From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Re: Demise of honor programs in public high schools
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:43:42 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <1992Aug26.031807.13245@jlc.mv.com> john@jlc.mv.com (John Leslie) writes:
>In article <BtGtF1.60B@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu 
>(Herman Rubin) writes:

>>This has been stated repeatedly on this group, but there are always new
>>readers.  I claim that we will never have even a fair educational system
>>as long as our children are prevented from learning because others cannot
>>do what they can.  

>   This is a strange indictment, when you think about it.  But I've spoken
>with a number of students who favor honors classes.  Many of them seem to
>believe they will learn less in a classroom which admits average students.
>To me, it just doesn't ring true.

>   I went through an honors track in high school, thirty years ago.  As I
>remember it, the students had widely differing intellectual ability --
>the common thread being the interest in learning, not the IQ score.  It
>never occurred to me that my learning was impeded by "lower-ability"
>students being in the same room; and I still don't believe it was.

You did not go through what was even up to the college preparatory 
program before the decay set in.  The present honors courses are very
weak in promoting thinking, partially because the current crop of teachers
have been trained toward "objectivity."

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

>>Even the honors programs crawl compared to what can, and should, be done.

>   Aha!  We see that Herman Rubin believes the problem is fundamental,
>not a result of having or not having honors classes.  I think he, too,
>sees a paradigm problem -- that we put students into a classroom, but
>something we do _prevents_ them from learning to their ability.  

>   I find it really hard to agree.  In the first place, I wouldn't know
>how to do it.  I know plenty of things that slow _me_ down a little --
>for a while --  when I set out to learn some particular thing.  Perhaps,
>if we controlled the student's entire life, we _could_ prevent some --
>even most -- of them from learning a particular subject.

We make them sit through classes designed for robots, not thinking people.  
We punish them for coming up with insights well beyond the capabilities of
the others in the class, and of the teachers themselves.  We make them do
hours of meaningless drill, which contributes only to misunderstanding.  
We do not even tell them about the important material, but teach what is
best left to robots.

*I* could do this in the classes I teach, by teaching mechanics and drill,
and restricting the use of concepts.  In fact, I see the students taught
in this way, and it is hard to get them out of the deep rut which has been
dug by those who emphasize computing results instead of understanding what
is going on.

And when they still think, the idiots we have for teachers tell them not
to "show off."  They at least subconsciously encourage the bullys to beat
them up.

A substantial portion of our high school students do not have access to 
a book which even indicates that there is formal grammar.  But most of
the high school English teachers do not understand formal grammar; many
of them were brought up in the tradition that language is only what is
spoken.  Most of them could not read Shakespeare. 

A substantial portion of our high school students do not have access to a
geometry course which emphasizes the understanding of what a theorem is and
what a proof is.  It matters little whether they learn geometry facts; these
can be looked up.  A substantial proportion of our high school students are
not even taught about word problems.  I personally would make the college
entrance requirement in mathematics the formulation of long word problems;
this is the mathematical equivalent of writing English paragraphs.  But
only a minority of high school mathematics teachers can do this themselves.

A substantial portion of our high school students are place is classes in
biology, chemistry, and physics which totally misconstrue the subjects as
essentially technology.  How many people outside the sciences know the 
difference between science and technology? 

>>   But we don't come anywhere close to controlling their entire life.
>At most, we control six out of twenty-four hours for 180 out of 365 days
>a year.  And I don't know any professional who believes one "teacher"
>can control twenty students that closely.  Nor do I know any professional
>who would be willing to do it if s/he could.

Time is needed for eating, sleeping, and recreation.  And an antiacademic
attitude on the part of the schools, where there is not an overwhelming
community academic attitude, such as with the Asians, can kill it.

There was a substantial period during which elementary school children were
not allowed to bring home books, because they might learn something not 
taught in class.  There was also the "whole word" method of reading, which
finally was defeated by outside sources coming up with materials which the
parents could use even if they were not well educated.  (However, they have
not given up; there is now the "whole language" approach.)  Instead of 
children being given situations in which they could apply what is learned
in one course to another, the "spiral method" of teaching is now in vogue.

It can be countered, but only by effectively having the child learn completely
outside the school system.  Only a really exceptional child could find the
basic mathematics books hidden on the library shelves, and still will have
no idea about what to read.  Will the library even have the grammar books
separated from the "literature", which is mainly philosophical propaganda?
And how is the child going to guess that these books contain the structure
of the language, and that this structure can be used for understanding and
efficient learning?  How will the child be able to guess that a grammar-
oriented foreign language approach will provide even several times the 
vocabulary of a "learn the language like the educationists think that a
child learns it" course?

>   I'd like to see a lot more details of what "can, and should, be done."
>We have at least a few professional educators here -- I'd like to see
>them asking questions about how to do it.  How about it?

Are you talking about educators, or educationists?  There are few educators
in the schools of education, only educationists.  Most good academic people
in the subject matter fields would advocate abolishing the schools of
education, and putting in honest subject matter standards.  But this can 
only be done by putting in pressures which will allow a university to gain
by doing it; any university which puts in honest standards for prospective
teachers will turn out very few.
-- 
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)