Kids Can't Write Anymore, Fear The New SAT
from the give-'em-a-keyboard dept
Here’s one for all those teachers freaking out when their students hand in a paper written in “txt”. Now, those same kids are blaming current school programs for not teaching them how to write properly. The problem is that the new SAT exam includes a written component — and they do mean written. Students will be expected to pick up a paper and a pencil for the first time in years and actually jot down the essay answer in their very own chicken scratch. Tragically, many of these kids claim they have been using keyboards and keypads for so long, the idea of writing with a pencil scares them silly. They’re afraid their handwriting will be so bad that they’ll get a bad score. The schools respond that they still teach good penmanship, and seem to think that the kids are just whining excessively. Of course, considering the rest of the exam has been entirely computerized for years, why not just give the kids a keyboard and let them type their essay responses (or, since the kids these days are so into text messaging — let them text their essays)?
Comments on “Kids Can't Write Anymore, Fear The New SAT”
Better Yet...
Give them a Internet connection and let them plagerize their essay, just like they do on their homework. Kids today are dumber then dirt, and getting worse by the year. Public School is day care for morons, where the teachers fear for their own safety and can’t afford to piss off the students, the parents, or the administration. Smart kids learn almost everything by themselves or have parents with enough money to get them the hell out of public school. Won’t matter anyways – by the time they get out of College (if their weakly educated minds can carry them thru) most of their jobs will be off shored. //packing bags now for one-way trip to New Zealand.
Re: Better Yet...
People have been saying “kids today are sure stupider than when I went to school” since manditory public school became law. Most kids in the US do fine. Most schools provide adequate education. The crisis spots — generally poor urban schools — generate lots of news, but most kids live in other districts.
That being said, this is just kids being whiny (something that also dates back to invention of adolescence).
Re: Re: Better Yet...
It’s true that people have been saying that forever, but today’s college graduates are by and large unable to write a coherent paragraph anymore. Recent engineering grads have atrocious spelling, grammar, and punctuation. These days all most people have to evaluate someone else’s ideas is by reading what they’ve written. If you write like you’re illiterate, people are going to assume you are and ignore whatever you write.
Re: Re: Re: Better Yet...
Hmmm..Q: What happens when you expect students to be current on the state-of-the-art stuff while mastering the old stuff in a time frame (4 years) that has resisted change despite changing technology (I don’t mean the internet and cell phones, unless you’re a communications major) and changing expectations?
A: Increased specialization, de-emphasis of what might be considered fundamental skills to someone in a different field, an educational gap between disciplines and especially between education levels, etc.
All the same, I’m with you on the grammar stuff. Personally, I think we need to re-evaluate the role of fundamentals in ongoing education. Either lengthening the term of an undergraduate education or consciously allowing a larger gap of ability and advancement at the high school level are possibilities that the educrats should consider. I just completed my undergrad in biology (at a damn good school, I might add), and I am less able to compose good prose than I was in HS, which I blame on the fact that I haven’t had to write a non-science paper in 3 or 4 years. Even with all the science classes that demanded my attention, I am just scratching the surface of the state-of-the-art in a narrowly defined subfield. There’s no way to expect a comprehensive ability in an evolving field without more years of training. We should let advanced students pursue advanced knowledge in, say, 10th grade (at real college levels, not the “college level” community college head start-type progs), so that they can effectively extend their undergrad by 2 years. Concurrently with this, we should mandate true liberal arts education to keep fundamental skills sharp throughout the undergraduate program, and have demanding expectations on ability in those areas before a student is allowed to graduate.
Re: Better Yet...
Some of us get beyond SATs and still need handwriting. I just tutored a man who needed to improve for a bar examination.
Re: Better Yet...
VonSkippy, you are my hero! please consider running for president because you are the only person I know who knows the truth and tells it!!
No Subject Given
How are they going to objectively grade these things? From what I gathered reading several articles – they have an army of real live humans that read the essays.
SAT & ACT tests...
are a joke anyway now. The students sure didn’t learn the info on the tests in school. They’ve just bought and memorized the books or taken a course the guarantees you’ll pass.
