When the masses are better than the professionals

[wacki]

BTW, I am not sure that Linux counts as being produced "by the masses". A lot of the code that is accepted is written by grad students and pro working on their own time.

A lot of American citizens are former military. Despite this anti-RKBA folks will claim these people don't qualify as professional policeman therefore they don't have the right to defend their own home with a civilian shotgun.

Linux is the PERFECT example why former military personal should be allowed the RKBA.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

In Oregon the amateurs are doing a better job at locating lost persons than the "pros'".The Kim Case and lately the priest and his traveling companion where the "pros" were unable to find them and family members and concerned civilians were able to. As far as I am concerned Oregon is a joke as far as finding lost persons and I have lived here for 56 years. 20 years of Republican dominated legislature had cut the number of state police to 1\3 of what it was 30 years ago. It went from 600 to 200 officers when at the same time the population almost tripled. Also, thanks to the Republican Congress they cut the money that went to the counties that have a large amount of federal land. Most of them that was 1\2 to 2\3 of their budgets. They don't have the money to operate police and other services. The thing people don't realize is the federal government owns over 1\2 the land in Oregon and pays no taxes on it.

 

[Fulcrum of Evil]

[qoute]I'm simply looking for instances where the masses/part time workers are/were better than the full time dedicated professionals. Right now I can think of Open Source/GNU/GPL Software (in certain applications), Wikipedia (best damn encyclopedia online, just as accurate as Britannica), Revolutionary War, Digg.com, and the Swiss Army.[/quote]

OSS is arguably produced largely by professionals. The difference is the distributed power structure.

The revolutionary war, according to my limited knowledge is an example where pros beat amateurs like a redheaded stepchild. Until we got some professional training, the british kicked our asses up and down the coast.

My understanding is that the swiss army is also professionally trained.

 

[Wheeler44]

I'm simply looking for instances where the masses/part time workers are/were better than the full time dedicated professionals. Right now I can think of Open Source/GNU/GPL Software (in certain applications), Wikipedia (best damn encyclopedia online, just as accurate as Britannica), Revolutionary War, Digg.com, and the Swiss Army.

Well there is the :
Bubba Bros. Lazer surgery clinic. Motto: We fix'em right and left.
Stoner Bros. architectural design co. Motto: Far out man.
Backwoods demolition and pyrotechnicks (defunct) Last words: Hey man, watch this.
And last but not least:
Mall ninja personal security services: " I can take out a BG @ 150 yds with my high point.

 

[telomerase]

Wright Brothers vs. many much better-funded professional heavier-than-air developers (Langley, Alexander Graham Bell, Curtiss, etc.)

Arminius (and a bunch of German villagers) vs. Quintilius Varus (and three Roman legions)

Costa Ricans vs. William Walker's mercs

 

[akodo]

look, professional just means you make your living doing that, doesn't mean you are necessarily good or bad at it. The guy cooking burgers at McDonalds is a 'Professional' but I can sure cook better.

There is usually a period in time when only amateurs are doing something...take surgery, it started out as guys cutting up corpses to learn about anatomy etc etc and then spread to the regular medical field. So yea, back in 1820 or whenever, I'd rather have one amateur surgeon try and remove my whatever than 10 doctors who would leach blood from my toes and give me ground up bonepowder.

Artists are a great example of this. Many of the most talented artists never made a dime, did it in their own time, etc etc. Then all of a sudden they get popular and are 'discovered' and then they are professional as they get paid (except for the ones that get dead first)

Of course, there are flip side issues too. In general, this was about the concept of police/military professionals vs amateur, but there are also times where professional military men as a hobby are architects etc and end up building wonderful bridges etc...especially before there was a dedicated engineering corpse

 

[larry_minn]

I recall decades ago this. A amature does it because they WANT to. Or for the "Love of" the event. A professional does it for the money.
BTW if you want to check out a fairly impartail stat of civilian and Police shooting rates on GSSF. While I haven't been to one in a couple yrs normally I was a solid B class shooter and there were few LEOs that did much better. One would think these would be the better LEO shooters who participate.

 

[Caimlas]

I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but it has been shown that criminals are better shots than police in encounters (more likely to hit and more accurate overall) and that law abiding citizens even better still than the criminals, with better accuracy and more likely to hit. I've read it a time or three, and I think Ayoob may have been one of the people to propagate the information.

