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#271
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
"Herman Rubin" wrote in message ... In article om, wrote: When my daughter was in high school, there were NO grammar classes, and she realized her grammar was weak. Strong English grammar is needed, and rarely available. You really should stop using your daughter as an example of today's poor educational system. She's 50 years old, hardly an example of today. I do not know what the Regents diploma tested, but what you have listed is unimpressive. High school laboratory science is not of much use, and neither is computational mathematics. Nor am I willing to put much value to teaching a foreign language other than grammatically oriented. The contents of those three or four years of a foreign language come down to less than two if grammar oriented, and I have stated my opinion on the required propaganda known as literature. Because the courses are not of much use to you, it doesn't mean they are useless to someone else. |
#272
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
Herman Rubin wrote: You live in Indiana. Have you looked at the HDCore-40 requirements lately?(Essentially the college prep program.) It's quite a bit more rigerous than the Regents level program I went through in the 1970's in NY State. Possibly on paper, but not in actuality. 4 years of English, 4 years of math (through pre-calc or finite or AP statistics), 3 or 4 years of laboratory science (Bio, chem, physics and, if you take 4 years, one AP class), 3 or 4 years of a foreign langauge (either 3 years of one language or 2 years each of 2 languages), 3 years of Social Studies (including required classes in government and economics, along with a year of U.S. history and a year of world history or geography.) Plus health, PE and at least two fine arts (art, music or theater) classes. Plus whatever electives and/or additional academic classes are needed to fill out the schedule. (Shaina plans 4 years of Japanese and wants to take AP European History plus some elective writing classes.) About a dozen AP classes are offered in most subject areas and finite math, while not an AP course, can be taken for college credit. The number of years of X, Y, or Z means nothing. When my daughter was in high school, there were NO grammar classes, and she realized her grammar was weak. Strong English grammar is needed, and rarely available. Tell that to my daughter. She's in 9th grade. She just had to take a grammar test that included stuff that I KNOW I never learned in high school. Some of it I don't even know now (and I was a journalism major in college and write professionally) and much of what I DO know (i.e. what a 'demonstrative pronoun' is) I only recently learned while taking a college level foreign language class! (And the professor seemed to assume that most of the students [who are 25 years younger than I] already knew what the term meant. I had to puzzle it out from context.) Four years of essentially computational math are of little value. As a statistician, I strongly condemn all statistical methods courses without a much stronger mathematics requirement than is available in high school; one will have at least VERY great problems in understanding anything about statistical problems. A good "Euclid" course is worth more than all of that, especially if followed with a decent "college algebra" course, which emphasizes concepts. Where do you think students get the idea that instructors should not teach the "theory", but prepare them for the exams by drilling them in the methodology. Euclid? That's, like, 'proof' based Geometry? (Sorry, math isn't my strong suit, though I did take 4 years in high school and one year in college. [Barely passed the last two of those five years.] I certainly learned that (though don't remember much 30 years later) in high school, and I'm sure Shaina will learn it in honors geometry next year.) Also, there are lots of college students who have not taken that program. Purdue requires one Carnegie unit in algebra and one in geometry, and has correspondingly low requirements in other areas. One can list courses, but not content. Well ... I could toss in the random comment about Purdue vs. IU ... but I won't. As was the case when I was a student, and when you were a student, kids can opt for low level classes or high level ones, and they will come out of school with whatever amount of learning they have chosen to pursue. (Students seeking a regular diploma need fewer credits in all, fewer academic credits (3 years of English/2 years math/2 years science) and the classes they take can be far less rigerous. IIRC, when I went to high school in the 70's, a regents diploma only needed 2 years of laboratory science (bio and chem) and 3 years of math (through trig/intermediate algebra). No foreign language was required, though most college bound students took one. I do not know what the Regents diploma tested, but what you have listed is unimpressive. There was no single test. You took a state-administered Regents exam at the end of each year of Regents level English/Math/Science, and an exam at the end of the third year of a foreign language. I don't recall precisely how many courses were required to get a Regents Diploma. High school laboratory science is not of much use, and neither is computational mathematics. Nor am I willing to put much value to teaching a foreign language