GMAT
I just took the GMAT a couple of months ago and that raises two points:
-The GMAT already has a computerized essay section. ETS wouldn’t even have to write any more software.
-The GMAT essay section is graded twice. Once by a human… generally a grad student on break, and a second time by a computer. A second human is brought in as a tie breaker only if the scores differ by more than a half a point.
ETS claims something like a 90% agreement between the computer and the human. But what ETS is looking for is different than what you might look for in an essay. The most formualic essay on earth will get a perfect score. Prose and anything else literary kills your score.
If I remember correctly, the Priceton Review gives as an example that James Joyce would get a low score, the Unibomber Manifesto is a perfect score.
So what does all this mean? The essay section of the SAT is another meaningless exercize that is mostly useless in determining a student’s qualifications for college… just as the SAT is.
what's the point?
When they get a failing grade (IF), their parents will just hire a lawyer to sue the institution to oblivion unless the kid gets an A anyway.
Get your facts right on the SAT
Hate to say it, but the rest of the test is not computerized. Some of the graduate tests like the GMAT are computerized these days, but the College Board would have to shell out major bucks to computerize test taking facilities for 1.4 million students each year and thus it’s still a paper test.
The handwriting fear is a real issue. At Kaplan, we work with kids to slow down and write legibly so they do not lose points for a silly reason.
Teh 547
I lost faith in the SAT when they recentered the scoring a few years back, adding 100 points to an average score. They should let kids write in l337 speak and let a geek grade their essays. They either pass or are “pwned”.
Re: Teh 547
I agree. After the re-centering, I have no respect for the institution of the SAT. If you’re going to compensate for kids getting dumber, why not let them write in ebonics or 1337? Give them a cellphone and let them send a text message of their essay on how super rad it is that Britney is getting married (OMG LOLOL!). What does the test actually prove anymore?
Handwriting
If they are going to include a motor skill such as handwriting in evaluating scholastic aptitude, then shouldn’t they should also include other motor skills such as typing, sports, etc.?
so much for all those folks who taught kids "handw
Well, so much for all those folks who taught kids “handwriting can’t matter at a high-level job.”
Now their kids may have low-level jobs. Taxicab-drivers (for instance) have to write a heck of a lot, you know.
;-S
I’ve taught handwriting to MDs and others for over 15 years, and this year you wouldn’t believe how many anxious high-schoolers (and their parents and teachers) phoned me from every state in the USA for help.
P.S. – I tried to post a message before, but it didn’t get through.
so much for all those folks who taught kids "handw
Well, so much for all those folks who taught kids “handwriting can’t matter at a high-level job.”
Now their kids may have low-level jobs. Taxicab-drivers (for instance) have to write a heck of a lot, you know.
I’ve taught handwriting to MDs and others for over 15 years, and this year you wouldn’t believe how many anxious high-schoolers (and their parents and teachers) phoned me from every state in the USA for help.
P.S. – I tried to post a message before, but it didn’t get through.
Re: so much for all those folks who taught kids
I gotta agree with Kate on this. I had a friend tell me that one of his cousins graduated with honours in electrical enginering. He tried to get job with one of those big companies (I forget which). Part of the apllication had to be hand written. He didn’t get it because his writing was bad.
A Word From the Intelligence-Challenged Generation
Technology differs from school to school, but generally they try to go with the cheapest that can still get the job done. I remember taking a timed test on an older computer. I was biting my nails in between answer submissions as my time ticked away and the computer slowly decided to submit my answers. Anyway, the idea of writing or typing both have their merits. If you have to type an essay in a certain amount of time, you show that you are efficient at typing, which my prove more useful with the computer age passing through, however, if you feel that ‘all of us kids’ are just getting dumber as each new class arrives, then why would you want to encourage this changing to a new system for which you already have no respect?
Finally, just because you believe that everyone you meet whose is younger than you is stupid, does not mean that everyone younger than you is the same. For the most part, the bottom of the barrel ends up as your underlings, and the best of each class becomes your boss!