Home schoolers vs. public schoolers: home schoolers will usually walk all over the public schoolers.

In part, I think "professional vs. the masses" is a bit of a misnomer. The bulk of software advancement has originated in an informal, unstructured environment - academia - and not in the corporate world. The vast majority of the advancements which Microsoft touts as their own (Active Directory, file sharing, ACLs, DOS, NT's improved networking, their GUI, etc.) were taken either in whole or in part - conceptually and technologically - from their competitors. Nothing MS has done, to date, has been original or even better on their own than what their competitors have offered - it has just been large, consolidated, with a universal interface, and with very good marketing. The same continues to hold true in the software world, for the most part.

 

[Spreadfire Arms]

BigRobT wrote:

I have heard instances of where the average CCW permit holder can shoot more accurately than many police officers. I have YET to see any hard data to prove it, though. Might be just a rumor or a "tall tale".

i think the question really depends on what the issue is that the debate is about. if we're talking about citizens shooting just as well, if not better, than cops (non-professionals vs. professionals) then of course that is probably true.

i say it is true because most citizens who do seriously shoot have more of an expendable income dedicated to what they love to do for a past-time. that means that alot of times they can afford the ammunition, pay the range fees, and usually have more time available dedicated to shoot. in alot of cases, citizens have better equipment than the cops. i know alot of citizens who have better-equipped AR-15's than the average cop (optics, weapon-mounted lights, tacticool slings, and in some cases, night vision, some have silencers too). alot of citizens also (which is probably off the subject) have much more accessories (not saying anyone is a mall ninja, but i know alot of guys who are not "professionals" who have all kinds of MOLLE gear, helmets, armor plates, plate carriers, a zillion magazines, a bunch of ammo stockpiled, etc).

and then you have the average cop - doesn't clean his gun, doesn't shoot unless his department makes him go to the range for his semiannual/quarterly/annual qualification. they rarely make the time to go shoot on their own time, because, as most cops think, it is a job skill and thus they should be paid on company time to go to the range. believe me, im not agreeing with their mentality. if you don't constantly train, you'll lose your shooting skills.

however, in all reality, shooting accurately at paper targets that don't shoot back is hardly realistic. if what the researcher is looking for is pure accuracy in a controlled environment then certainly i believe the "non-professional" sector wins out. it is when you add it the realism of a dynamic gunfight that you see the odds in favor of the "professional."

i saw a discussion about this awhile back on ARFCOM where alot of "nonprofessional" guys were saying how great their tactics were, etc, as CHL holders. i brought up the question, "when was the last time you pointed a loaded gun at someone with the intent of possibly shooting him/her?" i didnt get any responses. the fact is, alot of guys have alot of trigger time but they dont have the street experience (commonly known as "OPEX" or "operational experience"). while alot of training can help with the lack of OPEX, really, without operational experience, how can one gauge the validity of their training?

training under controlled circumstances is one thing, but never having employed the training, again, that is a perishable skill as well.

OPEX speaks volumes. if you dont believe me, then ask the guys who are hiring for security contractors overseas.

they are looking for guys with OPEX (i.e. former U.S. military or civilian law enforcement guys), not guys who have been to LFI, Thunder Ranch, Tactical Response classes, and the like (not bashing any of these schools - just saying that if that is all you have on your resume, i dont think DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Edinburgh Risk, Blackwater, and the like are going to seriously consider you.)

if you disagree, you should take a look at the Blackwater application - it is all about operational experience, not what classes you have taken.

in my opinion, OPEX is more important in real life.

 

[TimboKhan]

I have to pick on some of these statements:

Wikipedia (best damn encyclopedia online, just as accurate as Britannica)

I love Wikipedia, but no high school or college that I am aware of considers it a credible source, whereas Britannica is widely acknowledged as such.

Home schooling.

There are some talented parents that do a great job home-schooling their kids. There are substantially more who have no business doing so.

The most stunning

example I can think of are the passengers who crashed the plane in Shanksville, PA

Admirable and heroic, yes. Better than the professionals (whoever they may be in this case)? Probably not, although they certainly didn't do any worse than the professionals.

The other 5 men in the photo were reservists who enlisted after Pearl Harbor. Those that survived the war returned to civilian life. None of them were "Professionals".