other than grammatically oriented. The contents of those three or four years of a foreign language come down to less than two if grammar oriented, and I have stated my opinion on the required propaganda known as literature. So ... maybe it's buried somewhere in the 250+ posts, but what DO you think students should be learning in high school. I learned sufficient Spanish in 3 years of high school to be able to communicate on a competent, if basic level. I learned enough in high school biology and chemistry to gain a fair understanding of how the scientific world works. (And to take, and get a 5 on, the AP bio exam. Chemistry was never as strong a subject for me.) Seems to me that high school coursework fills 3 basic needs: 1. To give the student the skills and knowledge necessary to function in the adult world. (Enough math to be able to balance a check-book and do common every-day computations [multiply a recipe, calculate gas milage, etc.], the ability to read and understand newspapers and general adult (non-specialist-oriented) literature, and to write clearly and grammatically; sufficient typing skills to manage a computer on a basic level; some understanding of history, geography and civics, to allow one to be an informed and productive citizen. 2. To teach the student how to think and reason, and how to learn, and how to be --- generally speaking, an 'educated and well-rounded person.' I think most upper level math, history, literature, science and grammar fills this function. (For most people -- my husband, who is in a skilled trade, uses geometry on a daily basis. As for me -- I can't think of the last time I needed to determine the area of a circle or the slope of a line, or analyze the contents of chemical compound, or give the grammatical name of a particular term or tense.) 3. To give the student the grounding he needs to pursue higher level studies in the career field of his choice. While endlesss coursework on 'theory' may, to some extent, meet the needs of catagory 2, it should not be the end-all and be-all of education. (I'm reminded of early 19th century education, when students were expected to memorize (and recite orally) long lists of spelling words -- but were not expected to know what they meant; and rattle off mathmatical and grammatical rules, translate long passages in Latin, and diagram sentences -- but students never learned to WRITE or read for comprehension. (Noah Webster, author of the famous dictionary and spelling book actually wrote that he didn't think students SHOULD learn to define words, since the goal of education was to train the memory, and children learned best by rote.)) My daughter and I have talked a bit about the courses she needs to take. And we both wonder WHY she really needs to take pre-calculus and physics. Her career goal, at this point, is to become either a journalist or graphic artist, so surely her limited class-time might be better served by another writing or art class, or by some other elective (academic or not) that interests her. Naomi |
#273
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
In article ,
toypup wrote: "Herman Rubin" wrote in message ... In article om, wrote: When my daughter was in high school, there were NO grammar classes, and she realized her grammar was weak. Strong English grammar is needed, and rarely available. You really should stop using your daughter as an example of today's poor educational system. She's 50 years old, hardly an example of today. Do you think the general level of teaching grammar has gone up? It has at this school, because others were in the same category, and this is a college community. I do not know what the Regents diploma tested, but what you have listed is unimpressive. High school laboratory science is not of much use, and neither is computational mathematics. Nor am I willing to put much value to teaching a foreign language other than grammatically oriented. The contents of those three or four years of a foreign language come down to less than two if grammar oriented, and I have stated my opinion on the required propaganda known as literature. Because the courses are not of much use to you, it doesn't mean they are useless to someone else. For a terminal high school diploma, they may be of some little use. For anyone else, and for many of those, they are woefully inefficient. -- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 |
#274
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
"Herman Rubin" wrote in message ... In article , toypup wrote: "Herman Rubin" wrote in message ... In article om, wrote: When my daughter was in high school, there were NO grammar classes, and she realized her grammar was weak. Strong English grammar is needed, and rarely available. You really should stop using your daughter as an example of today's poor educational system. She's 50 years old, hardly an example of today. Do you think the general level of teaching grammar has gone up? It has at this school, because others were in the same category, and this is a college community. You are using her as an example of the woeful inadequacy of today's educational system for all your arguments. She is not a part of today's high school education system. It has been decades since she was ever in high school. She is your point of reference and she is not an adequate representation of what is happening today. It has been 32 years since she has been in high school. Things have changed in the 32 years since I've been in kindergarten, which DS is in right now. I'm sure things have changed for high school, as well. |
