From: brumby@nella7.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen McNamara)
Subject: Re: Spheres and Calculus (Rants on Education)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:26:07 GMT


   Like several other people here, the brumby also has his own opinions
about how education should be run. :-)

pat@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Louis Sugent) writes:

>korz@cs.columbia.edu (Frederick Korz) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec19.234517.5334@ucc.su.OZ.AU> DM writes:
>>>
>>>DM is surprised. "Don't you folks in the US learn calculus in high
>>>school? What _do_ you learn in high school mathematics? (To clarify
>>>my point - Australian high school students do learn calculus. Not too
>>>advanced, but enough to solve reasonably tricky problems.)"

   "Um, one point to remember here DM, is that the Aus and US education
systems are rather different, despite using the same names for vaguely
similar areas. I got to compare things with an American exchange student
once about 12 years ago. Things have undoubtedly changed a lot since then
(certainly Victoria has had a complete change in post-primary and a number
of major changes in tertiary education since then). One difference is that
in Aus, we don't seem to have an equivalent to college. We also spent more
weeks of the year in school (the girl I was speaking to was amazed at how
short our holidays were) at least at primary (elementary in the US?) and
high school levels. From that we figured that finishing high school in Aus
was probably equivalent to getting part way through college. What people
have described as the standard high school maths course in various parts
of the US sounds a lot like the level that maths had reached by Year 10 in
Victoria, the earliest that you are allowed to leave school here. Calculus
was introduced in the final two years of high school, although it could be
avoided by taking business maths I beleive. (I did Pure Maths and Applied
Maths, the standard pre-requisites for a Uni science course. In those
calculus was probably around quarter to a third of the course, although I
can't remember clearly now.)"

   (I think I'm losing track of attributions here, be nice to me, I've only
had half a dozen short cat-naps in the last 24 hours.)

>>  My turn to have a hot button pushed.  Not that I'm seriously angry 16
>>years later, but I've got a slow simmer going on education in general

   "Well, I've also got something of a hot button regarding education, at
least the Victorian lock-step system."

>  "Well, in my case, the answer was 'yes' for 5%-10% of our school.  Basically,
>it was not required, but my year had a relatively high number of 'bright'
>students and our school responded by actually adding programs.  It was
>amazing.  They also added some science, history, and literature courses
>for us.

   The brumby sighs.
   "Most of my problems (well, the academic rather than the social ones)
were set in primary school where the only funds availiable for special
programs were for remedial programs. So in order that the funding for
remedial programs wasn't strained the curriculum was set somewhere below
the average level of the students. Basically I was bored to tears. I did
study things that interested me at the local library but after I was caught
teaching things to others who were interested the teachers started sending
notes home asking my parents not to teach me at home as it disrupted the
flow of the class. My parents had no idea what I was doing, but followed
the advice of the supposed education professionals anyway."
   "Unfortunately that set a pattern where I knew that I could pick up
what the class was doing in a few minutes, so there was no point to paying
attention most of the time. I am still fighting against that now, more than
12 years later, when I am seriously starting to find my limits, and having
to study seriously to try and extend them."

>>[[Patrons who've "been there, done it" might want to skim or skip the rest...]]

   "Some people might want to skip the whole thread." :-)

>  "This couldn't be more true at any level (IMHO).  The questions are (IMHO),

>  "How does the educational system actually get students interested
>in education?  

   "I suspect, if US schools are anything like Aus schools in this respect,
the first step is to do something about the tremendous peer pressure to not
stand out academically."

>  "How do we get such monolithic institutions such as the
>Chicago Public School system to stop playing politics and actually respond
>to the needs of the students?  

  "So long as there is money involved somewhere, people are going to play
politics with it. I'm pretty cynical on the whole business right now
because of some of the changes made by the new State government elected
here in October. They are re-organising the Education Department (at last!)
along 'economically rational' lines. (oh sh#*!) So far they are closing
down about 450 schools (I can't remember exact figures right now) and
sending the students to other schools in order to bring up the average class
sizes to 30-40. One interesting fact is that most of the schools closed are
in the poorer suburbs of Melbourne, where the students are going to have
more trouble getting to other schools that are further away."

>> Of course around here, The Place, I'm probably preaching to the choir.

>  "Well, true enough in my case, but it does help vent frustration.

   "Heh, I could probably go on for an awful lot longer on this, but I
doubt that any more is of interest to anyone outside Victoria."


-- 
     The Silver Brumby of          brumby@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
      the Silicon Plains            brumby@zikzak.apana.org.au

      The grass is always greener on the other side of the network.
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