Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 8 Jan 1993 06:30:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Tech school offerings (17)

Entry: 17
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 04:26:20 EST
From: IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.COM" Robert Royar, (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id: <1993Jan08.042620.v7.062.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject: Tech school offerings (17)
Reply-to: "Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

>Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:26:22 -0600
>From: Gallus <galbri@bernoulli.bethel.edu>
>Subject: RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) What I was NOT complaining about/ (Required Courses)
  (18)
>Message-id: <199301080126.AA01548@bernoulli.bethel.edu>

>becoming less and less.  If this keeps up, the country will be filled with no
>liberal arts schools, and thousands of "tech" schools; I want my children to

Yes, this is a problem. At my school (a tech school) there is a constant
tension between the goals of a liberal arts education--with well-rounded
course offerings--and the desire to offer a structured, intense, and
career-oriented technical curiculum. Ironically, the most popular (and
by-far the largest) school in the NYIT system is the school of Liberal Arts
Sciences and Communication. We're also the school that ranks highest on the
student satisfaction and retention scores. Our students are mostly
non-traditional, many first and second generation Citizens, most first
generation College students.

>By not teaching students about the world in the lower educational
>levels, they nolonger have an active interest in doing so when they finally hav
e
>the chance.

I was lucky enough to have gotten world history courses in grades 2-6
(again later in high school). But I was unfortunate that history,
geography, and extra reading time did not allow my elementary school to
offer any science curriculum. I read about science topics on my own but
would have loved to have had some opportunity even to talk about
electricity (for example) in grades 4-6.

There is always a trade off. But even with the more traditional background,
the classses were still large (30+ students by grade 4). By the sixth grade
about 1/3 of the class was way behind the other 2/3s and lost. Only about
1/6 were "succeding" enough in the math to make it into a college track in
middle and high school. This meant that the 1/6 of us who were succeding
struggled the next year when introduced to advanced math concepts that our
sixth-grade teacher could not get to because most of the class never got
the math basics. (From the test results 6 of the students from the sixth
grade were reading at a second grade or lower level. She had a difficult
time trying to teach a class with such a broad range of preparedness.)

On the other hand, considering that two generations before mine the
percentage of students who got past the eighth grade was about 10% in our
state (Kentucky), the elementary system was doing a better job of adapting
the education for the largest number of purveyors of the service.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "Do not search for the truth. Simply cease to cherish opinion."
                                                                 -Sengstan

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