#275
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
In article om,
wrote: Herman Rubin wrote: You live in Indiana. Have you looked at the HDCore-40 requirements lately?(Essentially the college prep program.) It's quite a bit more rigerous than the Regents level program I went through in the 1970's in NY State. Possibly on paper, but not in actuality. 4 years of English, 4 years of math (through pre-calc or finite or AP statistics), 3 or 4 years of laboratory science (Bio, chem, physics and, if you take 4 years, one AP class), 3 or 4 years of a foreign langauge (either 3 years of one language or 2 years each of 2 languages), 3 years of Social Studies (including required classes in government and economics, along with a year of U.S. history and a year of world history or geography.) Plus health, PE and at least two fine arts (art, music or theater) classes. Plus whatever electives and/or additional academic classes are needed to fill out the schedule. (Shaina plans 4 years of Japanese and wants to take AP European History plus some elective writing classes.) About a dozen AP classes are offered in most subject areas and finite math, while not an AP course, can be taken for college credit. The number of years of X, Y, or Z means nothing. When my daughter was in high school, there were NO grammar classes, and she realized her grammar was weak. Strong English grammar is needed, and rarely available. Tell that to my daughter. She's in 9th grade. She just had to take a grammar test that included stuff that I KNOW I never learned in high school. Some of it I don't even know now (and I was a journalism major in college and write professionally) and much of what I DO know (i.e. what a 'demonstrative pronoun' is) I only recently learned while taking a college level foreign language class! (And the professor seemed to assume that most of the students [who are 25 years younger than I] already knew what the term meant. I had to puzzle it out from context.) Good; it is time that grammar was taught. Also, most of the students then really learned their English grammar while taking a grammar-oriented foreign language course. The so-called "college level" foreign language courses should be taught in high school or earlier. I would make it even stronger; the courses (which have largely disappeared now) for graduate students to read foreign languages for research purposes, often one or two semesters, are the type which should be taught. These courses do not ignore speaking, but do not stress it. Four years of essentially computational math are of little value. As a statistician, I strongly condemn all statistical methods courses without a much stronger mathematics requirement than is available in high school; one will have at least VERY great problems in understanding anything about statistical problems. A good "Euclid" course is worth more than all of that, especially if followed with a decent "college algebra" course, which emphasizes concepts. Where do you think students get the idea that instructors should not teach the "theory", but prepare them for the exams by drilling them in the methodology. Euclid? That's, like, 'proof' based Geometry? (Sorry, math isn't my strong suit, though I did take 4 years in high school and one year in college. [Barely passed the last two of those five years.] I certainly learned that (though don't remember much 30 years later) in high school, and I'm sure Shaina will learn it in honors geometry next year.) The honors geometry USUALLY is that. It was the only "real math" course you had, alas, and the most important part was understanding what is involved in a proof. Also, there are lots of college students who have not taken that program. Purdue requires one Carnegie unit in algebra and one in geometry, and has correspondingly low requirements in other areas. One can list courses, but not content. Well ... I could toss in the random comment about Purdue vs. IU ... but I won't. I doubt that IU has a higher requirement there. Other than giving an examination, one cannot get much of an idea what someone has learned. As was the case when I was a student, and when you were a student, kids can opt for low level classes or high level ones, and they will come out of school with whatever amount of learning they have chosen to pursue. (Students seeking a regular diploma need fewer credits in all, fewer academic credits (3 years of English/2 years math/2 years science) and the classes they take can be far less rigerous. IIRC, when I went to high school in the 70's, a regents diploma only needed 2 years of laboratory science (bio and chem) and 3 years of math (through trig/intermediate algebra). No foreign language was required, though most college bound students took one. I do not know what the Regents diploma tested, but what you have listed is unimpressive. There was no single test. You took a state-administered Regents exam at the end of each year of Regents level English/Math/Science, and an exam at the end of the third year of a foreign language. I don't recall precisely how many courses were required to get a Regents Diploma. High school laboratory science is not of much use, and neither is computational mathematics. Nor am I willing to put much value to teaching a foreign language other than grammatically oriented. The