SAS CEO Blasts Old-School Schooling 594
theodp writes "What does SAS CEO Dr. Jim Goodnight have in common with 47% of high school dropouts? A belief that school is boring. Marking the 50th anniversary of Sputnik with a call for renewed emphasis on science and technology in America's schools, Goodnight finds today's kids ill-served by old-school schooling: 'Today's generation of kids is the most technology savvy group that this country has ever produced. They are born with an iPod in one hand and a cell phone in another. They're text messaging, e-mailing, instant messaging. They're on MySpace, YouTube & Google. They've got Nintendo Wiis, Game Boys, PlayStations. Their world is one of total interactivity. They're in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those 'toys' at home. They're not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.'"
Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in 5th grade I was learning how interbutts work. Instead of playing sports I was reading some "for dummies" books and learning the basics. I was designing basic websites for myself and my pets. I was exploring and learning about the technology that was springing up. I wanted to know how my first PC (Only an IBM with Win95, I'm too young for anything much older) I took it apart and figured out how it went together. When I got into High School I took a computer repair class and on the first day I was the first (and only) person who took his computer apart and put it back together in the time allowed. Now I build and troubleshoot computers for friends and family members on the side and make pretty good money doing that on top of my regular job (where I'm not a member of the IS department but I get asked to fix more problems than they do).
I still talk to my old Computer Repair teacher and he tells me that the new kids taking the class don't want to learn, they just browse the internet and update their MySpaces. They don't want to know how to install Windows or replace hardware. They don't even know what "a linux" is, and why would they? It doesn't help them add tacky background images to their myspace pages. In their defense, back before MySpace we all had a GeoCities account with an animated flaming skull
There's a big difference between USING technology and UNDERSTANDING it, and the kids today just don't care.
Get off my lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
However, as most seasoned IT people have figured out, 90% of the public user realm will never know the real stuff you do to make their world better. However they will think you an IT genius if you can show them how to color code their excel spreadsheet. Which is, I think how many IT people got their jobs in the first place...."Woah, a pie chart???!? You must be able to secure our webserver, manage our devs, and negotiate 6 figure budgets, thats the same!"
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And then the social workers came and took daddy away?
No they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they are, just like interior decorators are building houses.
Troll... Flamebait... Threadjack! (Score:5, Interesting)
That book explains everything you need to know about the education system, why it is so fucked and yes, why it is boring, what it really is supposed to do and how it is doing Just That Real Well.
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Hanlon's Razor isn't a universal maxim for me, but I think it applies here.
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I can't speak for everyone, but i think i personally learn much better when i'm enjoying myself... now all we need are a couple of fun educational games.
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Apple spent millions of dollars with very smart people so that idiots could use an iPod. iPod's dominate the MP3 market because of their ease-of-use. And most people's text messaging is a detriment to both learning proper English and being tech-savy. A tech-savy person can type well enough that typing out the full words is easier than learning a new acronym, for example.
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Funny)
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If this were the private sector, if there was this demand for their services, the extra amount of work would bring in extra revenue that would allow them to expand.
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Just to clarify... (Score:3, Informative)
Just to clarify, but the "tests" that so many people like to refer to didn't actually happen in the way that many people think they did. People are referring to a letter [newscientist.com] that was published in New Scientist making reference to the phenomenon. Some of the claims made in the portion of text that circulated around the Internet are cle
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Summary so far & what Goodnight forgot. (Score:2)
MY SUMMARY then WHAT GOODNIGHT FORGOT TO INCLUDE.
1. An iPod plus cellphone does not equal genius. Lack of underlying technology. Thanks AC & Jonathan.
In grade school, I built my own crystal radio, then a diode one. I wish we all had a vague idea of the electrons running around inside our devices.
2. If someone designed a math program that trained a kid from kinder garden to calculus.
Yes yes yes! And the best interfa
Re:Tired of this goddamn label (Score:5, Insightful)
Right on!
Please forgive any grammar, spelling or other snafus, it is very late, I am very tired, but I think this needs to be said.
This is one of my BIG soap boxes. My parents were teachers (now retired after 30+ years teaching each), I have taught, my brother has taught, we have all coached, taught extra-curricular classes and my parents have received numerous awards for what they have achieved with their students. My father at one time had over half of the high school he taught at (2500+ students) taking physics. My mother, father and I worked with Young Astronauts, Destination Imagination, Flight Club, Math League, Lego Robotics (as an extra-curricular), Athletics, 3rd through 6th grade science and math (my father helped with this while he taught the high school level), and much more. Amongst us, we have Physics Teacher of the year for our state (my father), Teacher of the year multiple times, parental awards for excellence in education (these come from the parents of the students, not other teachers) and plenty of politicians and business leaders who are sick and tired of us and our names. Those are some of our credentials.
