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

[Charlie Springer <RAM@regnirps.com>]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:59:00 -0700, Michael J. Mahon wrote
(in article <pP-dnd0LM5r3dLzbnZ2dnUVZ_ternZ2d@comcast.com>):

> 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.

It has always been this way to some extent. I come from a family of teachers 
and the stories go back to the first school in eastern Washington.

The great mathematician Felix Klein published a series of lectures about 1900 
called Elementary Mathematics from an Advanced Standpoint. One is on algebra 
and analysis and the other on geometry. I have old German editions, but the 
english translations have been reprinted and are cheap on Amazon and highly 
recommended. (You will learn about tensors before they were called tensors. 
They are vectors with a twist.)

His purpose was to bring the high schools back into alignment with the 
universities. The public educators had strayed so far afield that new 
students in the university had to learn the language of mathematics all over 
again and were at a disadvantage compared to French or English students.

In 1952 a professor at Harvard published a fantastic physics book (forget his 
name (Holton? I use it for reference but it is in another house right now) 
that was the basis for lectures for a generation of university professors. 
Why did he write it? Because the public schools had become so creative in 
their teaching that incoming freshmen were speaking an entirely different 
science/math language than the university researchers and lecturers.

I think I see a 50 year cycle here and we are in the deep end of another. How 
will the reform take place with an ever more powerful core of "professional 
educators" creating curriculum and guidlines at the State level and a 
powerful union like the NEA/state that fully supports the latest pedagogical 
theories? This state has the EALR's, detailed buzz word descriptions of 
everything that should be learned. It proved incomprehensible, so now we all 
have copies of the GLE's; Grade Level Expectations, which are almost readable 
translations into eduspeak. Teachers are expected to be able to show a 
written lesson plan that includes little number/letter references to the 
portions of the GLE that the sections of the plan are aligned to. As if there 
wasn't enough work already.

They praise diversity but demand sameness. Fortunately, many older teachers 
ignore it. Those fresh out of school embrace it all in an embarrassing 
lock-step or brain washed ignorance.

-- Charlie Springer