contents of those three or four years of a foreign language come down to less than two if grammar oriented, and I have stated my opinion on the required propaganda known as literature. So ... maybe it's buried somewhere in the 250+ posts, but what DO you think students should be learning in high school. I learned sufficient Spanish in 3 years of high school to be able to communicate on a competent, if basic level. I learned enough in high school biology and chemistry to gain a fair understanding of how the scientific world works. (And to take, and get a 5 on, the AP bio exam. Chemistry was never as strong a subject for me.) I had 2.5 years of high school Spanish, one year of college French, and one year of college German. At the end of those, I could certainly communicate in Spanish and French, but not that well in German; the course was not logical enough. I never took any of the regular science courses in high school; I never had any intention of taking biology. I deliberately tested out of physics, and my chemistry teacher kicked me out of class for asking questions which were too difficult. I did pass the exam on that course. I do not know what I would have gotten on AP exams if they had them, but I doubt that I would have had any problems. I did learn quite a bit when I was in elementary and high school, but it was not from the teaching; giving me the textbooks and telling me what was to be expected would have worked just as well and faster. My outside reading in elementary school was not the best, as I had no idea what to read, but in high school, with access to full library materials, it went ahead quickly. Seems to me that high school coursework fills 3 basic needs: 1. To give the student the skills and knowledge necessary to function in the adult world. (Enough math to be able to balance a check-book and do common every-day computations [multiply a recipe, calculate gas milage, etc.], You will find these abilities rare. My late wife, who was a mathematics professor and certainly knew what he operations were, did not hesitate to ask me, especially if she could not find where here mistakes were. I happen to be an accurate rapid calculator, and if anything this may cause me not to use computational aids often enough. the ability to read and understand newspapers and general adult (non-specialist-oriented) literature, You are assuming that what is written is capable of being clearly understood; this is rarely the case. What is behind the biases of the authors? Also, they do not know enough to understand much of it. I doubt that most know enough American geography to understand the current weather effects, or even what the weather reports mean. When it comes to getting any real idea of the science reports, not a chance. and to write clearly and grammatically; See the quote of IP's comments in another posting. Lots of college graduates have no idea of grammar. sufficient typing skills to manage a computer on a basic level; I use a touch system myself; as I did not read what the usual one was, I came up with one not as good. But I know lots of people who gave up touch typing to use "hunt and peck", which is generally adequate. some understanding of history, geography and civics, to allow one to be an informed and productive citizen. The necessary knowledge of geography and history, which I deliberately have put in that order, was still being taught in the elementary schools when I was there, but is no longer being taught at all. One needs a good course on ancient history, not the Marxist version which leaves out the importance of the conflicts and the movements of peoples, before American history. This is not being taught. 2. To teach the student how to think and reason, How can you do this without teaching enough formal logic to understand those problems? Otherwise, you get only "philosophical" reasoning, which ignores the facts in favor of what is effectively dogma. and how to learn, People do not learn the same way. How can you teach someone how to learn? and how to be --- generally speaking, an 'educated and well-rounded person.' What does that mean? I think most upper level math, history, literature, science and grammar fills this function. (For most people -- my husband, who is in a skilled trade, uses geometry on a daily basis. As for me -- I can't think of the last time I needed to determine the area of a circle or the slope of a line, or analyze the contents of chemical compound, or give the grammatical name of a particular term or tense.) 3. To give the student the grounding he needs to pursue higher level studies in the career field of his choice. We have too many trying to do this; they do a poor job, are passed because it would be politically impossible to fail even half of those who should never have even graduated high school. Again, see IP's remarks about the functionally illiterate college graduates. While endlesss coursework on 'theory' may, to some extent, meet the needs of catagory 2, Who said it should be endless? Concepts when learned are learned and can be used, and the use should be practiced. This does not mean memorizing theorems, but understanding the concepts and how to use them. The use of mathematical notation as language, which has essentially zero prerequisites, belongs with beginning reading; with this, someone can formalize problems for a machine to solve, which is far more important than being able to laboriously solve a few. it