Bird Droppings August 26, 2012

Where can I find the ends of a bell shaped curve?

 

I have had several statistics and testing courses during my undergraduate and graduate school experiences and I recall about on page 3 or so “the bell shaped curve” was mentioned. I always find it amazing how in education we use a bell shaped curve for so much. We often set up curriculum based on stats. One of the key elements of the first chapter of my old Statistics book was relating to how statistics can be used wrongly as well as for the better. All in interpretation and how data is recorded.

 

“Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll tell you their philosophy of life.”  Dale Carnegie

 

In the aftermath of the Republican convention a few years back I realized how much I do not like politics. When you look at the political promises they are literally by definition lies staged in their finer. Sadly they are words spoken to get elected and as I look at the words of Carnegie maybe we should find a simpler way to decide on a candidate. Starting one day this week pending the convention is not blown away by Hurricane Isaac another political platform will be displayed and proposed.  

 

“The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.” George Hegel

 

“All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?” Immanuel Kant

 

Perhaps we should make a philosopher president. As I venture forth this evening taking a break from playing with my granddaughter trying to not reiterate the multitude of media that has deluged us recently with political dribble as we approach an election cycle. In reviewing files on students and even employees in the past I have found the person who is writing the reference very definitely allows their perception to drive the effort. One of the leading evaluative tools for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders suggests uses three of four different views so you can triangulate rather than be limited to one teacher’s perspective.

 

“Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.” Hans Margolius

 

As I read earlier this morning thinking of various reports about a student I had recently evaluated. Often I will wait to review records forming my own opinion before digging into the files, trying not to be prejudiced by others thoughts.

 

“The heart has eyes which the brain knows nothing of.” Charles H. Perkhurst

 

“Simple people… are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

I am amazed often at how our system works. We design everything in generalities that are driven by what will work most of the time. In doing so there is truth in the bell shaped curve. But it is those fringes of humanity at either end of the curve that minute quantity that end up in judgment and in reality forced to survive by same general guidelines as the majority who sit in the normal range.

 

 “To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule.” Emily Post

 

“The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.” David Riesman

 

I was chatting with a fellow teacher about kindergarten classes. It is interesting how we take the little children and makes them conform to totally unnatural standards for four and five year olds. They need to be quiet, stand in line, color in lines, do this, do that and then for twelve years continue adding to the guidelines. By high school they have an agenda unfortunately it is not their own.  

 

“Agenda – 1: a list or outline of things to be considered or done, 2: an underlying often ideological plan or program” Webster’s Dictionary

 

It bothers me that we eliminate individuality from children. What bothers me most is that we strip away the aspects that make them who they are and put in its place who we want them to be. In today’s day and age that seems to be good consumers.  

 

“We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissible, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?” Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

 

“We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.” Mark Twain

 

Sort of sad to be compared to sheep but after watching the politics of the past few weeks it is so easy to see. Years ago herders would have a “Judas goat” to lead the lambs to slaughter; the flock simply followed never questioning just following along. Many years ago Disney Studios had a film on border collies. Basically they of course saved the day but one particular scene was of the flock pushing and following and a number ended up in a stream. A quick note on border collies always have very short names, Dot, Jim, Bo always generally one syllable. It is easier to say quickly when working sheep. Anyhow the two dogs risk their lives to save the drowning sheep and the rest of the flock and get them safely home.

Earlier when I started I did not realize the direction I was heading in my daily wanderings and I am sitting here now thinking of teachers as border collies. We tend to be steering and guiding the flock. Occasionally we get a Judas goat as a teacher but hopefully they get weeded out along the way.

 

“It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.” Albert Einstein

 

A bit of grounding and as I think of the bell shaped curve and sheep and how we in education strive to have standardized everything to make it easier to work with the masses. I also see Einstein that great thinker point out that even in our world of majority rules the individual can still be found and still be “warmly acclaimed”. Sadly I start another week with please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and always give thanks namaste.

 

Wa de (Skee)

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