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Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!

Charlie Springer wrote:

On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 16:26:46 -0700, aiiadict@gmail.com wrote
(in article <1176593206.897785.98680@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>):



 There is a problem with "working hard on education".  The US
education
system is governed by leaders.  stuperintendent...  governor...
pRESIDENT.  They dictate what gets taught and what does not.  As I see
it (being one of their students about 8 years ago) they teach nothing
but how to be a sheep.  Go with the flow or you'll be outcast, put
down, ridiculed.

 How do you change education, to get better leaders, when the leaders
control education?  (that's a sick group of words if I've ever seen
one.  "leaders control education"... yuck)...  catch 22
Are you saying cooperative group investigations and mathematics though discovery didn't work you for you ;-) 

SAT test taker -- "Hey, where's my group!"
One of our math teachers was told this year not to teach the pythagorian theorem to high school sophomores because they were going to "discover it" for them selves near the end of their junior year. The same goes for concepts in linear algebra and trig. In other words, the average student is expected to discover things that took 2,500 years or more of the best minds on the planet.
BTW, we don't call them students anymore. They are to be called "learners". Kind of presumptuous isn't it? So now some are what I call "reluctant learners." 

-- Charlie Springer
Yes, I left my physics career to help with the science and math teacher shortage. Now I know why there is one :-) 

Wow, Charlie...

It's really frustrating to see the educational system dominated by an
establishment that knows so little about the subjects they are supposed
to teach that they interfere with anyone who would attempt actually to
teach.

So much of our educational system is a "cargo cult", in which doing
things that look or sound like "what teachers should do" is more
important than actually *doing* what teachers do.

The students aren't fooled for long--they quickly lose interest in
what they perceive as a pointless game.

I'm very thankful that, in almost every school, there are one or two
teachers who have found a way to keep the spark alive.  There are always
a few kids who find them, and get their fires lit and fanned bright.
Heaven help us if we lose those few teachers--and those kids.

Of course, it would help if we could start to pay good teachers a
wage competitive with what they could easily earn in industry.  As
it is, many fine teachers simply go where they are appreciated.

-michael

NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."