Possibly a matter of semantics, but if you are actively serving, reservist or not, you are a professional soldier. They were professionally trained to a specific job, paid, and expected to live up to a certain code of conduct. Using the Philipino insurgency that happened after America retreated from the Philipines is a better example, as those insurgents were not professionals, although they certainly did a fine job of annoying the Japanese! Better or worse, I don't know, but they were not professionals.

Persians vs. Spartans

What about the Persians or the Spartans wasn't professional? Amateur armies don't travel those kind of distances and fight with that kind of discipline, and Spartans were essentially raised as professional warriors. They might have been culturally indoctrinated towards war, but Spartan soliders were still professionally trained soldiers.

Home schoolers vs. public schoolers: home schoolers will usually walk all over the public schoolers.

Sorry, this just isn't true as a general statement. Bluntly stated, home-schooled kids tend to be socially awkward, and if you use standardized testing as a measurement (which is in and of itself a controversial topic), they lag far behind public school kids. I certainly don't mean to say that home-schooled kids can't succeed academically or in life, but as a "professional" teacher, I can tell you that generally speaking, home-schooled kids just don't do as well as public school kids do.

It's an interesting question that the OP asks, because a lot of it depends on what you view to be professional. I mean, Steve Jobs wasn't a professional when he and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer, but they certainly are now. Orville and Wilbure were bicycle mechanics when they flew, but I would argue that they became professionals after the fact by merit of continuing to develop aircraft. I know how to weld, but I am not a professional welder, although with time and practice I could certainly become one. My point here is that being a professional is something that most people develop into either by experience or training or a combination of both. Literally, none of us were born into what we do for work. I wasn't born as a teacher, you guys weren't born as gunsmiths or helicopter mechanics or whatever. We developed into those things. Using myself as an example, I think it is incorrect to say that I am a professional teacher simply because I now have a degree. I am a trained teacher, but I think I lack the experience to really and truly be considered a professional. Further, it's a matter of interest. If you happen to be interested in electronics, your naturally going to gravitate to and learn about those things, and there are plenty of hobbyists out there that regularly do things that paid engineers don't think of. It's late and I am tired, so I will end, but this really was a pretty interesting philosophical question.

 

[roo_ster]

Check Your Data

Home schoolers vs. public schoolers: home schoolers will usually walk all over the public schoolers.

Sorry, this just isn't true as a general statement. Bluntly stated, home-schooled kids tend to be socially awkward, and if you use standardized testing as a measurement (which is in and of itself a controversial topic), they lag far behind public school kids. I certainly don't mean to say that home-schooled kids can't succeed academically or in life, but as a "professional" teacher, I can tell you that generally speaking, home-schooled kids just don't do as well as public school kids do.

TK:


You might want to check your data.

A simple google search turned up these two bits at the top:
Arkansas Home School Performance Audit

First-Year College Performance: A Study of Home School Graduates and Traditional School Graduates

The Arkansas audit gave the results of standardized tests mandatory for both home school & public school kids:

For school years 1998 through 2003, home
school and public school students in the fifth,
seventh, and tenth grades took the Stanford
Achievement Test, Ninth Edition (SAT-9).

The results were shown in Exhibit II, an image of which I have attached.

The second study was not a gov't pub, but had some interesting background & results, which I will sample:

Three empirical studies, specifically focused on the first-year academic performance of the home school college student (Galloway 1995, Gray 1998, Jcnkins 1998), attempted to remedy higher education and policy makers' lack of knowledge. Galloway (1995) found home school graduates outperformed their conventional private school peers on the ACT English subtest. Jenkins (1998) found that full- and part-time community college home school students' average first-year grade point averages were higher than non-home school graduates. Jenkins also found that the home school student's out-performed their peers in reading and mathematics on the Texas Academic Skills Program. Finally, Gray (1998) found no significant differences between home school and traditional students at three institutions in Georgia (including a public university, a private university and a private college) on the SAT scores, English grades or cumulative grade point averages.

the home school first-year mean grade point average 2.78 and traditional high school graduates mean grade point average at 2.59, [t (106) = .923, p = .358]. The first-year retention 42 students were retained for both home-school and traditional high school gradates after their first semester, [X^sup 2^ (1, N= 108) = .130, p = .818]. Home school graduates earned 23.85 credit hours compared to 22.69 credit hours earned in the first-year for traditional high school graduates, [t (106) = .554, p = .581].

