Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills

toto wrote:

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 01:29:15 GMT, "nimue"
wrote:

Do you know what a project is?

Too well. My children had them.

All right then. What are they?

My ds hated *team* projects. Individual ones were fine, but he hated
working with teams because often the lazy kids wanted him to do all
the work for everyone.

When I was teaching (middle school - 6th to 8th grades) I often gave
projects (typically one per quarter) but they were always individual
projects. I rarely had team projects. I do not remember ever having
team projects myself in K-12 school. Team consensus building was
apparently not a goal back then.

We did have them in college in Economics - one per week. The
professor was a visiting professor and he had tried the group project
thing at MIT and it didn't work there because the students were not
willing to do the work required and also were unwilling to take a
lower grade which would result from not doing the work. It worked
where I was (Oberlin) because, at least in those days, I think we were
less grade-centric.

The way it was set up - he gave us a problem to research each Friday
along with suggested reading. [One problem which I remember was that
we were to increase foreign aid. We had to figure out two ways to do
it within a balanced budget (This was during the Eisenhower
administration). One way we were to raise taxes, and we had to decide
which ones to raise. One way we were to cut spending and the areas we
cut spending in had to be politically feasible - i.e. we couldn't cut
Social Security or something like that.]

We split the reading up among the group members, and at the Monday
class, we were to decide on the focus of the paper, and each of us
wrote a suggested draft. One of the members (a different one each
week) took the drafts and put them together into a rough report, which
we finalized at the Wednesday class, and handed in on Friday. He had a
system where each member graded each other member on each project. So
if there was a lazy person in the group, that person would get poor
grades from the others.

He did have a problem with one group where there was an extremely
conservative group except for one extreme radical, and they could not
agree on what they were to have in the reports. Sometimes they almost
came to blows, and the radical ended up writing minority reports all
the time. The professor put the radical in with our group in the
middle of the semester, and we were a little more successful at
dealing with him IIRC.

The difficulty with this system is that it required meeting with the
group in addition to the class meetings, so it required much more time
than the usual class. The good thing about it is that we really
learned the material in order to defend our POV.

Herman Rubin wrote:

snip

Why? The only legitimate purpose for homework is to
help learn the material. If it is not needed for
that, it should not be assigned.

Writing all your essays?

If one or two satisfactory essays are written, what
is the purpose of the rest?

Practice, Practice Practice....

One improves with practice.

Under your suggestion, my son should stop taking his piano
lessons and stop practicing because he can play several pieces
very well.......


Do you not take into account improving during the term?
The first time I taught a class, a student got a good
A on the final, much better than earlier. I learned
then that it is the end result which should count.

Completing all your projects?

Unless there is a VERY good reason for projects, they
should be abolished.

A trite but true phrase: "practice makes perfect"

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................


I have asked you a good question and you owe me an apology. You might
possibly be right about the college prep work. However, one would have to
be able to compare college prep work before WWII and now. How have you
done
that?

I was in high school before WWII, and took part of that
program; the rest I studied myself. Only the honors
programs match any of it, and not always then. The
theorem-proof geometry course was mandatory, as was
grammar-based foreign language. There was no attempt
to reduce any of the college preparatory program to
what the "average" student could do.

The one year of algebra required (more was usually taken)
then was more than the equal of two now.

The physics and chemistry courses were stronger, but
that did not then, and does not now, have that much
relevance. Literature had more of an "ancient" flavor,
and reading Shakespeare was expected of all.

You took part of the program, but not all of it before WWII. Did you take
any of the honors program today for comparison (since that was what you were
comparing)? Which parts of the pre-WWII program did you take? Were
algebra, physics and chemistry part of it?

I tested out of all of these, except taking the "college
algebra" course, which alas was at a much higher level than
the courses of the same name now taught. After two years
of high school, I took a mixed high school-college curriculum
at the University of Chicago, and delayed my high school
graduation so I could take a much heavier load than would
be allowed otherwise, and also take comprehensives in
English, humanities and social sciences without attending
classes. WWII started in my first year there, but did not
affect any of the curriculum. So I took, or tested out of.
all of it.

