Re: education
From: Will Twentyman (wtwentyman_at_read.my.sig)
Date: 09/27/04
- Next message: James Waldby: "Re: finding the area of highest concentration"
- Previous message: Ken Pledger: "Re: Humor in research proposal"
- In reply to: Tron99: "Re: education"
- Next in thread: Herman Rubin: "Re: education"
- Reply: Herman Rubin: "Re: education"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 17:15:16 -0400
Tron99 wrote:
> Will Twentyman <wtwentyman@read.my.sig> wrote in message news:<4151dd37_2@newsfeed.slurp.net>...
>
>>What level are you talking about? Some of your comments may apply well
>>to a grad student, but very poorly to a high school student.
>
>
> My comments apply to some grade in elementary school and above
> including high school, college, and graduate school. Teachers in the
> majority are not qualified to teach math and/or the sciences, and I
> mean the vast majority.
Based on this one statement, I have to question everything else. What
do you mean by qualified? If you mean having adequate mathematical
knowledge, then the elementary school teachers could be questionable.
On the other hand, if you mean having adequate teaching skills, the
elementary teachers should be fine.
> Like you say below, you can't be an expert in
> all areas of math, but the teacher is certainly not an expert in all
> areas, but they teach math at the lower grades and even college
> without an expert qualification.
Again, what do you mean by "expert qualification"? Most colleges
require the teacher of record to have at least a Master's degree, and a
Doctorate for teaching graduate students.
> I think that math is given 60
> minutes a day in elementary school, and I know in high school I had
> only one math class in any one semester. Students in the majority are
> going to come to college with deficiencies in math in all areas
> because of this.
I got through two semesters of calculus in high school. Is that
deficient? What is?
> The solution is to remove the traditional teacher
> and have online materials and books. Students can be lectured at if
> they feel the need by experts in the field they are studying from the
> earliest age, and be lectured at through videos. I wouldn't put it
> past having an online mentor who can assist students who have
> questions, and I'm sure there would be people who would want to help
> the students, especially elderly people who have retired from their
> research careers.
You appear to have an inflated view of the value of the online materials
that are available, at least from what I've seen. For example, I
wouldn't expect most 1st graders to learn arithmatic on sci.math. I've
seen some software that is quite good, and other software that sucks.
Videos do not answer questions. You appear to want to replace the
teacher with technology and volunteers.
> If the students are in a school building then they
> can ask each other as well. This system also would remove tests and
> grades in the traditional sense. A student could test himself
> relevant to a given test to see how he is progressing. At some point
> in the lower grades, you will find students who for some reason or
> another have advanced beyond his peers, and they will probably be
> geographically isolated from each other. The solution is not to ship
> them from their family but to connect them to the internet.
Wouldn't it be easier to redefine peers as something based on aptitude
with a subject rather than age?
> Similarly
> there will be students who will be behind his peers, and they can
> query people at their level or above. Remember, teachers are not
> qualified to teach math in the majority.
Yet you feel that fellow students are consistently better qualified?
> Trying to get all the
> teachers qualified is not going to work. Number one there will be a
> refractory time between they are qualified and the students who need a
> productive setting. Secondly, having full time teachers is a waste of
> efficiency. You take the teachers who are the best or who are rated
> best online, and they will probably be the ones the students select
> when they go about learning a subject. Secondly, having full time
> teachers is a waste for the teacher. Instead of being able to
> research, his or her time is spent on students.
This comment shows complete disrespect for the teacher. What if the
teacher doesn't want to do research? What if a teacher is ideally
qualified (by whatever standards you have in mind) to teach, and wants
to do absolutely no research? Being good at research doesn't make a
person a good teacher.
> I claim that without
> sufficient time to research, that teachers skills will gradually
> degrade over time and there will be a tendency towards "standardized"
> teaching and rote learning, because the teacher needs to actively work
> on his own math skills to retain what he has already learned.
There is a difference between doing research and staying on top of
skills learned.
> What will happen is that a student will be able to read from a
> rated book or instruction material so that he can be pretty sure that
> the direction that he is going has been approved by those before him.
> As it stands now, people have to jaw with each other or ask questions
> on the internet to see what book somebody should read to gain
> knowledge in a field. There will be a tendency to catalogue
> information and data to assist the person in the field, so that one
> can be sure that no matter where they are, they can have access to
> what is judged the best material available. There is an inbalance of
> knowledge in the world today, and there is an inbalance of people who
> are skilled enough to lecture at or assist a student. When it's done
> on computer and it's stamped with the seal of approval of people, then
> somebody can have greater confidence that they are being dealt the
> best hand. Somebody can still read and search material that is not
> rated or is even rated bad by someone. Anyway, this could use some
> brushing up and is only a general draft. Hope this answers your
> questions.
I suspect you haven't looked at the options that actually exist. I
definitely don't know what your standards are, but they appear to have
little to do with educational theory, or an awareness of some of the
realities we face.
-- Will Twentyman email: wtwentyman at copper dot net
- Next message: James Waldby: "Re: finding the area of highest concentration"
- Previous message: Ken Pledger: "Re: Humor in research proposal"
- In reply to: Tron99: "Re: education"
- Next in thread: Herman Rubin: "Re: education"
- Reply: Herman Rubin: "Re: education"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