This latter study includes both public & private schooled freshmen compared versus the homeschooled. I will make the claim that if it was only public vs homeschooled, the differences would be greater.

I am not sure how to quantify "walks all over," but I can with confidence state that "lag far behind public school kids" does not describe the homeschool kid population.

[FWIW: I was not home schooled and do not intend to home school my kids. I do know several current/former public school teachers that will never allow their own kids to attend a public school...and have made large & painful sacrifices to keep that commitment.]

--------

It would be nice to see other such data in some of the realms where pros/amateurs can reasonable compete.

 

[BigRobT]

Spreadfire, I will agree with you on the OPEX. Lack of OPEX often turns into a FLAILEX!! As a Permit to Carry person, I have NEVER pointed a gun at someone with the intent to shoot. All I can do is drill into my head to eliminate the threat. I practice, usually monthly. I practice more often whenever possible. Lately, I'm lucky to get monthly practice, if that. I WILL admit that my shooting skills DO diminish with a lack of practice.

 

[sacp81170a]

Caimlas:

I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but it has been shown that criminals are better shots than police in encounters (more likely to hit and more accurate overall) and that law abiding citizens even better still than the criminals, with better accuracy and more likely to hit.

In the Violent Encounters report the authors analyze hit ratios and find that criminals indeed have a higher hit ratio in gunfights than police officers(39% vs 68%). They further analyze the data and find that criminals are typically much closer (15 feet on average vs. 25 feet for officers) when the first shots are fired and that they fire the first shot most of the time. Basically what this means is the criminals often pick the time and place of the attack while officers are in a reactive mode. This goes a long way toward explaining the difference.

I would theorize that uniformed officers are attacked unexpectedly far more frequently than the average concealed weapon carrier, and those attacks more often involve the immediate use of deadly force (i.e., no other crime is being attempted such as robbery or rape on the officer). The CCW surprises the criminal more often and so is more successful in hitting their target. Statistically, this makes sense.

Given these observations, a viable deterrent to violent crime would be to have as many law abiding citizens as possible carry concealed firearms. Sadly, the gun-grabbers can't see the validity of this line of reasoning. :banghead:

It's not so much a matter of "being a better shot" (whatever that means) as it is a matter of having the element of surprise on your side. That's one reason why I don't understand all the cop bashing that sometimes goes on here. When I'm out carrying a concealed weapon, I'm just another John Doe and I feel like I don't stand out in a crowd. When I put a uniform and a badge on, I feel like I've got a big bullseye painted on me.

I also don't understand those police officers who think carrying a defensive firearm should be left "to the professionals". We can't be everywhere and the CCW holder generally is a big surprise to the violent criminal. I want more of 'em on the street, not fewer.

 

[TimboKhan]

I am not sure how to quantify "walks all over," but I can with confidence state that "lag far behind public school kids" does not describe the homeschool kid population.

Well, you bring up some good points, and you bring up some good statistics. Let me clarify the perspective I was coming from with my statement and say that I was referring to kids that went from home to public, not kids that were strictly home schooled. From that perspective, even the Arkansas report that you listed as a source states pretty clearly that the state is unable to draw conclusions related to the academic performance of home schooled students that transfer to public schools. In any event, I am not afraid to admit that I was not 100% correct in my statement.

I would also like to point out that I didn't say "walked over", I merely qouted it. I will stand by my clarified statement for a few reasons:

1. Personal and professional experience have demonstrated pretty clearly to me that home-school kids are behind the curve, particularly in literacy skills, than public-schooled kids. That's based purely on my observations.

2. As mentioned before, home-schooled kids are typically more socially awkward than PS kids. As a teacher, I obviously understand that school is for learning, but learning how to behave and interact socially with your peers is important too. Look, the kid that just won the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee is home-schooled, and he is obviously pretty bright. Have you seen the interview tape flying around the internet? I am not making fun of the kid in any way, but he is going to have a tough time in life if he doesn't learn how to interact with people. Having intelligence above most is a wonderful gift, but if you can't communicate sensibly with people, it is just going to be wasted.

3. I will admit freely that my statistics were taken directly from what I was taught about PS vs. HS kids in college. I don't know what to say other than that, man. Maybe the college is looking at Colorado scores as opposed to national scores, because home-schooled kids are not required to take the CSAP in any way. Looking at the CSAP data from the school that I student taught at (I have a copy in my work-sample), I can see that the kids that transferred into public school did very poorly, and the two kids that simply took the test through our district did better, but were below the top 10% of the regular public school kids. I don't know how to statistically defend my statement any better than that.

