From: sylviab@sequent.com (Sylvia Berkowitz)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.bio,sci.chem,misc.education
Subject: Re: What can we have for an educational system?
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:09:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Nov23.220901.28471
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.

In article <By47oF.2z3@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>
>One of the weaknesses of our miseducational system is that there is far too
>much of an emphasis on teaching children to memorize what is immediately
>applicable in the elementary and secondary schools.  This continues on to
>the universities now, and is even reaching the graduate schools.  There 
>does not seem to be any immediate relevance of the axiomatic approach to
>geometry when it is given, but the child is under great unlearning stress
>if computational junk is given at that stage instead of reasoning.
>
>This also holds in other fields.  Is a child forced to do rote taxonomy
>in the lower grades any better prepared to understand molecular biology,
>or even worse, the problems of biochemistry which involve both physical
>and chemical structure of biological materials, later?  Is the child 
>who learns ancient physics better able to understand the simpler, but
>mathematically involuted, models later?  The answer is almost certainly NO.

This last reminded me of a story from "Surely You're joking, Mr. Feynman!"
It concerns the time that Feynman took a side step into biology. When it
came time to give a talk on his paper (on the nature of nerve impulses)...
Well, I'll let him tell it.

           When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I
     started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name off
     the various muscles.
	   The other students in the class interrupt me, "We *know* all 
     that!"
	   "Oh," I say, "you do? Then no wonder I can catch up with you
     so fast after you've had four years of biology."  They had wasted 
     all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked
     up in fifteen minutes.

Also, I wanted to say thank you for your comment about physics.  I started
taking physics (with calc) this term, and I can't tell you how much of my
original enthusiasm has been dampened due to the rote problem solving 
"skills" approach.  All I want as a student is for someone to help me
understand what's going on!  My ability to solve problems will come as
a consequence of that understanding. However, when someone trys to teach
me, by giving me a series of methods or "skills," you can forget it. 
I won't remember it.
I won't be able to relate it. 
I won't be able to apply it.
I can't memorize a technique to save my life, but I CAN LEARN.

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


-- 

Sylvia A. Berkowitz	sylviab@sequent.com	uunet!sequent!sylviab
"It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in
a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find
Xref: sparky sci.math:15025 sci.physics:18943 sci.astro:12038 sci.bio:4138 sci.chem:4604 misc.education:4327