should not be the end-all and be-all of education. (I'm reminded of early 19th century education, when students were expected to memorize (and recite orally) long lists of spelling words -- but were not expected to know what they meant; and rattle off mathmatical and grammatical rules, translate long passages in Latin, and diagram sentences -- but students never learned to WRITE or read for comprehension. (Noah Webster, author of the famous dictionary and spelling book actually wrote that he didn't think students SHOULD learn to define words, since the goal of education was to train the memory, and children learned best by rote.)) I have always opposed the use of memorization except when necessary, and even more so, memorizing facts without understanding the frameworks. Going from facts to structure or generalities is research, and research ability is mainly absolute, independent of the level. Structure used to be taught first to a fair extent. My daughter and I have talked a bit about the courses she needs to take. And we both wonder WHY she really needs to take pre-calculus and physics. Her career goal, at this point, is to become either a journalist or graphic artist, so surely her limited class-time might be better served by another writing or art class, or by some other elective (academic or not) that interests her. If she does not take those, she will not have any idea of how to use such things. One of the late professors here, from India, started out as a Sanskrit student, but after taking mathematics courses, became a mathematical statistician, and an expert in multivariate analysis. Scientists have the linguistic and literary knowledge expected. Those in the humanities and social sciences have been overly philosophized, or if you wish to be blunt propagandized, into how things should be, in total ignorance of what can be done. Science cannot provide values, but it can give one a reasonable idea of what is possible, and more importantly, what is not possible. The humanists have to keep this in mind. Naomi -- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 |
#276
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
Another article on this subject. http://www.dailyvidette.com/media/st.../2006/09/08/Vi... Our View A prescription of a different kind Excerpts: Every parent wants what is best for his or her child, to get good grades, possibly go to college and live a happy life. But it seems that good grades are now being redefined. For some parents, a B on a report card is no longer acceptable. So what happens when their child gets a B? Take them to the doctor and demand a prescription for Ritalin. Unfortunately this is not a joke. According to an article on MSNBC.com several pediatricians have begun reporting a trend of parents demanding their child be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because their child got a B on a report card. What's more is many of these parents openly admit to knowing their child doesn't really have ADHD. There goes getting by with just trying your hardest. What's really sad is that this trend just furthers the image that, to Americans, nothing is your fault. Your child is doing badly in school? Well it's not because they're not doing their homework, it's because they have ADHD. You eat McDonald's everyday and are now obese? It's obviously McDonald's fault, not yours. And what do you do when something isn't your fault? First you find whose fault it is and then maybe you can find a drug out there to fix it. Had a bad day? Maybe you're depressed - bring on the Prozac. How can these parents sit down and tell their children not to smoke or do drugs, but they knowingly have them abuse prescription drugs? At the same time, every time a doctor has to see a child because they got a B- instead of an A, they are not seeing a child with a serious problem. As a society we need to stop this overwhelming competition among students. Not every child has to be the valedictorian or star football player. Parents need to realize that you don't have children in order for them to fulfill all the things that you couldn't. Perhaps the parents who cannot see this are the ones who need to be seeing the doctors, not their children. |
#277
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
Herman Rubin wrote: In article om, wrote: .. Also, there are lots of college students who have not taken that program. Purdue requires one Carnegie unit in algebra and one in geometry, and has correspondingly low requirements in other areas. One can list courses, but not content. Well ... I could toss in the random comment about Purdue vs. IU ... but I won't. I doubt that IU has a higher requirement there. Other than giving an examination, one cannot get much of an idea what someone has learned. IU requires 4 years of English, 3 years of math (Intro and Intermediate Algebra, plus Geometry), one year of laboratory science and two years of history. It also requires, for in-state students, a Core40 diploma which, in itself requires some additional coursework (an additional year of history and science, foreign language, etc). So ... maybe it's buried somewhere in the 250+ posts, but what DO you think students should be learning in high school. I learned sufficient Spanish in 3 years of high school to be able to communicate on a competent, if basic level. I learned enough in high school biology and chemistry to gain a fair understanding of how the scientific world