desire for bling (flashy or elaborate jewelry, ornamented cell phones, plasma TVs, vacations at clubs in exotic locations, expensive import cars, excessively large houses, and mistresses) is to have more of it than your neighbor or co-worker so you cannot only “appear” but also feel more powerful and successful as if you have earned the right to break the laws when in reality, they have morphed into idol worshippers of avarice and greed.
We are so close to a Godless society, it is scary.
What To Do: First, do not abandon teaching your children that education is important. They must learn now to plan and organize and become responsible for their own outcomes. Explain to them that school is their first job. They may not be paid in money yet they will be paid in the dividend of learning and how to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Explain that if they learn how to do this, they will fare much better as adults when they have to face adversities such as the one you are facing. They will be the ones that will be able to reinvent themselves and save the country from lechers. I believe that you are in for a life change from employee to leader and possibly entrepreneur.
Also take this opportunity to explain to your children what greed does to a person and to society and instruct them that as adults they are to care for friends, family and strangers in a way that will not bring pain and suffering as your former employer has done.
Regardless of this, explain to your children that while there will always be bad people they must make the most of their education now, which will help them prepare and change what is patently unfair in the world. Remind them that birth did not come with the guarantee that we’ll never have problems, suffer hardships or be free from all strife.
As for you, if you received the proper education, you learned how to plan, organize, and develop strategies that will help you in just such a time as this. You must now build a new you by not taking time out to wallow in pity for “poor me.” While my heart goes out to you, my head says, get with it and get or create for yourself another job and demonstrate resilience to your children. If you are as good as you say you were at this old job, you’ll find someone that will appreciate your talent, even in a difficult economy and you will bring a loving God back into your children’s lives.
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Single Sex Schools
January 13, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Our daughter has announced she wants to attend an all-girls college. I am ecstatic. My husband is not so sure this is best. Can you tell me if this is a good idea and if so, what are the advantages? Also, what colleges should we look at? |
The Assessment: While there have been many single-sex colleges and universities in this country in the past (both public and private) there are few privates ones remaining and those numbers are dwindling. I know of no public ones, due to landmark supreme court cases, such as the one in 1996 that required the Virginia Military Institute to admit women and the 1982 ruling that ordered Mississippi University for Women to admit men.
Today, “single-sex” education almost exclusively refers to education at the elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level in which males or females attend school exclusively with members of their own sex. Research in the United States on the question of whether single-sex education is productive or counterproductive for girls and boys has been limited until recently. There has been a resurgence of single-sex schools in the public sector, and it appears there is merit. Test scores show improvement when girls and boys are apart in the classroom, many findings are now showing.
Leonard Sax is a psychologist and family physician and the author of the book, Why Gender Matters and Boys Adrift. He is also the founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (www.singlesexschools.org).
A Time magazine article published in March 2005 on the subject included this statement: “Until recently, there have been two groups of people: those who argue sex differences are innate and should be embraced and those who insist that they are learned and should be eliminated by changing the environment.” Please see the full text of this article at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1032301-3,00.html
Sax, I believe is objective enough in his work and writings for me to agree with Time and place him in neither category. He maintains that boys and girls are innately different and that we must change the environment so differences don’t become limitations. I wholeheartedly agree.
In Memphis, Tennessee, Alisha Kiner, principal at Vance Middle School says she has seen huge increases in test scores from having sex-separate classrooms since 2006. There are several experiences like Principal Kiner’s I have discovered and I expect to see more.
What To Do: If your child has made her decision about a single-sex college or university, she must have her reasons. These reasons should not be taken lightly as they will affect her future. And, decisions on where she will attend college should not be made without input from you and her father. Choosing the discipline or subject that she would like to study and which college she will attend is paramount to anything related to her future ability to get a good job and be bright enough with sustainability to get and keep the best jobs the globalized world will have to offer her.
As for women’s colleges in the United States, you can check the list at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_colleges_in_the_United_States.
Only four all-men’s colleges remain: Wabash, Morehouse, Hampden-Sydney, and St. John’s.
You and your husband should sit down with your daughter and discuss with her how she arrived at the notion she wanted to attend a single-sex institution of higher learning. As for which single-sex college or university is best? The one where she will be able to appreciate her talents as she becomes empowered by emerging herself fully into her passion in an environment unencumbered by the ignorance of a one-size-fits-all education. Show her how much you and your husband love her and care about her future by going with her to visit several of the colleges. Make sure her choice provides the equity that best fits her desires and makes her femininity an asset as she prepares to collaborate with others in the millennium world.
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ADHD Revisited
January 06, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Diagnoses
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Dear Dr. Fournier: We were summoned to our daughter’s school, told she is ADHD and instructed to get her on the meds. My neighbor says ADHD is something that was developed so pharmaceuticals can sell more unnecessary drugs and absolve parents from having to actually parent and teachers from taking responsibility for what our daughter isn’t learning. Please tell us the truth. |
The Assessment: I have been answering questions about ADD/ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder with or without hyperactivity) and the surrounding controversy for several years now.
The ADHD diagnosis is often communicated to parents when their children become distracted and do not complete tasks or act impulsively and disrupt the classroom.
ADD/ADHD is not a disease but a cluster of behaviors, some of which may be acceptable in certain classroom situations and not in others. In some cases, these behaviors may continue through life and be the very strengths that lead to success, such as the “daydreamer” who becomes a heralded movie director or the “talker” who becomes a noted trial lawyer.
The diagnosis, however, should come from a developmental pediatrician. And yes, true ADD/ADHD behavior is usually treated with medication. It is more important, however, to diagnose and treat your child’s underlying learning problem, not its behavioral manifestations.
Critics will say that ADHD medication has dramatically improved millions of children’s school performances. While this may be true in some cases, the educational success for an equal number of children is short-lived unless additional learning strategies are put in place. Potential drug addiction (and other ailments) by prescription carries too high a risk without concurrent educational therapy.
No pill can teach a child the difference in reading a textbook for content and reading a novel for a book report or help a child discover his or her working capacity, which leads to personal time-management techniques. And when she becomes an adult, no pill can teach her short- and long-term time-management skills and how to continue focusing on only one thing even if the world wants her to “multi-task.” Neither can a pill teach a fifth-grader the phonics he didn’t learn in second grade.
And, not every child with a learning problem has ADHD. Conversely, many children who display ADD/ADHD behaviors have learning difficulties, which often go untreated because their anxiety is masked by behaviors too easily labeled ADD/ADHD.
Under medication, some children do improve their attention enough to be able to sit still and do as they are told, but this does not ensure a steady, long-term overall improvement. New stresses and challenges plus a higher level of expectations may make a child tune out or give up.
What To Do: If your child has a learning problem, don’t rush to judge that he/she has ADD/ADHD. If your child is diagnosed as such, learn to separate the pediatric from the learning problem and get treatment for the former only if absolutely needed.
Take, for example, a child who consistently forgets homework assignments. Forgetting homework assignments is fundamentally a self-management learning-strategy problem. Robotizing medications are not the solution; teaching is.
The idea of doing homework sounds so simple to adults, yet it’s a complicated process, particularly for children who have not been taught long enough to actually learn the required strategies.
Use your best parenting instinct, consult the experts when necessary, and work together to devise a comprehensive treatment plan for what is, essentially, an educational difficulty. Is this truly ADD/ADHD or an 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. problem? The aim should be to help your child learn to learn long-term without the crutches provided by medicinal drugs.
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