4. Finally, I do not believe that most parents have the skills necessary to educate thier kids across all the state standards. I am not implying parents who home school are idiots, and would even go so far as to say that most parents are probably pretty smart. What I am definitively saying is that if a parent is able to teach to state standards in all the required coursework, that parent is a genius. As a professional teacher, I can tell you that I cannot teach mathematics in general past some very limited and basic concepts, and certainly not algebra or calculus. I can teach history, and the social sciences in general very well, but I don't think I could do a great job teaching art, english (although I am quite at home teaching writing and literacy strategies. There is a lot of writing involved with social studies), or music. I think that I could teach science at a basic level, but certainly not an advanced level. More and more schools are incorporating business and technology classes, and I think I could probably do that well enough, but not as well as someone specifically versed in those areas. My point here is that you might very well be capable of teaching your kid advanced science concepts and critical thinking skills, but are you going to be able to teach him the rest of the subjects as well? Sorry, but the answer generally appears to be "no". If you can, godspeed to you.

Finally, away from the home-schooling discussion, I would point out that I am not defending the public school system. Things are broken within it, a point that I think we can all agree on. There is no doubt that there are teachers out there that flat out couldn't care less what your kid does or how well he or she does it. I have seen it, and I am disgusted by it. I have also seen more good teachers than bad, and I am bouyed by that. The system is broken, but not beyond repair. I am going to end that statement there to avoid going into my own personal opinion, but needless to say, I have a real interest in public education.

 

[roo_ster]

TK:

The references I cited were some of the first I came across that were not from HS-advocacy web sites, from which one can find all sorts of splendiferous things about homeschooling. Well, they are advocacy sites.

...Let me clarify the perspective I was coming from with my statement and say that I was referring to kids that went from home to public, not kids that were strictly home schooled....

Yep, the data on the population of formerly HS kids who are now PS is likely hard to come by. I wonder if they are ending up in PS because they & their folks have tried (and failed at) homeschooling? It would make sense that those kids would be lagging, relative to their peers in PS.

I would also like to point out that I didn't say "walked over", I merely qouted it.

That was someone else who claimed that the amateur HS teachers were better able to teach their kids than paid PS teachers. Like I wrote, such a claim is hard to substantiate, though the data I referenced did support a statistically significant HS kids advantage in the case of the Arkansas data.

1. Personal and professional experience have demonstrated pretty clearly to me that home-school kids are behind the curve, particularly in literacy skills, than public-schooled kids. That's based purely on my observations.

I think we need to keep in mind that the HS kids you reference are those that were HS and for whatever reason are now PS. HS kids are a self (or parent) selected group. HS kids that then end up in PS are some segment of that already rather small proportion of the entire school-aged population.

2. As mentioned before, home-schooled kids are typically more socially awkward than PS kids. As a teacher, I obviously understand that school is for learning, but learning how to behave and interact socially with your peers is important too. Look, the kid that just won the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee is home-schooled, and he is obviously pretty bright. Have you seen the interview tape flying around the internet? I am not making fun of the kid in any way, but he is going to have a tough time in life if he doesn't learn how to interact with people. Having intelligence above most is a wonderful gift, but if you can't communicate sensibly with people, it is just going to be wasted.

My wife & I saw it live. For some reason, the spelling bee was oddly engrossing. From the kid's interview and his folks' external appearance & bearing, I immediately slapped "Future Mathematics PhD" in the kids forehead.

I am a Physics/History double-major and currently work in an engineering firm. I have seen in school and now see at work the semi- or undiagnosed Asberger Syndrome types quite a lot. I am not nearly as smart or monomaniacal in their area(s) of expertise, but I can interact with the customer and am sharp enough not to cause the near-genius/AS-types too much impatience. [Office_Space]I have people skills![/Office_Space]

That kid is going to get a doctorate in some terribly exacting discipline, be unemployable outside the university, and be a terrible lecturer, as he does not understand why all those "morons" can't understand what is (to him) blindingly obvious. I pity his future students, as I was in their shoes for some classes.