works. (And to take, and get a 5 on, the AP bio exam. Chemistry was never as strong a subject for me.) I had 2.5 years of high school Spanish, one year of college French, and one year of college German. At the end of those, I could certainly communicate in Spanish and French, but not that well in German; the course was not logical enough. Germanic languages are also very different from Romance languages. The grammar is more difficult and there's more OF it. I took Spanish in high school, but didn't learn a ton of grammar in it, because the grammar of Spanish isn't very complex. I am currently studying a slavic language, and there's a LOT of grammar in the class, because the language itself has very complex grammar and you can't possibly frame a setence without understanding it. So the first year was mostly a reading course, teaching us a lot of vocabulary and getting us to understand, on an intellectual level, how to decline/conjugate/structure a sentence. Now, in the second year, the focus is on actually using what we learned -- being able to communicate. I never took any of the regular science courses in high school; I never had any intention of taking biology. I deliberately tested out of physics, and my chemistry teacher kicked me out of class for asking questions which were too difficult. I did pass the exam on that course. I do not know what I would have gotten on AP exams if they had them, but I doubt that I would have had any problems. Well, you studied those things on your own. You didn't just intuitively KNOW physics. And yes, of course most bright students can, if they choose, read up on any topic on their own and learn quite a lot. (When I decided to take classes again I first considered taking a history class, since that's my main area of interest. But then I realized that I can always (and do, often) read about any area of history I want, and learn it on my own without paying tuition. But I've always liked languges, but have had little success learning them on my own. So I figured that a language course would make the most sense. Seems to me that high school coursework fills 3 basic needs: 1. To give the student the skills and knowledge necessary to function in the adult world. (Enough math to be able to balance a check-book and do common every-day computations [multiply a recipe, calculate gas milage, etc.], You will find these abilities rare. My late wife, who was a mathematics professor and certainly knew what he operations were, did not hesitate to ask me, especially if she could not find where here mistakes were. I happen to be an accurate rapid calculator, and if anything this may cause me not to use computational aids often enough. She was a math professor and couldnt' balance her checkbook? Or do simple multiplication and division? Ok.... the ability to read and understand newspapers and general adult (non-specialist-oriented) literature, You are assuming that what is written is capable of being clearly understood; this is rarely the case. What is behind the biases of the authors? Also, they do not know enough to understand much of it. I doubt that most know enough American geography to understand the current weather effects, or even what the weather reports mean. When it comes to getting any real idea of the science reports, not a chance. But do we NEED to? Do we need to understand WHY a hurricane is coming, as long as we know what to do to protect ourselves? By geography I'm thinking more in terms of knowing where Iraq is located (roughly -- not necessarily able to pick it out on a blank map) and to write clearly and grammatically; See the quote of IP's comments in another posting. Lots of college graduates have no idea of grammar. I am aware of that. That means they aren't learning it; it doesn't mean it isn't being taught. High schools these days generally put a lot of focus on composition -- and I think being able to compose a clear sentence is much more important than knowing how to define a past participle. (Or much else that is taught in theoretical grammar classes.) sufficient typing skills to manage a computer on a basic level; I use a touch system myself; as I did not read what the usual one was, I came up with one not as good. But I know lots of people who gave up touch typing to use "hunt and peck", which is generally adequate. Absolutely. Shaina's counselor wanted her to take keyboarding this year. I thought it unncessary since she's been using a computer for years and, while she may not be a speed typist or touch typist, she can get the job done. And, with more typing in high school,she'll get faster with practice. (She had enough trouble squeezing the classes she needed and wanted to take into her schedule without also taking a useless keyboarding class.) some understanding of history, geography and civics, to allow one to be an informed and productive citizen. The necessary knowledge of geography and history, which I deliberately have put in that order, was still being taught in the elementary schools when I was there, but is no longer being taught at all. One needs a good course on ancient history, not the Marxist version which leaves out the importance of the conflicts and the movements of peoples, before American history. This is not being taught. Why do we "need" ancient history? (Beyond, again, the basics -- who the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians were and -- which I learned in 9th grade social studies.) 