Now, the real problem. Parents and our societal emphasis on lack of responsibility and over-emphasis on instant gratification. Nothing about classroom technologies, nothing about administrators, and nothing politicians in general. Though some of them are definite proof of some serious failings in their education from their parents - morality.
Students do not *normally* come to school to learn anymore. They expect to be entertained. They expect to be catered to. They expect to do nothing other than what they want. And honestly, how many kids know what they need? Some, but most do not. There is a pattern to all of this. Not absolute, nor 100% accurate, but routinely, you see this pattern over and over. If the parents of the children emphasize discipline, responsibility, morality, effort and honesty (at least self-honesty), the kids almost always outperform the other children they go to school with. The other kids, well lets just say they do not get as much out of school, and normally (but not always) out of life.
See, the problem starts at home for the vast majority of children. Parents do not spend enough quality time (working, playing, reading, building, cleaning, ...) together. Not an hour or two a day, but 3 to 5 hours per day. That may sound like a lot, but, they had this child. Children learn the most by observing. Not listening to your instructions, but observing you carry out (or not) your promises, your rules, your ethics, your respect, your honesty, your ...
Then, these kids go to school. Now, they have either learned to respect adults, work, responsibility and such at home, or they have not. Guess which kids do better at first (and normally for the rest of the time as well). Are they doomed then? No. They can learn how to live right. I have seen it. Sometimes by a divorce where one parent suddenly is seen by the child for what that parent really is and the other parent is finally able to provide that good home. Sometimes, the parents go away, through jail or Child Protective Services (I know they are not perfect either) and they wind up in a good home. They learn good habits, just takes them longer and they have to relearn many things. They are still disadvantaged in some ways, but can keep up with and compete in the real world.
Believe it or not, these are the things that most impact a child's education. And the education of the children around that child. Why? Because that child's behavior in class will either impede or propel the education of the children around them. Put one bratty attitude in a classroom, and you can loose a half day of education everyday, and never have a good quality day of education. One Child can ruin the class. You may say the teacher can do something about it. No, they can not in most cases. We the people, as a whole, either through
Blame the mandate (Score:3, Interesting)
Students do not *normally* come to school to learn anymore.
Of course not! They come to school because the law says that's where they have to spend their weekdays. It's a wonder that any of them spend their time any more productively than prisoners do.
You get rid of the kids who cause trouble. Put them in a program to help them with their difficulties.
Better yet, just stop forcing those kids to attend. It shouldn't come as a surprise that you'll have a better learning environment if the only students there are the ones who want to learn.
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the age segregation thing is more beneficial to students than removing it. i remember reading a story about a 14 year old (i don't remember the exact age, but he was too young to drive) going for his phd. that's just messed up. this 14 year old will not adjust properly to real life. the reason that we keep kids of
Re:Blame the mandate (Score:4, Interesting)
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school is only 6 hours a day, 5 days a week for most high school students. the rest of the time should be spent on homework, fun stuff, and hobbies. it's those hobbies that can get people ahead, like
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Re:Blame the mandate (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot fits this criteria
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So, explain to me how in years past children did so well in school? (I.E. when 'quality time' was unheard of and parents weren't expe
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You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and othe
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You do realise it used to be 'normal' to only have one working parent (usually father) with the mother at home doing parenting things such as disciplining children for misbehaviour, showing them how to be productive (chores) and educating by reading them stories right? Or were you born yesterday?
You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and other chores. I wasn't born yesterday, but I did spend part of yesterday (and many part of many days before it) reading actual books and research on what life used to be like (a sideline into my research on cooking in America) - rather than parroting myths.
From the time I was born until after I started school, my mom didn't work at all. She cooked everything from scratch at home (we're talking making sauce from tomatoes, not buying a jar of sauce and heating it up and calling that homemade), she was a neat freak (honestly, her constantly picking up after me is why I never got in the habit of doing it myself and while I'm neat at work, I have to force myself to pick up at home) and she still had a ton of time for me. She spent hours reading with me, practicin
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You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and other chores. I wasn't born yesterday, but I did spend part of yesterday (and many part of many days before it) reading actual books and research on what life used to be like (a sideline into my research on cooking in America) - rather than parroting myths.