Last I was there, it's been almost 20 years, Shakespeare was still expected
for college prep literature courses. Do you have evidence that it's no
longer the case? What's wrong with it not having an ancient flavor? Modern
literature has its place and should be taught along with Shakespeare.

I find much of modern literature quite sickening. The attempt
of the author to convince readers that his feelings were right
puts it in the realm of propaganda. The pervasiveness of this
should be definitely pointed out.




--
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

In article ,
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"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
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toypup wrote:

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
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................


I was in high school before WWII, and took part of that
program; the rest I studied myself. Only the honors
programs match any of it, and not always then. The
theorem-proof geometry course was mandatory, as was
grammar-based foreign language. There was no attempt
to reduce any of the college preparatory program to
what the "average" student could do.

The one year of algebra required (more was usually taken)
then was more than the equal of two now.

The physics and chemistry courses were stronger, but
that did not then, and does not now, have that much
relevance. Literature had more of an "ancient" flavor,
and reading Shakespeare was expected of all.

You took part of the program, but not all of it before WWII. Did you take
any of the honors program today for comparison (since that was what you
were comparing)? Which parts of the pre-WWII program did you take? Were
algebra, physics and chemistry part of it?

My education was only interrupted late in WWII, so there
is no possibility for comparison in that manner. However,
my children took some of those courses, and I have seen
others who did. My son tested out of much, but my daughter
took it all.

Last I was there, it's been almost 20 years, Shakespeare was still
expected for college prep literature courses. Do you have evidence that
it's no longer the case? What's wrong with it not having an ancient
flavor? Modern literature has its place and should be taught along with
Shakespeare.

Honestly, to follow up on my own post, you could possibly be right, or more
than likely, you suffer from when-I-was-a
child-we-were-so-much-more-superior-to-today's-children-because syndrome.
You would really have to go back and compare your high school texts with
today's and I don't think the difficulty would be much different, but maybe
the subjects that are stressed are different or the approach might be
different.

I am quite aware of what is in the texts. The honors
geometry text, if it is a theorem-proof text, is
essentially an updated version of the old, with some
non-obvious gaps remedied. The algebra courses are usually
weaker, especially in college algebra, which is almost
reduced to nothing. I have taught remedial trigonometry
and college algebra.

You could possibly think that what you took was so much more
difficult, because when you took them, it *was* difficult.

I "learned" high school algebra in less than a day; once
the use of variables was seen, the rest was trivial, and
this is no exaggeration. Nor did I work in the other
science subjects, although I did rather more studying in
biology. It was not difficult.

The difficult part for me was memorization, which is not
important in mathematics, the physical sciences, or grammar.
The hard part of foreign language was vocabulary, but I am
not bad at this. The hard part of English was writing; I
still have difficulties in expressing myself.

The first time
you take a course, it is more challenging. Now, it's easy, and why are the
high school students today taking such easy courses? I've seen this
syndrome plenty.

They are taking them to get grades. Also, many of them cannot
handle anything other than memorization and rote, because that
is all that is taught, except for writing. My late wife was
sickened by teaching prospective teachers, and observing their
total lack of understanding of the concepts.

Now, you could very well be right, but you need to rely on more than just
your memory of something, because our memories usually paint us in a more
favorable light.

See the above.

BTW, I'm not sure by what you mean about physics and chemistry not having
relevance. I thought they were the most interesting courses and had plenty
of relevance.

If one is going to take the courses in college, the high school
courses are going to be repeated essentially from scratch. At
one university, the head of the physics department told high
school students this, and to get more math. My daughter teaches
college chemistry, and the only real prerequisite is algebra,
and this is well known among college teachers.

There is one use of these courses; my daughter was steered to
chemistry by the high school course taught by a good teacher.
--
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

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
...
I find much of modern literature quite sickening. The attempt
of the author to convince readers that his feelings were right
puts it in the realm of propaganda. The pervasiveness of this
should be definitely pointed out.

Even if that is your view, shouldn't it be taught so that it could be
properly analyzed?

