From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: sci.med,misc.education
Subject: Re: A Question/Proposal for "Health Care Consumers"
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:53:41 GMT
Followup-To: misc.education
Distribution: usa
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department


The original article here was a request by a high school student for good
health education.  The one I am directly responding to was written by a
"health educator."  Followups are directed to misc.education.

In article <1992Jul21.135225.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu> morris@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:
>In article <1992Jul17.190304.10063@highlite.uucp>, yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin) writes:

			......................

>> If I could have _my_ way, we wouldn't excite the latent educrat in
>> elementary teachers by making them take empty courses in mindless subjects
>> like "education."  If you're good with children and know of what you
>> teach, you're a good teacher - no matter how many academic bureaucracies
>> you've mastered.  If you're not, you shouldn't be allowed within a mile
>> of them anyway.
>I wish this were true.  I had a number of teachers who had emergency
>certification (back in the days when there was a severe shortage of
>teachers) who knew their subject incredibly well and who liked kids.
>They got emergency certification because they had degrees in the fields
>in which they were going to teach - math, chemistry, etc.
>However their teaching was ineffective because they did not know how
>to teach.  It is the problem with most college professors - they are
>experts in their field but they have never been taught to teach.

This is the typical edubabble.  One can be taught to teach rote memorization
and routine manipulation.  I see the output of the acclaimed good teachers.
To understand, the student has to unlearn a lot, and get out of the idea
that education consists in memorization and routine.

One can be taught to teach arithmetic, or algebraic manipulation, or the
dozens of types of calculation in the calculus courses.  But the students
turned out are even possibly at a disadvantage in understanding arithmetic
or algebra or calculus.  Those teachers who know the stuff can teach those
students who are willing to learn.

Also, not all of those with emergency certification in a subject knew the
subject at all.  The classical case was that of the Phys. Ed. teacher 
getting emergency certification to teach math and physics--after all,
he is concerned with physical development!

			......................

>I am sorry that you think that health is watered-down pap.  As many of the
>ignorant questions (not necessarily from stupid people) and our wasted
>productivity because of sick days show, most people do not know how to
>take care of themselves.  Our children are unable to learn because of
>poor health.  Unlike you I believe in prevention - I would rather teach
>the man to swim so he does not drown rather than to build an elaborate
>system to save him after he does drown.

I suggest you make yourself aware that the most effective method to 
avoid drowning is NOT swimming!  This was well publicized some years
ago; it was a scientist who found a way to survive for prolonged
periods which involved little training, and which was superior to
either swimming or the various floating techniques.

			......................

>Actually my specialty has been proven to be efficacious and to return far
>more money than it costs.  When trained health educators are used rather
>than persons untrained in health education, health education works -
>people live longer and have fewer sick days. Large companies such as
>Johnson & Johnson and AT&T have found that health education pays.
>Unfortunately their programs have to teach their employees what they 
>should have learned as children in schooll. 

You are not educating them, you are training them. 

			...................

-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)