2. To teach the student how to think and reason, How can you do this without teaching enough formal logic to understand those problems? Otherwise, you get only "philosophical" reasoning, which ignores the facts in favor of what is effectively dogma. In your opinion. My understanding is that modern schools (which includes both the school I attended in the 70's and the schools my daughter attends in the 21st century) put MUCH more emphasis on thought and reasoning (understanding WHY things happened) than pre-war schools, which were still far more concerned with rote feeding of facts, names and dates. and how to learn, People do not learn the same way. How can you teach someone how to learn? You can help them find how THEY learn best and make it necessary for them to learn how to study and focus. and how to be --- generally speaking, an 'educated and well-rounded person.' What does that mean? It's not really definable, which was sort of my point. Schools teach students what people in our society are expected, in general, to know. (Who Adolph Hitler was, what "Hamlet" is about, what the Reformation was and, in general why it happened, why helium balloons float ... IOW, stuff that has NO real relevence to the day to day life of 99% of the populace but most reasonably educated people DO know.) 3. To give the student the grounding he needs to pursue higher level studies in the career field of his choice. We have too many trying to do this; they do a poor job, are passed because it would be politically impossible to fail even half of those who should never have even graduated high school. Again, see IP's remarks about the functionally illiterate college graduates Some do a poor job, some do not. I've had good and bad teachers at every level of education. I have to wonder how anyone who is truly 'functionally illiterate' however (as opposed to lacking some specific areas of education that YOU believe they should have) could graduate college, given the intensive reading required to get through even a single class. While endlesss coursework on 'theory' may, to some extent, meet the needs of catagory 2, Who said it should be endless? Concepts when learned are learned and can be used, and the use should be practiced. This does not mean memorizing theorems, but understanding the concepts and how to use them. The use of mathematical notation as language, which has essentially zero prerequisites, belongs with beginning reading; with this, someone can formalize problems for a machine to solve, which is far more important than being able to laboriously solve a few. My understanding of what you said was that math should be only theory (Euclidian proofs) and foreign language and English should be primarily grammar (forget about being able to communicate.) That says to me that theory is more important than practice, to your mind. My daughter and I have talked a bit about the courses she needs to take. And we both wonder WHY she really needs to take pre-calculus and physics. Her career goal, at this point, is to become either a journalist or graphic artist, so surely her limited class-time might be better served by another writing or art class, or by some other elective (academic or not) that interests her. If she does not take those, she will not have any idea of how to use such things. One of the late professors here, from India, started out as a Sanskrit student, but after taking mathematics courses, became a mathematical statistician, and an expert in multivariate analysis. But surely 11 years of math should be sufficient for her to determine if mathematics is her 'thing.' Why assume that one additional year will make a difference? (And if one year might, why not demand two or three additional years? Why not insist that all seniors take TWO math classes?) I'm not suggesting that she should take no math beyond the basic computational variety. But so far as I know, Calclulus offers nothing practical for day to day life for ANYONE. Ditto physics. I never took physics (beyond the basics taught at the junior high level) and seem to get by ok. And if she should decide, at some point, she wants to be a scientist, she can catch up. IU offers a basic physics class that does not have, as its prerequisite, high school physics. Naomi |
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
Seems to me that high school coursework fills 3 basic needs:
1. To give the student the skills and knowledge necessary to function in the adult world. (Enough math to be able to balance a check-book and do common every-day computations [multiply a recipe, calculate gas milage, etc.], You will find these abilities rare. Hey this is the kind of math I can actualy do :P Not that I am good at keeping my check book balanced but the everyday stuff is understandable. I hate it when older people make coments about us "younguns" needed calculators for all math. I can do most pre algebra stuff in my head, though I must admit if I dont write it down sometimes the numbers tend to jumble. I use a touch system myself; as I did not read what the usual one was, I came up with one not as good. But I know lots of people who gave up touch typing to use "hunt and peck", which is generally adequate. I can finaly touch type myself.. thanks to almost 10 years on the internet :P It was a slow first 2 years though :P Tori |
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills
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