Fortunately I grew up in that mythical time
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Back in the day when only one parent worked out of the home, the other parent generally spent an equal amount of hours working in the home. (Cooking, cleaning, etc...) They had no, or very little, time for 'quality time'.
At no time prior to the present was this ever true. Period.
If the wife was expected to sacrifice her
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I do think there is a need for standardised curriculum and testing across at least some subjects.
I think there is a need for standardized requirements in certain subjects, as in you need to learn to use English/Math/... in this manner. I think a standardized methodology for teaching it is a huge problem. Children quite simply have different learning styles, challenges and motivations. By using the one way works for all approach, you hit a certain middle half to just over half, if you are lucky. The
Re:NCLB and Federal Government (Score:3, Insightful)
Washington DC is a fantasy land where people far removed from the trenches of the public education system dream up idiotic(if well-intentioned) laws like NCLB and then force it on our schools without adequate funding. They are, in effect, co
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I think you're missing the point. Using a web browser is easy. Consistently writing concise, persuasive comments (like this one) on slashdot is another matter. I've learned more about writing by practicing on usenet and slashdot than in any writing class. Here, you get unvarnished feedback from a vast audience. I never got that type of feedback in a formal setting until I started publishing pa
I happen to disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
And interactive, for that matter.
Re:I happen to disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to learn something is to try to teach it. Seminar-style classes should start before graduate school.
Re:I happen to disagree. (Score:4, Interesting)
I both disagree and agree.
This depends completely on the teacher.
My calculus-based physics teacher was a great example of how to teach a great interactive class by standing in front of a blackboard (or whiteboard in this case) and addressing the students orally. He probably did more to make me interested in Math, Science, and Engineering than anyone else other than my own father (who had a Ph.D. in Mathematics).
7 years later, after dropping out, working (for Microsoft!?!) for a few years, and re-starting college, I am currently taking calculus-based physics with a teacher who is a great example of how much standing in front of a blackboard and addressing the students orally can suck.
My only job is a school tutor and my study habits have much improved since 7 years ago, so I'm doing well in school. But I look around and I see many students who struggle because most of teachers are more like the latter example, rather than the former .
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First of all, it forces teachers all over the country to repeat the same material, instead of having a single recording. That decreases the time that teachers are availible to answer questions and do real teaching.
Secondly, the argument that it is interactive isn't really true. Yes, a person can ask a question while you are talking, and then the rest of class has to sit there and relisten to something they already understood. If s
MIT undergrads disagree as well (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I happen to disagree. (Score:4, Insightful)
I still agree addressing students orally and directly is still one of the best methods of education though.
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Re:I happen to disagree. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I happen to disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what decent professors/teachers have been doing for decades. I don't really see how technology changes anything there. 30 years ago I could flip through a reference book or go to the library and look up a formula or fact. Yes, Google is a bit more convenient. But surely high school students already know how to use search engines, right? If they can make a ghastly abomination on MySpace, they can use Google.
Besides that, a great professor giving a lecture using a blackboard is a million times better than watching a crappy professor go through a powerpoint show. The one isn't using technology, but technology isn't going to make up for the other's incompetence.
If there's an obvious benefit from using technology, then by all means use it; but I don't think it should be used just for the sake of using it.
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They are toys (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They are toys (Score:4, Insightful)
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We used to play 500 during our maths classes in high school, guess that dates me to "the olden days"...
Just wondering.... (Score:2)
Re: Just wondering.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if he has ever taught a class.
Re: Just wondering.... (Score:4, Informative)
The Irony! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Why do teachers want to lose their jobs? (Score:2)
Not quite old school (Score:2)
I think Meredith Wilson put it nicely...
the love of technology is a harsh mistress (Score:2)
No, I'm pretty sure that only happens if you're raped by a robot.
Doesn't translate, either (Score:2, Interesting)
I work with a lot of university students who are extremely conversant with the tech-goodies referenced here. I find that a high level of comfort with finely-tuned consumer devices does not translate at all to things that require some effort, ranging from FTP programs to even similar items, like a DV cam.
To show them how to use these things, I use a procedure remarkably similar to the one being derided. It generally works.
School IS boring (Score:2, Insightful)
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Because that's how it happened. History isn't just the things that happened, it's the people it happened to. History isn't just America fighting the British in the War of 1812; it's also John Paul Jones saying "I have not yet begun to fight," and winning.
I don't remember where I read it, but once I saw an instructive comparison of various high school history texts, excerpting that story about John Paul Jones and the degree to which it had
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Re: School IS boring (Score:2)
No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum.
