Magic Formulas and Cultural Capital

Last night, unintentionally, I got to thinking about learning capabilities. I think it had a lot to do with asking Mark for clarification on the annotated bibliography we have to do.

When I was a kid, I was brought up to believe I was really smart. I was pretty much always at or near the top of the class and never felt like I was putting in any real effort towards school. It all came naturally.

From about year 10 onwards, I noticed myself starting to slip; friends who I thought I was smarter than, were doing better than me in assessment work. One day this girl, whom I knew I was smarter than, but whom was now getting consistent A's, said it was about writing to the formula.

It clarified this suspicion I had, that smart kids were judged to be smart by their mystical ability to crack the formula. Sometimes I got A's, C's, sometimes B's. I often felt, still do feel, overwhelmed about knowing how to study.

No teacher ever explained this; they just presented us with vast hoards of information.

When I got to Uni, we were taught about Cultural Capital in first year Sociaology. The lecturers asked people to put up their hands if they were the first member of their family to come to Uni. This was something I had never thought about before. Our family drove the same kind of car, had an equally biggish house and we lived in a reasonably affluent middle class area. I knew my parents had grown up in poverty in the north of England, but had always thought of myself as the same as my peers.

It all suddenly made sense why my best mate throughout high school killed me in year 12. One of her parents was an English teacher, the other a Science teacher. My folks hadn't helped me with homework since my mum went through homework flashcards with me when I was learning to read at about four years old.

However as Uni progressed, the mystery never became any clearer. My marks remained erratic and I was often pulled up for not explaining the obvious thoroughly enough.

When we were recently given our science group task and the lecturer gave us a marking rubric I had strong opposition to the concept. It was being like asked to sit an exam and being given the answers, as long as you show the working. For those not in the know, a rubric is a table covering every aspect of the task and showing what level of information or competency will achieve what grading.

A few short weeks down the track and it makes perfect sense telling student's what you expect of them. If you tell students the expected learning outcomes and what knowledge they need to demonstrate, surely that makes for more efficient learning.

Anything else is just a grand old conspiracy theory in action.