That glass ceiling! Part 2

[var123]

Continuing the discussion about artificial limits placed on G&T children, and the resulting impact on their health and happiness (not to mention futures).

Do they really matter less because they have a perceived "advantage"?!

original thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gifted_and_talented/2507232-The-glass-ceiling-for-very-able-children?

GCSEs aren't useless for able students IMVHO.

They're a test of nettle as much as anything else. Being able to juggle a lot of things at once whilst retaining information is a great skill to have and demonstrate.

Sure, they don't test deep intellectual understanding, but they're not meant to. They're a basic test.

But parents of young children beware denigrating them as a walk in the park. Bring clever won't see you thorough with 10A*s.

I work among French colleagues (90% are French). They are very good, dare I say in term of technical and grasping difficult payoff, technical concept they are way ahead than any other Europeans. They are very good in building IT models, using and writing codes to breakdown what we need. Schools like X (or Polytechnique still sends the top mathematician to the world, way ahead of Oxford/Cam/Emp in terms of pure maths

EricNorthman - I have every reason to have complete confidence in your comparative analysis of the different approaches of your DCs' schools. Such an analysis rather exposes the oft-held mantra of A/A* GCSEs being "worth less" when the DC have been at top schools.

Isn't there one school in Paris that is just amazing for maths? All the extremely able mathematicians go there, and it turns out really skilled mathematicians. However, all the rest across the whole country are not that great.

That is what someone who is French and who employs large numbers of mathematicians from around the globe explained to me when I asked him how come the all French mathematicians I'd worked with left me feeling intimidated because they (usually men btw) simply outclassed me completely, yet no other country does it every time?

No, Var. There are lots of schools in France that do a great job with maths. But, as everywhere, selectivity means that mathematicians start to congregate in a few chosen places the higher you get up in the system.

"Bertrand - I think you don't fully understand the concept of discrimination."

There is an interpretation of the word discrimination that says men can't suffer sexist discrimination and white people cant suffer racial discrimination. I suspect Bert has the same definition.

I think its rubbish btw!

I (early morning time wasting) looked at the comparative IMO results of France. They do less well than Germany and the UK so perhaps place less emphasis on theoretical pure maths or have a less good system for the outstanding maths outliers?

Bobo - well that's what he said and he should know given that he needs to be able to review CVs

Are you sure really good French candidates actually enter for IMO? The concours general is more prestigious among lycees teachers/heads.

I expect he means Polytechnique - which is a masters degree programme in engineering, not a high school.

Ah how I love the smell of napalm in the morning .

bobo it's one of the funny by-products of trying to provide the broad education most parents of able DC are looking for; the education is 'better' but the attention placed on How To Get Good Grades is worse.

I agree that there is often an uneasy compromise to be had between "good education" and "good exam results". Hence exam league tables needing to be taken with a serious pinch of salt.

Exams are supposed to test, and differentiate, levels of attainment. Do they though? I am not sure any more.

League tables are a good idea, badly executed. The core problem is that they always end up focusing on some lowish level which the schools pour their energies into optimising. (Turning natural D students into Cs, for example).

Other things get reported, but they don't form the default search and its the default search that counts most.

Are you sure really good French candidates actually enter for IMO? The concours general is more prestigious among lycees teachers/heads.
Somebody more knowledgeable will come along but the maths challenges etc held in UK schools from an early age that are the steps to selection for IMO do not require preparation and are a way of providing more able mathematicians with lateral thinking type questions. At a higher level (especially consideration for Uk team) I think it is a way for Oxbridge to 'head hunt' maths students.
The Concours is a national competition which won't be recognised by UK universities plus I guess it would n't prevent the best from the Concours being selected for the IMO.

Sure, the concours general is a national competition. Lycee heads want to send their best pupils to prepa and grandes écoles within the French system and often wish to prevent their pupils from doing anything that might help them escape the clutches of Education Nationale.

Oxbridge (and HE abroad) and anything that would facilitate it is completely off 99.9% of French lycee teachers' radar screens.

In answer to one of BertrandRussell's questions from yesterday, G&T is not a different way of saying very good at maths. It can be any subject. Its just that maths is less subjective and more measurable which means that its easier to see and define progress (and know when it has halted).

(I suspect Bert will think that as the conversation has turned to maths in the last few hours, it proves her right to have been suspicious!)

Given your choice of username, Bertrand, I am surprised that you aren't more enthusiastic about maths-related discussions. Maybe you chose it for the political persuasion instead?

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist.

Maths is easier to measure and compare across populations than any other subject. That doesn't mean it encapsulates the essence of intelligence or knowledge. Far from it!

I think we are saying the same thing, Bobo. I am saying its not everything, or even a significant minority subject. Its just that the questions tend to be closed, so the answer is either right or wrong and when you've worked it out 50 times, without help, or being steered, then that bit is done and its time to move on.

On the other hand, if someone wanted to be picky they could take the best of Shakespeare and find something to argue should or could've been done better.

I'm agreeing with you, Var. I'm sorry - I should have been more explicit about that!

I know that for complex maths problems, there can be a variety of approaches to getting the solution and it can be open for argument which is the optimal route. However, that's not relevant to KS1, 2 or 3 maths (and I am going to hazard a guess that it won't be in KS4 either)

sorry.. I read it again. I was being dim!

In French Terminale I know my DSSs talked about different approaches to finding solutions to maths problems. Interestingly, they also both find that they do not spontaneously also use the same approaches as their fellow university students who did A-levels, at least when they first arrive at university.

Increasingly the best students in France do not study maths or physics, but instead study economics, law and business.

France is relatively weak at research level in maths these days, although the grandes ecoles (and CNRS) are (finally) trying to improve their research by hiring more foreigners.

I definitely don't agree with var123 that french mathematicians (even those from grandes ecoles) outclass those from elsewhere. I also wouldn't agree that maths is being taught better in schools: like a lot of French teaching, maths teaching is too much by rote, leaving pupils ill prepared to cope with challenges they have never met before.

(Why does any thread with bobo on have to turn into a comparison of UK versus French education systems?)

I have to disagree, disquisitiones, about the rote learning in the French system. It just isn't that true (times change) and it is far less rote-learning based than current GCSE and A-level. Indescribably so - I think it's gone too much the other way.