Don't be silly. School is boring, but it has nothing to do with social movements. It's inherently boring because it's not what normal children and young adults would like to do with their time.
Perhaps it's possible to make it interesting, or at least less boring. But technical gizmos per se aren't going to do that - unless of course you want to replace education with mere entertainment.
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I've always also thought that if most of your learning is done at school, you'll never acheive much. Learning shouldn't stop at the end of the last period.
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No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum.
I don't think it can all be blamed on "conservatives" ... but it can fairly be blamed on politics. Conservatives in Texas won't stand for textbooks that are too critical of religion or "traditional values," whether those conservative values are appropriate or not. Liberals in California won't stand for textbooks that are politically incorrect ... whether the truth of history, science or literature is politically correct or not. Since Texas and California are both major markets for textbooks, the textboo
Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been a while since I took Ed Psych, so I can't use too many more big behavior-analysis words, but when you saturate children with immediate reinforcement and then drop them into a classroom, it's pretty obvious that a good percentage of them will become zombie children. Human teachers just can't provide the reinforcement schedule that they've become accustomed to.
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Well, what the hell else are they going to do? You can't play on the lawn where there are no lawns; and the vast proliferation of cars has made the street too dangerous to play in. What are kids supposed to do? Play with the chemistry set? Nowadays chem sets don't even come with chemicals. Build things? God forbid somebody
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Let'em use punch cards and only one hour of computer time each week (Saturday night, 2 am to 3 am) for a month. That'll teach'em.
And now get off my lawn.
I wish more people would think this way!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
It is unfortunate that the teaching system (of which my wife is a part) is stuck in a 19th century methodology of teaching the masses to act in unison. It is as if they're preparing these kids for the rote factory jobs of yesterday instead of the knowledge-critical jobs of today.
I've yet to find one instance in my work (IT manager over about 60 people in a large government agency with roughly 60 servers, 1,500 staff members and 18TB of data online) where I had to fill out a scantron form or decide which option was best - a, b, c, d, or all of the above.
As it is, I'm on the school site council, PTA and am constantly talking to the administration in my sons' school district. They just don't seem to want to 'get it.'
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The generation that invented those toys... (Score:2)
The generation that invented those toys stood in front of a blackboard. It remains to be seen what the kids with the toys will invent.
So...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Kids aren't interested these days because no one is showing them why they should be interested. All the kids see is their parents consuming mass amounts of entertainment, no wonder they choose their Playstation 3 over their algebra homework.
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This of course has the effect that those are above the level being catered to get bored, while those below the level fall behind, and never even learn to read or do basic math.
You are right in that learning needs to be made more interesting/fun.
Savvy? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, it's a generalization, just like his generalization. I hate the notion that "technology savvy" means "knows how to operate a user interface designed to be easy to operate". Yes, I'm an old fart (38), and grumpy. Regardless, my 4-year-old is proficient with a web browser. He is by no means tech savvy, and he learns more about real technology by interacting with a tricycle or bionicles than he does by playing some Flash game.
That said, I agree school sucks. It sucked when I was in school ("good" public schools in the 70's & 80's) and I hear it sucks worse now. I don't particularly see what text messaging can do to improve on the suckiness.
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"Tech-savvy" is a joke. Let's see, these kids can operate devices designed, built, and sold to the masses of people who have trouble making change at your local store.
That's not savvy people, that's willingness to buy and use tools. Any idiot can buy a hammer, it doesn't mean he should bring it to school unless they're gonna actually be teaching him to use it properly.
That said, the current thinking of schools seems overwhelm
But you're missing the point of school. (Score:3, Interesting)
Unrelated (Score:3, Insightful)
And? Does anyone really think the lack of cell-phones in the classroom is the problem holding American education back?
I used to teach in Japan (by standing in front of a blackboard, an actual blackboard, with chalk and everything). We told our students to leave their cell-phones at home, too.
Clearly, Japan's education system should be as bad as America's, given these criteria.
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So advanced (Score:5, Insightful)
If I left no student behind and pitched to the slower students, then I would have completely alienated the average and gifted ones. If I pitched to the gifted ones, then 80% of the class would have felt left out. If I drove down the middle of the fairway, then both ends of the curve would be, well, bored.
