Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
I'm not trying to argue with individual experience. I'm saying, however, that across the broad studies that have been done, smaller class size correlates strongly with student achievement. There will always be exceptions, and I'm happy for you that you were in such a good educational environment.
Another personal outlook, and one that I see often, is " I don't care what the research says, or how it was conducted. It doesn't match my personal experience, so it's wrong." It's pretty hard for me to have a discussion with people with this outlook. I'm always interested in hearing examples of the educational experiences of different people, but the communication only seems to go one way, which isn't really a conversation.  |
You said here that you're always interested in hearing examples of the educational experiences of different people, but yet you started out by saying that you're not trying to argue with individual experience. I wasn't trying to
argue individual experience either. As I said:
I'm sure the teachers and others among us know much more about this subject than I, and I can only speak from my own experience, . . . I may not have been clear enough, but my main point was that things have changed so dramatically over the last generation or two, that money seems to matter much more now for a quality public education than it ever used to. My mother received a quality elementary education in a one room school house in a class of 43 with one teacher teaching 8 grades at the same time. She skipped 2 grades while in this school, yet was by no means a genius, and her family was dirt poor. And I personally believe that countless other factors affect the kind of education you receive as much as, if not more than, the number of students in a given class and how financially fortunate they are.
I certainly hope you didn't get that impression from me. I don't believe I ever said that, or inferred that any research you, or anyone else cited was WRONG. I don't recall anyone else saying that either.
It sounded like you were in oppostion to my individual experience by stating there
will always be exceptions , as if I was the exception to the rule. That's not the case.
That's just the way it used to be. It was the norm. And it worked.
In the future I will try to be more careful in my responses to everyone so as not to be misunderstood or sound like I'm attacking anyone's views. That was never my intention. I would never attack anyone's VIEWS. A view is a belief, an opinion, one side of a whole, a subjective thought, which in my
own humble opinion can never be WRONG, just different.
I apologize to Neko and anyone else whom I may have ired or offended. (And I'm sorry for again returning to this subtopic and beating the proverbial dead horse.)