NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/educatio/4391

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-19 | 3.3 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: misc.education,sci.bio,sci.chem,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: What can we have for an educational system?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:54:24 GMT
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Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles C. Lin) writes:


>    One problem with education is that is has a fairly low stature among
>those who would like to particiapte, and that education is something that
>requires a lot of people.   Given that the "best" students choose not
>to go to education, and given that you will always need a large number
>of teachers, then you will face the problem of having teachers who
>are not as competent as one would like.

>    Now, it's hard, in general, to get teachers who are great at motivation
>like Jaime Escalante, just like it may be difficult to get high quality
>lawyers or doctors who can perform some kinds of legal cases or surgery.
>How does one teach how to teach?   The method that some subscribe to is
>that if they're bad, get rid of them.   The teachers, that is.  If we
>do that, then we're going to run out of teachers very quickly.   What
>is needed is someone or some group that can efficiently teach teachers
>and evaluate teachers on their ability to teach, and this is always
>fraught with politics.   Who is to decide who is a good teacher and who
>is not?  And so forth.

If we put in any standards about who is a good teacher, we will find we
are already out of them.  As to how to teach, how to motivate, etc., we
will have to learn how to do it, and also realize that we do not know
enough.  We have suffered from the schools of education using objective
tests to measure learning, when the important things to be learned cannot
be so measured.  We have suffered from eliminating most of the challenges
for students to apply what they learned in situation A to situation B,
because they could not do this as well as spouting memorized details.

But we can see it a teacher knows the subject.  In some cases, we can see
if a teacher can learn the subject.  If not, how much good is the teacher
doing by teaching the subject?  Every indication I get is that most of the
present teachers could not learn what most of those they are teaching can
learn except rote.  We cannot make progress by being willing to accept the
results.  If college students cannot formulate word problems, we have to
consider that they have not been taught this at all, or taught this so
quickly that learning was essentially impossible, not that they were unable
to learn it when it was properly taught.  If not all can learn it, so be it;
nothing is gained by false certification.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
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