From: wkl1@ra.msstate.edu (Wing-Keong Loke                                               the consummate chronic prevaricator)
Subject: Re: Is Math Hard?
Organization: Mississippi State University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 03:49:27 GMT

In article <Bx99En.1w8@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <1347@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>>In article <10620@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal F Lillywhite) writes:
>>|In article <1992Oct24.213306.23123@ra.msstate.edu> wkl1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Wing-Keong Loke                                               the consummate chronic prevaricator) writes:
>
>>|>	The problem with accountability is that teachers are being made
>>|>accountable to the taxpayer which is wrong, since the taxpayer probably
>
>Which teaching professionals?  The current system is dominated by a particular
>set of teaching professionals, namely, the ones in the schools of education.
>If one would try to get just a group of university professors, it would be
>difficult to keep it from being dominated by those who are now continuing
>the methods of the high schools into the universities.

Oh well, when I proposed that we should leave the job of education to profs
I had in mind certain profs whom I hold in worship.  I forgot that we are
not able to read minds!
	NO! No, no, no!  Don't let those in the "education" corner dominate.
I think those people stress to much on methodology.  They forget that the
best education is to open the student's mind.  The best professors are, by
virtue of their enthusiasm, their knowledge, etc., make the students want to
learn.  I have one prof who opens his door to students all day long, and while
were supposed to make appointments (it's written on the course syllabus and
from time to time he mentions that anybody needs help in so and so should
make an appointment to see him), I for my life have never made an appointment
with him, always barging in on him until I felt certain guilt.  All the while
he never gave a peep about how I materialize without warning at his door-
step from time to time.

>
>It takes a group of scholars, and the tendency is to make it hard for people
>to become scholars.  They are there, and busy.  But they will be willing to
>help.  But with the present political situation, they can help best if there
>is no formal setup.
>
>Also, the scholars cannot state what the goals should be in detail.  The 
>group of university people who started the new math did not know what could
>be accomplished, and had to feel it out.  Furthermore, one must realize that
>a good educational system of any kind is likely to involve alternative ways
>at almost every point.  Anybody who thinks that we know the best way to teach
>any given part of mathematics, and that it is essentially the same for all, 
>is either ignorant or stupid.
>
>Thus, we need the freedom to listen to people, and decide for individuals,
>not for society as a whole.
>-- 
>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)

Oh, this part is wonderful!  Yeah, the FREEDOM to listen and DECIDE for
oneself. No, how sick has education to be before someone prescribes the REAL
medicine?  The university system that I'm experienceing sometimes seem to
react with anathema against choice of freedom and decision.  The only sane
thing about the system is that it hires such wonderful professors who
spend so much time and thought into teaching and researching that they don't
have the mind for politics.
	I think the example about how a group of scholars had to feel out
new math is an excellent example of how education should be for the students.
Students need to "feel out" the stuff that they're learning.  No joke, it's
possibly the most important.  My freshman anthropology prof told me how he
once got a consulting offer to write out an study on the impact of building
a factory near/on an aboriginal settlement.  He wrote that there'd be a
negative impact and he never heard about any consulting offer ever after.
He also remarks that there are these Ph.D. people who go around writing up
whatever the companies want, even if it means ruining the aboriginal cultures
which the antrhopologists are supposed to be concerned about.
	I feel that part of the problem is that learning is done in the
environment of intellectual alienation with what is being learned.  I'd
say we should expect a Ph.D. math student to deeply care about what he
does on a personal level.  HOWEVER, I don't know how this is ever going to
be accomplished if universities are going to mass produce students like
they do now.  You know, it's like the deregulation of the poultry indus-
try, sure, with the burden of inspection and quality falling on the 
shoulders  of the poultry industry, we get a higher production and cheaper
prices, but at what cost?  There was  a Wall Street Journal report this
year about faeces and other ugly things about the poultry processing plant
that'd want to make you swear of poultry meat altogether.

Xref: sparky misc.education:4264 sci.astro:11921 sci.bio:4110 sci.chem:4536 sci.math:14852 sci.physics:18770