The HS kids I have had the time to interact with run the gamut from dim bulb to superstar (academically & socially-speaking). The mean is shifted a bit to the right on the g bell curve. This is likely a product of their parents' being sharper than average. The parents' commitment to their kids' education makes the most of their kids' intellect. Also, the greater amount of time spent per day in effective instruction allows for just plain more to be taught over a given year.

One reason given for HS or private schooling is that parents' want nothing to do with public school socialization. [I went to public school from mid third grade until high school graduation, in several states of the Union. My experience bears out the undesirability of socializing to the public school norm when attending even the upper crust (academically) public schools.]

Some parents can give reasons for their revulsion toward the public school system that are based on the research into human development, human nature, & the like:

Genetic Component: Some large percentage greater than 50%.
Peer Component: Some large percentage less than 50% percent
Parenting Component: 'Round 'bout 10%

Others base their revulsion on values and do not want agents of the state to indoctrinate or socialize their kids.

Either way, they grasp that the greatest impact they can have on their kids' outcome is controlling with whom they socialize and seek to minimize the deleterious influences.

3. I will admit freely that my statistics were taken directly from what I was taught about PS vs. HS kids in college.

No doubt.

I took two (one for credit, one audit) education department courses while earning my Phys/Hist degree. I am not at all surprised that such is the party line at Ed Depts. There was a low level of subject matter content and a high level of political content in the courses I took. Enough to turn me off to the idea of taking enough courses to get a cert.

I would grant Ed Dept stats to be about as worthy of trust as HS-advocacy web sites.

4. Finally, I do not believe that most parents have the skills necessary to educate thier kids across all the state standards...What I am definitively saying is that if a parent is able to teach to state standards in all the required coursework, that parent is a genius...My point here is that you might very well be capable of teaching your kid advanced science concepts and critical thinking skills, but are you going to be able to teach him the rest of the subjects as well? Sorry, but the answer generally appears to be "no". If you can, godspeed to you.

The toughest subject matter nut to crack in the HS areas is probably the same as PS: mathematics & hard sciences. Those with such expertise are in demand in the private sector and can command salaries higher than PS administrations are willing to pay.

First, elementary level material is...elementary. An elementary level survey of, say, American history or mathematics, is not a challenge to anyone with a high school diploma worth more than its weight in sheepskin.

I think what a lot of Ed Dept staff and products miss is the nexus of the free market and voluntary organization, especially as manifested in America (See Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America).

Every HS parent does not have to be a polymath, because HS parents are usually networked with other HS parents. This networking offers moral as well as subject matter support. Rod Dreher (columnist for Dallas Morning News & author of Crunchy Cons) reports on how his wife banded together with other HS moms to pool their subject matter expertise. It turns out that, between them, they were able to cover all the tough nuts, from science, to math, to economics, etc. IOW, seeking assistance from and giving to a voluntary association.

Friends of our family in Fort Worth do something similar, but with a market spin. Their group identified disciplines where they were weak and hired the time of instructors to plug the gaps. They did some calling around and identified some of the very best teachers at local private & public schools and then hired them on for a few weeks in the summer. They worked around the instructors' continuing ed requirements and were willing to pay cash for their time & expertise. The parents suspended their kids' studies in other subjects so they could focus on and get the most out of the instructors' time. The level of productivity for such a system (best of instructors; cold, hard, cash; parents 100% on-board, novelty factor for students; center of students' attention; short duration; intensive) was reportedly very high.

------------

Anyways, I think your observation about formerly HS kids entering PS is both key to your conclusions and a very interesting data point.

Good luck.

 

[TimboKhan]

Away from our rather good discussion, I wanted to comment on this:

For some reason, the spelling bee was oddly engrossing

Your right, it is oddly engrossing. However, I can tell you that competing in one sucks. From 5th grade to 7 grade, I won my school level spelling bee and went to the county level competition. I hated every minute of it, because my school experience was narrowed down to doing nothing but learning to spell difficult words. I hated it so much that in 8th grade I intentionally blew the test. The school basically saw through my deception, and by god, I got sent to the county test anyway. There, away from administrators who could see through my ruse, I intentionally misspelled "respiratory" and was sent home. It might be some indication of my level of hatred to consider that I remember exactly what word I misspelled. I am now 35, so eighth grade for me would have been in the 1984-85 school year! It's engrossing, but everytime I see it on ESPN2, I get a little bit of a queasy feeling in my stomach.