So when I read this SAS guy's comment about how advanced these students are these days, with their MySpace and iPods and cell phones, I don't buy into the connection between their "cyber-lifestyle" and their educational ennui. I think a typical classroom with typical chalk and a typical board can be plenty stimulating in whatever topic, provided it's tuned to the students' ability levels. But if you are going to insist that everyone in the class is equally able to absorb the material just because they all somehow ended up in the same room together, then you are probably going to have a chunk of students tune out because they're too far behind, and a chunk tune out because they're too far ahead. It would not surprise me if those two groups together would add up to about 47%.
A wise old man once said: (Score:2)
Is that the water's fault?
Sheesh.
I thought school had ALWAYS been boring. (Score:2)
School (at least the American school system I'm familiar with) takes something beautiful and wondrous like learning and manages to suck all the joy out of it. All school really did was expose me to a bunch of subjects that I otherwise might not have looked at. But I did all of my learning on my own, by doing things I was interested in. Around age 7 I got into chemistry, and got rather proficient with my home laboratory. I was learning stuff I wouldn't encounter in school for years, just to advance my ch
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Okay, I learned Math and English and Chemistry and even Home Economics, but I also learned teamwork, leadership, negotiation, how to surf, a bunch of good jokes, how to make out with a girl, etc. Those are skills you can't easily pursue on your own...
47% of HS dropouts? (Score:2)
He nailed it on the head... (Score:5, Insightful)
He outlined the problem with the *kids*, NOT the problem with schools. Perhaps if the kids didn't have access to all those toys they'd have an attention span beyond that of a chronically depressed lemming and actually be able to learn something while in class.
Attention span (Score:3, Insightful)
One valuable skill, however, that I feel that I learned from my more boring teachers was the ability to pay attention and stay focused, even in the face of serious tedium. I think that, due to the hyperactivity inherent in our technology and society these days, this is a skill that will be sorely lacking in the current young generation. Hell, I can see a deterioration of this in myself; I'm certainly not as good at concentrating at dull tasks as I was back in the 80s and 90s, and I think it's partially because I'm surrounded by highly rewarding outlets that provide instantaneous positive stimuli. Back in the day, if I wanted to play a game on my C64, I had to wait approximately one second per block for a program to load; thus, a game took in the ballpark of a minute in order to get from disk into memory. Now, if my web browser takes more than two seconds to start, I'm wondering what's wrong and feeling slightly antsy.
Look to entertainment for an even better example. Go ahead and download or rent some of your favourite, more exciting shows or movies from the 80s. They don't seem so exciting and stimulating in retrospect, do they? Things have changed and entertainment and technology are much, much more engrossing and instantaneously satisfying than they used to be. This is good on some levels, and bad on others. I have friends in their early 20s who are clearly very affected by this: if anyone attempts to, say, engage them in conversation and tell them a story that lasts more than a minute, you can see that they're really struggling to pay attention. Some of them will even pull out their cell phones and start "multi-tasking".
I'm of the opinion that this high need for stimulation is almost like an addiction and probably not healthy. Again, a lot of these same early 20 year olds that I know struggle with things like ADD and anxiety disorders: they always seem keyed up and twitchy, for lack of a better word.
So, at least in school these kids are forced to learn to pay attention, which is a highly undervalued life skill, IMO. Your boss, later on in life, is not going to go out of his way to make sure that every aspect of your job is delightfully interesting and engrossing, nor should he or she be expected to. You're going to have to sit through duller than dishwater meetings and put up with a lot of really boring grunt work on occasion; someone has to do it and I'm sure most people here can attest to the fact that it's unavoidable at times (and in many cases, quite frequently). Why should schools be any different and struggle to make every aspect of education stimulating?
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I mean, being able to u
Here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I think it would be better to have an emphasis on expressive art with science and technology complimenting it. S&T is great for the mind, but it doesn't feed the soul.
so fucking what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe if we expected our kids to take an interest in their own education, we wouldn't worry so much if precious wittle Johny is bored in class or not. The incentive should be to learn and explore knowledge. If the kids aren't fundamentally interested in learning, no amount of toys, gizmos, trickery, or whatnot will get them through a proper education.
I was hardly an ideal student. I was into my own things by time I was 14, I taught myself comp.sci and cryptography usually at the expense of regular high school subjects. Yet despite all that, i still managed to graduate from high school, go to college, grad from that, and then land a career in my field of choice.
High school dropouts are nothing more than anti-social lazy people who want instant gratification and think the world owes them everything. Oh school is boring. Well you know what, not every subject in life is going to be the most exciting thing in the world. But you go through it just the same because the more rounded your education the more versatile and interesting you become. I sure as fuck wasn't that into english lit, but I still took the courses just the same, and participated as best as I could.