In article ,
nimue wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:
In article ,
nimue wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:
In article ,
nimue wrote:
Raving Beauty wrote:
nimue wrote:
toto wrote:
I am a
teacher and I can tell you that kids who get As usually do so
because they love learning.

...................

Essays on what? Things which the English teacher thinks
are relevant? Things which the English teacher assigns
because the English teacher cannot understand the subject
about which the student is interested, and which may well
be at a higher level?

Watch your pronouns. Do you really think English teachers assign essays
because they don't understand the subject?


Getting an A
average on tests and quizzes?

Do you not take into account improving during the term?
The first time I taught a class, a student got a good
A on the final, much better than earlier. I learned
then that it is the end result which should count.

Here's a secret -- at times I agree with you. If a kid makes a
phenomenal improvement, I will give that kid the higher grade. If a
kid was just cutting the beginning of the term, or goofing off, I
won't.

Completing all your projects?

Unless there is a VERY good reason for projects, they
should be abolished.

God no! They are FUN. This is one of the things the kids enjoy
most. Projects give kids the opportunity to work together and to use
all the multiple intelligences.

In my English 5 course, the one project assigned (this was
not a group project) was using certain resources at the
public library, and writing an essay on a topic. I had
already used those resources, and somehow or other I
managed an essay, shorter than requested, on map projections.
I am almost certain that the teacher did not understand the
essay, but as it had no errors she could find, I got an "A"
on the project.

No, they are what YOU think are fun.

Why would I find them fun? I don't do them, anymore than I do the tests,
quizzes, or essays. The kids like them. They tell me so (and they don't
say that about the tests, quizzes, or essays).

And they detract
from learning, especially by good students. It is always
a few students who do all the thinking.

Um, that makes no sense. If only a few students do the thinking, how does
that detract from their learning? I am assuming that the students who do
the thinking are the good students.

Few project add to learning. Doing is not learning.

Showing up to
class every day?

Who cares? What matters is what they learn, and
even more important, what they understand.

Kids learn from class discussion. I can just tell them what a poem
means, or they can discover what it means for themselves during
class. That is what class is for. That's why we have it. The
students learn from one another and the teacher. I have never had a
student who didn't learn new skills from other students.

Literature is entertainment plus propaganda. What a poem
means to one might be nonsense to another. This is not
what an education should be.

I am not ignorant of poetry, and can appreciate it. But I
can also see the author's trying to convince the reader by
rhetorical means, not by logical ones. Students should be
taught to watch for the proselytization, not to welcome it.

Oh, lord. The kids need to learn to interpret poetry. It will enrich their
lives and make them less susceptible to proselytization. Once they
understand how language can be used to create ideas and emotions, they will
be able to identify it when others (say, politicians) employ their
rhetorical techniques. I have to say, I fail to see how Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening proselytizes.

That is what you are graded on. That is not a game --
that is school.

You are part of the problem.

What problem? I want kids to learn and to enjoy learning? What
solution to this "problem" do you suggest?

Enjoy learning what? To play word games, instead of using
logical reasoning?

You assume you know so much. You have no idea what happens in my classroom
or anyone else's. I have no idea what word games you are referring to. I
have no idea why you think the students don't use logical reasoning. I have
no clue what made you so arrogant and so angry.

I have the experiences of my children, and their friends,
and what my friends reported their children went through,
to go on.

As for using logical reasoning, it has to be learned.
Intuition often goes astray, and so formalized logic,
not just the sentential calculus, needs to be taught
very early. Those who understand logic know that it
is quite possible that the "obvious" is false.

To write what is almost all fiction in
a "convincing" manner instead of a few clear and precise
statements, which might have to be in mathematical symbols
rather than words?

If you have to write an essay about how the imagery of the sea in Romeo and
Juliet mirrors the lovers' progress, mathematical symbols won't help much.
I loved that essay when I was assigned it in high school and that is why I
assign it to my kids.

YOU loved it; many of the kids will hate it, just as you
hated math.

I have read many students' essays in applications for
college and graduate school, and the fiction is apparent
to me.

