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The Forum > Article Comments > The predictable journey of outcomes based education > Comments

The predictable journey of outcomes based education : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 9/10/2006

Welcome to outcomes based education - a slow plod to a destiny already prescribed by someone at a distance from the class.

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Jolanda,

It sounds like you have loads of common sense. With my post I had WAIS in mind which if memory serves generally measures the third standard (plus) deviation at 145 (99.97%). General scales tend to produce bigger numbers with genius (gifted) at 150 (WAIS, 130?). At 161, I would assume your daughter is superiorly gifted (top 5% of gifted?). Had you tested her when she was say 5 or 6 years old you might have found her IQ even higher on tests. Overtime other people can catch-up, a bit to do with brain maturation and a bit to do with the Math involved in calculating IQs. An IQ of over 160 on a General Scale (140, WAIS) is truly exceptional.

Teachers (TER 70%?) can be a problem. What does one do if I child points that Plasma is a fourth state of matter, when the teacher is instructing Solids, Liquids and Gases?
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 10:58:55 AM
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Oliver, it's good to come across somebody who understands. It hasn't been easy, my husband and I are not highly educated and we have 4 extremely gifted kids.

Then to make things worse after waiting for 5 years in the Public School system to finally get to Year 5 Opportunity Class were they hoped that things would be better, they didn't get in. In my daughters case her General Ability score was 17/20 on the test on the day and that represented an IQ of over 160 even on the Departments' IQ scale but they said that apparently she got a low mark for English and they didn’t offer her a place. She said no way that she scored that low for English, something is wrong!

We appealed the decision and they had her IQ test before them, all her school reports and basic skills tests in which she achieved the highest level possible for her year. All her University competition results in all subjects all in the high 90's. Her music results - all honours. She lost her appeal for a place in the schools that are supposed to be designed for gifted children despite having and identified and recognised need.

There is something seriously wrong.
Posted by Jolanda, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 11:19:06 AM
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I've said this previously where ......... I suspect that we humans share many unconscious yearnings and that the freedom to follow and control our perceptions, our intellectual curiosities and hence our behaviour is one of the greatest as well as one with the greatest benefit. If we can assume that perception refers to the world as we experience it, then its nature indicates each person's uniqueness ..... hence individuality. So what a blessing and doesn't this suggest that at the centre of education there can only be the learner where education refers to a modern English word, educe, meaning to bring out, elicit or evoke or ........... simply to help people to realise themselves with their innate talents and qualities extracted. I just wonder, like Peter expresses, how a prescriptive outcomes education system can be anything else but product oriented with identical products and value free. This is target training "education".

I'm reminded of my old (.......like fifty years ago) primary school motto of "Aim High" where I remember sincerely saying to a number of my good teachers that if you aim high you will obviously miss the target. Outcomes based education systems miss the target.
Posted by Keiran, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 1:23:46 PM
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Jolanda,

Sorry to learn that your daughter lost her appeal. You seem to have good support your case, and placing so much weight on one assessment instrument does seem logical to me. IQ tests are standardised when developed but can be subject to cultural influences and prove disadvantagous to some test takers.

Your daughter and other kids should enjoy university, especially after the first year foundation subjects.

Also, as you say, The Happinesss Quotient is important too :-).
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 8:17:47 PM
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TYPO (ABOVE):

"... placing so much weight on one assessment instrument does NOT seem logical to me."
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 12 October 2006 11:17:28 AM
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This is a very worthwhile discussion. Well done, Peter.

Some issues for me are as follows:

1. Are all subjects the same? If I am teaching car maintenance at school or TAFE, I want the students to be able to pull apart a car and put it together so that it keeps running efficiently.

If I am treading in Manning Clark's footsteps teaching history, I might ask his famous question:
"Well, Miss Jones, and what do you think of Australian history?"
Of course, there is no correct or single outcome for such a discussion, except provoking students to think. I am guilty of provoking, challenging, amusing and at times confronting my students at school and university. When I taught the rise of Nazi Germany to high school students at Marayong some years ago, I confronted them witrh a horrific fact. Adolf Hitler was a monster who set up a horrifying State. Yet he was voted into power by ordinary, decent men and women. Confronting, yes? But I would be unable to get an "outcome" or "competency" out of this teaching.
For me, then, all subjects are not the same. [I would wonder about medicine and graphic design] My examples are very different.

2. Are students all the same? I once taught a subject in which students learnt about history by doing it. They could pick almost any historical project in the long history of Western Sydney that interested them. They investigated, interviewed, puzzled, got fruiustrated and created a mini history. All learnt ABOUT history by DOING history, but their journeys were different.

3. Political correctness has killed off many worthwhile debates. My students are scared of being anti-Aboriginal, antifeminist, etc etc. We have pushed students into a corner. They no longer tell us what they are really thinking.
These days in many educational settings one is almost scared to talk about God the Father. Sorry, fathers are no good these days. Could you make Him into a woman, please? [No blasphemy intended]

4.I am not a Christian but it's good to see someone nailing his colours to the mast.Bravo.
Posted by Bondi Pete, Thursday, 12 October 2006 1:15:29 PM
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