In short, stop crying and whining, nobody owes you jack squat, and if you stop making excuses like "we need laptops and powerpoint!" you'd actually realize that the problems are mostly with the students, not the system.
Plato condemns the invention of writing (Score:4, Interesting)
Spoken like a true fogey. (Score:3, Insightful)
Around middle school an uncle of mine who works in IT gave me his old 286, some manuals, and some software, and turned me loose. I learned more about computers by repeatedly breaking and fixing that thing than I ever did in elementary school.
What's my point? I guess I've got two, really. The first point is that a computer is just a tool. School administrators seem to think along the same lines as hillbillys, luddites, or the old and uninformed; to be "good at computers" in some vague and shadowy way means that one is technologically savvy, possesses sharp analytical skills, and is a good problem-solver. By putting computers in schools they hope to make kids technologically skilled through some sort of sympathetic magic, much in the same way shamanic belief systems might make amulets of bear teeth to confer that strength to the wearer. The idea that because kids can play video games and text message each other they can propel the nation in to technological advancement is like saying that anyone who can drive a car should be equally good a designing and building one.
The second point I would make is that, while I wasn't thrilled with school when I was a student and I would like to see a more free-form system of education, the point of school is not primarily academic learning. School teaches you to work within an institution. Anyone can crack a book open or mess around with an engine. Formal education teaches you how to interact with a social structure similar to what one would find in most workplaces. (Similar, mind you, not identical.) That's not a worthless skill. Our society is structure, there is authority, there are rules. Whether you want to change that or not, that's the game as it stands and you need to know how to work within it.
The third and final point I would make, although probably better made by other posts, is that this guy is pointing out the problem with students, not schools. Speaking as a knee-jerk hedonist who acts to satisfy my every whim as they occur, it's not necessarily a good thing that an 8 year old can whip out a phone and text his friends in the middle of class, or that he can pull out a PSP and watch a movie or play a video game because geometry is boring. And, seriously, as intellectually curious as I am, if I got to choose my classes in school I would be utterly incapable of even the most basic arithmetic today. Sometimes, just sometimes, it's a good thing that someone who's priorities including eating as much cookies and cream ice cream as possible and watching Duck Tales is not calling the shots with his academic future. And before anyone starts in I know that there are 6 year olds who are super focused and mature for their age who might very well be able to make responsible decisions as to their education, I'm just making the point that, when you've lived fewer years than the lifespan of some pets you may not have the perspective to make good decisions. So maybe having someone who is trained in their academic field and in the skill of education in charge might not be a bad thing? Maybe, in this case, tradition is tradition for a reason?
Consider the source here.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Dr. Goodnight is also the de-facto CEO of Cary, NC, a well-to-do suburb of Raleigh. He attempts to rule the place with a velvet-clad iron fist, much like David Packard tries to dictate terms to Palo Alto, CA. As a result, all the new development in Cary (and there is a lot of it) tends to resemble the set of either "The Stepford Wives" or "The Truman Show". (I know, I lived there for 13 years.) Thus Dr. Jim has the occasional delusion of God-like powers within the town limits.
To his credit, he also started Cary Academy, a boarding school with a very intense math and science curriculum. (I think it's K-12, not sure, but I do know that SAS employees get a break on the tuition.) But I'm convinced his insights are marred by the bias of the student population he's observed there: motivated, intelligent kids with affluent parents.
He only needs to venture a few miles west to Granville County, NC to see what the rest of the student population looks like: neglectful parents who have never known the value of an education, and who are barely scraping by in construction or crappy service jobs. (I know someone who taught there. If you ever want to know where the left-hand side of the bell curve lives, go to Granville.) I don't think any upgrade of classroom tech will transform the young lives there.
So Jim, if you read Slashdot, please heed my advice, and pull your head out of your academy.
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It's not the concept they don't grasp. It's the zero-tolerance world which the extremists among us have created for ourselves.
If a teacher allows any violations of the rules in his or her class, you can be sure that more than one nutjob parent is going to be filing a complaint with the school board. Doesn't seem to matter if it's a complaint about Junior reading Richard Dawkins or Sally readi
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One of the biggest problems with public schools in the USA is that they do not reward learning, they reward docility.
Private schools are different.
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I don't think it is wise to remove teachers from the class though. A teacher should be availible to answer questions if they aren't answered in the videos. Having these videos would just free up a lot of time for the teacher to do the more useful interactive tea