Honestly, it chills me to the bone to know that you are in the teaching
profession. I expect you will say the same to me, but I really think that
your anger and your assumptions (created without a shred of evidence) point
to some real problems on your part.

You haven't read those essays. The ones for applying for
college scholarships were for those intending to go into
one of the sciences. Few of them had any idea of what
they were going into, or how it could be used.

The same is true of those applying for graduate admission
in statistics.

If the standards in using mathematics as a language, which
is very important, were one-tenth as high as those in
writing English, few English major would pass.
--
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

In article ,
Donna Metler wrote:
Herman, even gifted students have to learn to write by writing. There's no
other way to do it. Once you know how to write, it carries over from
discipline to discipline, but some things just plain take practice to
master.

As I said, the big problem in writing can be to think
of a way of expressing yourself. This is especially
a problem if you are trying to communicate information,
not to write fiction.

The best choice I ever made, in retrospect, was attending a college where
"writing intensive" meant what it said. Basically, for several years, I had
a major research paper due in every single non-math and hard science course
I took, and often minor writing efforts between times. The extreme was my
music literature sequence, where there was a written response/analysis of a
work required every week for several semesters in a row.

The result was that when I entered graduate school, I was used to writing,
used to research, knew exactly which journals were reputable, could walk
right to the section of the library where books I needed were shelved
without even touching the catalog, and wasn't at all scared by needing to
document my writing, whether the professor wanted MLA, Chicago, or APA. I
had no trouble turning out publishable writing in graduate school, and no
trouble with writing my thesis.

One of the problems in getting my thesis typed in an
acceptable form in those old days was that the Chicago
format did not agree with mathematical custom. There
were typists who the thesis office accepted as knowing
what could be done, so I used one of them.

I do not see that writing has anything to do with using
the library. Also, research in mathematics, at least,
does not depend on using the literature, except to give
credit where it is deserved for material leading to the
research; if anything, there are too many references in
mathematical articles.



The students who had gone to schools where writing was limited to the
required English courses (many of which had been skipped due to AP
placements) had a much, much harder time with the idea that not only were
they expected to research, but that they had to turn out well written
documentation of their research, which met publication guidelines.

As I said, research in mathematics does not require
referring to the literature except to cite the sources
of the previous results used in obtaining the current
new results. How much exposition is used in explaining
what is done is highly variable, and too much confuses.
--
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

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
...

My education was only interrupted late in WWII, so there
is no possibility for comparison in that manner. However,
my children took some of those courses, and I have seen
others who did. My son tested out of much, but my daughter
took it all.

If you went to high school before Rosalie, you are older than Rosalie, and
Rosalie is a grandmother. How old are your children? What decades are you
comparing?

Still, you are comparing only your memories of what you've learned, not the
actual texts. It might surprise you, if you did.

I am quite aware of what is in the texts. The honors
geometry text, if it is a theorem-proof text, is
essentially an updated version of the old, with some
non-obvious gaps remedied.

You are arguing that what is taught today is watered-down. Are you saying
an updated version of the old with gaps remedied is watered-down?

The algebra courses are usually
weaker, especially in college algebra, which is almost
reduced to nothing. I have taught remedial trigonometry
and college algebra.

Anyone coming into college needing remedial trig or algebra did not do well
in honors trig or algebra in high school. The class might have been too
difficult, not watered-down, as you deduct.


You could possibly think that what you took was so much more
difficult, because when you took them, it *was* difficult.

I "learned" high school algebra in less than a day; once
the use of variables was seen, the rest was trivial, and
this is no exaggeration. Nor did I work in the other
science subjects, although I did rather more studying in
biology. It was not difficult.

You happen to be very bright. Just because you can do it doesn't mean
everyone else should be able to do it just as easily. That is one problem
with very bright people that I often see. They just don't understand why
other people don't "get it."


The difficult part for me was memorization, which is not
important in mathematics, the physical sciences, or grammar.
The hard part of foreign language was vocabulary, but I am
not bad at this. The hard part of English was writing; I
still have difficulties in expressing myself.

