The incommensurability of education systems

I have discussed this before, but it deserves to be addressed again, in another way and through the lens of another experience.

Education systems are not the same, the world over. The clearest divide is between the American education system and the old, traditional British one, still common throughout the Commonwealth and former colonies.

The American system prides itself on breadth. At every stage from first grade to "College" - there is breadth. The British system goes for depth: at every stage from the first year of school to the last year of University, there is greater depth, than in the American system. This leads to much incomprehension when Americans seek to understand the achievements of British style educated kids - and vice-versa. Quite simply: is it possible to compare breadth with depth? Are they commensurable?

My belief is that they are not readily comparable - for where the American loses in depth, they gain in breadth - and where the British/Commonwealth/European loses in breadth they gain in depth.

There is however one way we can compare them: cognitive complexity. The cognitive demands of an old-style British education of O Levels and A Levels followed by a single subject University degree are greater than at any given age in the American system. This is not a controversial statement. It is readily seen by looking at any online US based course designed for a given age and comparing what would be demanded under the traditional British style education at the same age.

What do I mean by cognitive demand? Well, the difficulty of a subject comes in the depth: the level of concepts and techniques, skills and knowledge that must be mastered. It is in the depth that this is to be found. In breadth, one is held largely to an introductory level of knowledge, simply because so many things are being looked at. In this way, the challenge doesn't deepen - and grow, thereby.

The American system probably catches up in Graduate School (I am not sure but that seems more specialized) - but a taught Graduate degree in the US is probably little more than a taught Undergraduate degree in the old-British style single subject system. This seems obvious because it CANNOT BE OTHERWISE when the Undergraduate US degrees have such breadth in them. Because of that breadth, they are limited in depth.

I will give you a practical example of the incommensurability of these systems at work. A few months back, Ainan and I sat through a University of Berkeley, California, Physics lecture. I presume it was a first year lecture because it was so very simplistic that Ainan, six at the time, who had no formal physics background, thought it very simple indeed. In fact, I would say it was pre-O level. That is the level it was pitched at was below a course of study normally started by 14 year olds and finished by 16 year olds in the old traditional British style education. It wasn't even hard enough to be called O level. It was late primary/early secondary level - and yet that was Berkeley. This set me thinking about the nature of education systems. Raymond Ravaglia's remark that the American system "teaches to the left of the distribution" also opened my eyes as to what was happening here.

This phenomenon of great breadth and little depth in the American system - and great depth but little breadth in the traditional British system - leads to the impossibility of either side understanding the academic achievements of the other, fully. There will always be some failure to understand what it is that the other has done and can do.

American Universities recruit students directly after O level, in Singapore. That shows that O level is equal to or above High School graduation standard. The Berkeley lecture makes me wonder how much above that standard it might be.

Yet, all is not lost for the American system. The great breadth means that an American educated child should be able to handle a great variety of tasks - and there is merit in that, too. It just depends on what the culture needs.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fourteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Ravaglia on American education and the gifted

Raymond Ravaglia is the Deputy Director of the Stanford University, EPGY (the Education Program for Gifted Youth) and recently he gave a talk in Singapore.

One of the themes he addressed, briefly, was the state of American education. He summarized the style of American education by stating that, generally, American classes are pitched to "to the left of the distribution"...by which he meant the Bell Curve, of IQ distributions. He said that this was done so that those "to the left" were not left behind. This worked in keeping those of lower IQs happy but it had an unfortunate side effect: those to the right of the distribution - the ones for whom EPGY was conceived - would tend to be bored by American education.

Thus, EPGY is pitched to the right of the distribution. It is deliberately aimed at stimulating some of the brightest students. This could have the unfortunate consequence that some on the EPGY (he didn't say it, but seemed to mean those who had just scraped into the courses) might be left out a bit, but he did say that the course instructors did generally manage to keep all-comers happy. Yet, he did make it clear that the type of pitch of material at EPGY was very different to what would be expected in a standard American classroom.

He addressed this point quickly and in passing, but I felt it to be one of the more important things that he said: this pitch to the left of the Bell Curve was one of the big failings in American education - for it ensured that ALL gifted children would be left out in the classroom. There is something not quite right in that. Are not the gifted an important intellectual constituency to be nurtured and groomed to become the best that they may? I would have thought so, but it seems that American education has overlooked this and only in exceptional cases is the matter of the education of the gifted properly addressed.

America is the world's leading nation - but how much longer can it be, if the needs of its most gifted are neglected? Your thoughts please.

Raymond Ravaglia on out of level testing

As regular readers will know, Raymond Ravaglia, the Deputy Director of EPGY, the Education Program for Gifted Youth, at Stanford University recently gave a talk in Singapore.

He spoke of several things: one of them was his views on out-of-level testing. He considered this form of testing to be ill-conceived. In his eyes, there was no reason why a gifted child would be able to handle the material, for it was unlikely that the gifted child would have covered the material. It didn't make any sense to him that a child should be tested on material the child was probably unaware of. This was, in his opinion, very likely to generate a "false negative" - that is a child would be marked as "non-gifted" by an out of level test, simply because they had never met the material before when, in fact, they were gifted.

Raymond Ravaglia thought that it was wiser to design tests which were in-level, in the sense of being of material covered by the child at the relevant age, but which were designed to be more challenging in their presentation of questions. In this way, a child would not be penalized for not having covered a particular curriculum and would have the opportunity to show their gift, without distortion. He thought that this was much more likely to give a positive result for a gifted child and would not lead to false negatives, and loss of opportunity for the gifted child.

I had rather come to Raymond Ravaglia's view, myself, when first introduced to the idea of out-of-level testing - but it is interesting to see this opinion held by someone working in the American University system. The reasoning on the issue is sound...so why then does the practise of out-of-level testing persist?

Out-of-level testing is based on a misconception about what a gifted child is. A gifted child is a more intelligent child than an average one and is able to learn faster. Yet, a gifted child is not a miracle worker. If the child has not been exposed to the curriculum in question, one cannot expect that child to perform according to their true ability. They will under-perform if the curriculum is new.

My son, Ainan, has been subject to "out-of-level" testing in his area of Chemistry. In his case, the procedure is OK because he does, in fact, have much knowledge of Chemistry beyond his age range. In this case, the practise may be appropriate. Yet, in most cases, such a form of testing is likely to lead to a mismeasure of the child - and therefore should be avoided. If the child does have out-of-level knowledge - then test away. If the child has great ability but does not have out-of-level knowledge then such testing is really going to be harmful.

So, think carefully before consenting to such testing: the results could compromise your child's future and close doors that might have been opened by a different kind of testing.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)