From: rhs@world.std.com (Richard H Schwartz)
Subject: Re: Student: Teach Thyself
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:34:17 GMT

werme@alliant.com (Ric Werme) writes:

>There are two skills schools should teach, but generally don't.  

In school I learned the following maxim:  "All generalizations are 
false.  Including this one."  You have started your essay with a 
major generalization.  It deserves to be challenged.

My contention is that public schools vary widely, as do teachers,
as do private schools.  My memory of public high school is that
it was very easy to tell not only which students had been in 
private elementary schools, but also which students had been in
each of our several public elementary schools.  There were differnces
in creativity, reasoning ability, and knowledge, not to mention
discipline.  It was my impression that the private school students
were mediocre in each category.

Of course I got a very different impression of private school students
when I was in college, along with graduates of most of the finest and
most exclusive preps in the country.  For about the annual cost of a
new car, they got wonderful educations.

>First
>is the hard work of thinking.  Too many students get into the rut of
>cramming for a test for the best grade and then forget everything they
>learned until they cram for the final exam.  

Schools do not teach this.  Parents who subject their children to reward
or punishment based on their test grades and report cards do. 

>The other skill is teaching
>oneself.  The two skills are closely related, and some of the tricks
>below help to acquire both. 

I agree with you on this, but I contend that the ability to teach this
is a rare skill.  I had one teacher who was brilliant.  In a subject that
other teachers taught by rote memorization, Geometry, she taught to
develop instincts for probOAlem solving and ways to turn those instincts
into formal expressions of proofs.  But guess what?  When I got into
higher math, I sure could have used some of that memorization:  I spent
45 minutes solving a linear algebra problem by hand (a six by six matrix)
which other students solved in 30 seconds by remembering a particular
trig identity.  Oh well.

>The standard complaint I received on my lab reports was that they were
>never detailed enough.  I knew the teacher knew the subject and I knew
>that he knew that I knew the material (whew!), so write all that stuff?
>The solution would have been simple.  If lab reports were graded by the
>science and english teachers, then I would have covered everything,
>assuming that the english teacher did not know the material.  It would
>also be a real world application of english.

I had the same problem.  I had the same science teacher three years in
a row.  By the third year we knew each other so well that the only way
he could get me to do good work was to come down extra hard on me for
every little omission.

Nice solution.  But it's time-intensive for the teachers. What would
the science teacher do for the english teacher in exchange?

>into a group exploration of Sounds of Silence and other poems.  Science
>fiction should be a sizable part of the curriculum because it helps
>prepare people for our changing world.  My favorite novel is Heinlein's
>The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  One of its subplots explored surrogate
>motherhood decades before invitro fertization made it possible. 

Science fiction may have a place, but I don't think a sizable one would
be appropriate.  There's too much other literature out there.  And please
note: not everyone, not even all Mensans, likes sci-fi.

>History was another bane, and I think much of my trouble with it was the
>political nature of the history taught in schools.  

Could you elaborate?

I think that history, per se, was a very poorly taught subject through
most of my schooling.  But I blame the horrible repetitiveness from 
one year to the next, and the extraordinarily poor quality of the texts.


>series on computer history, much to my annoyance.) A more "politically
>correct" approch to take is to examine some of the tenets of the
>Libertarian Party.  

Say what?  Perhaps this belongs in a civics class (I had a great one in
public school, with a great teacher), but not history.  

>Just don't explore the decline of education that
>began with compulsory public education!

>I had Latin in French in that private school, and Spanish in public
>school.  One of the reasons for studying a foreign language, according
>to my administration, was that it helps to understand the structure of
>English.  If that's the case, then you should study Esperanto. 

It does very little, however, for your understanding of the evolution of
language or the cultural implications of language.  Nor will it give you
the opportunity to expand your literary horizons to the works of great non-
English authors (outside of translation).  Nor will it help you find the 
rest rooms in an airport in Mexico :-)

>Esperanto was designed from scratch, drawing on many European languages
>for word bases.  The result has no special cases and can be learned
>about 25% faster than foreign languages.

One of the important facets of language just may be those special cases.
Our language has plenty of them.  

>  There are Esperanto magazines
>that are international by their very nature, and teach a lot about
>multiple foreign cultures.  If the school doesn't offer Esperanto, this
>would be a great subject for an after school club. 

It would be fun, but it shouldn't replace the study of modern foreign
languages.  (Written by someone who only took Latin and strongly regrets
it :-)

>The one course I should have taken but didn't was typing.  I imagine in
>these days of computers it's now mandatory and I assume it is taught on
>word processors.  Learn your word processor forward and backward, and
>use it for everything.  If I had a computer, the courses it would have
>improved the most would have been english and history.  A word processor
>makes writing much easier for a novice writer. 

If developing good handwriting weren't so important, I'd say that typing
should be taught in elementary grades.  And if budget wasn't an issue,
I'd say that english composition should be taught exclusively on word 
processors (sometimes with and sometimes without integrated spelling
and grammar checkers).

>it hard for a student to attend a gym class with his age group.  About
>the best I can offer is to concentrate on individual sports like
>bicycling and skiing.  If people protest that you are not learning the
>teamwork skills often touted for the athletic program, point out that
>other activities like Odessey of the Mind or Dungeons and Dragons teach
>teamwork better. 
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                              Where's the smiley?
                                              You must be kidding about
                                              about this, aren't you?
        
>Many of the horror stories I hear through Mensa include items like the
>student who answered the question "Which country has the highest
>population density?" with an answer he remembered from an almanac.  This
>was not the country taught in class, so it was marked wrong and the
>student couldn't sway the teacher to accept his answer, even after
>further research on his part supported his answer.  The inflexibility I
>see in your adminstration's rebuttal seems consistant with this "We're
>right, you're wrong, we know what's best for you" stance.  Well, school
>is supposed to be challenging.  Good luck. 

I have two stories like this of my own, and many other cases where I 
argued teachers to a draw.  I chalked it up as part of my education: learning
how to make my case and then walk away maturely, knowing I was right, even
when I couldn't win.  :-)

School administrations are inflexible for many reasons.  Equating that to
the inflexibility of an individual teacher, however, is a stretch.  It's
a pity they won't set up AP classes for students who can use them, but
I doubt it's a matter of "we know what's best for you", nearly as much
as it is budgetary politics.

-- 
             Richard H. Schwartz, Scheduling Systems Inc.,
            1000 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA  02138
                  (617) 864 8330; FAX (617) 864 8377
                          rhs@world.std.com
From: Dave.Aronson@f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Aronson)
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