Perhaps this is an argument for why writing one satisfactory paper isn't
good enough.


BTW, I'm not sure by what you mean about physics and chemistry not having
relevance. I thought they were the most interesting courses and had
plenty
of relevance.

If one is going to take the courses in college, the high school
courses are going to be repeated essentially from scratch.

Then the college courses, not the high school courses need to be modified.

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Donna Metler wrote:
Herman, even gifted students have to learn to write by writing. There's no
other way to do it. Once you know how to write, it carries over from
discipline to discipline, but some things just plain take practice to
master.

As I said, the big problem in writing can be to think
of a way of expressing yourself. This is especially
a problem if you are trying to communicate information,
not to write fiction.

But then practice in writing will help one think of a way to express
oneself.

One of the problems in getting my thesis typed in an
acceptable form in those old days was that the Chicago
format did not agree with mathematical custom. There
were typists who the thesis office accepted as knowing
what could be done, so I used one of them.

I do not see that writing has anything to do with using
the library. Also, research in mathematics, at least,
does not depend on using the literature, except to give
credit where it is deserved for material leading to the
research; if anything, there are too many references in
mathematical articles.

But not everyone is writing only about math. In fact, most people do not.
The point of an education is to broaden our horizons and give us more
flexibility for choosing the careers we will end up with, not to prepare
everyone to only do math.


As I said, research in mathematics does not require
referring to the literature except to cite the sources
of the previous results used in obtaining the current
new results. How much exposition is used in explaining
what is done is highly variable, and too much confuses.

As I said, we are not talking about writing as it pertains only to math.

In article ,
Donna Metler wrote:

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
toto wrote:
On 8 Sep 2006 22:05:04 -0700, wrote:




All good mathematics is rigorous, in the sense that what
is known is what can be proved. Logic belongs in elementary
school, and has been successfully taught there by those
who understand it.

Taught to the regular, average, run of the mill child, or to those gifted
children who had mastered arithmetic before age 5 without much formal
instruction?

Suppes informed me that the book by Suppes and Hill was
successfully taught to the upper half of fifth graders from
"scratch", and that his college text was similarly taught
from scratch to the top 20% of sixth graders. I believe
that simplifying the sesquipedalian vocabulary and making
some other modifications would bring it within reach of
most third graders. My late wife's book could be similarly
modified, mainly by leaving out the applications which the
child would not understand.

My son did it around age 6. My daughter did it around age
9 or 10, with no pressure to do it earlier. She resisted
learning what her friends were not learning, and it was a
real problem getting her to read well before starting school.
This was when the whole word method was in ascendancy.

The latter do exist, and definitely can learn quite advanced
materials very early, but it is a major mistake to extrapolate that because
a few children can handle algebra at age 6 and 7 (or even 12 or 13) that
all, or even most, children can do so.

The key part of algebra, not the emphasized part, is the
ability to use variables as language. This belongs with
beginning reading; a variable is something which stands
for something else, which itself can be anything. So a
variable can stand for a name or a person or a property
or anything else. As a lingusitic entity, there are a
few simple rules for well-formed formulas. Word problems
now become trivial.

Algebra has been pushed down in age
over the last few decades, so that a class which used to be solidly high
school curriculum is now typically middle school level; and the result has
been that students, instead of taking Algebra as Freshmen or Sophomores in
high school and then moving on are beginning algebra in 6th or 7th grade,
and are STILL taking Algebra as Freshmen or Sophomores. No time has been
gained, and all that has happened is that concepts which previously would
have been taught in 6th, 7th and 8th grade have been missed in favor of
starting Algebra early.

There were no mathematical concept taught in those grades
before. Having children do word problems without algebra
is at best a guessing game.

High school algebra is now learning a set of rules. There
is ONE basic rule, which is that the same operation, no
matter what it is, applied to equal entities gets equal
results. But be sure it is an operation. For example,

No cat has eight tails.
One cat has one more tail than no cat.
Therefore, one cat has nine tails.

The fallacy is that "no cat" has different meanings in
mathematics, which shows up if variables are used.










--
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