Subject:
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Re: Idle Ramblings
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 22 Apr 2000 23:57:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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1529 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Shiri Dori writes:
>
> One of my favorite and best teachers ever is definitely my 9th grade Physics
> teacher. Why? On the surface, that's a tough one. He was pretty harsh about
> grading (immediately frowned-down by most students), although he had a good
> sense of humor. But why, really, did I like him so much? How come I still
> remember everything he taught me?
> It all boils down to three things (point c is the actual reply to Jeremy's
> words)...
> a. he actually cared about whether we *understood* the material or not. If
> certain students were behind, but others had already grasped it, he wouldn't
> stop and reiterate the whole thing for the entire class; I hate it when
> teachers do that. But he didn't leave the other students in the lurch, no way!
> He DID take class time to explain the material to the slower students; he gave
> faster students something else to do meanwhile.
Some of the best teachers i had in highschool taught this way. If you didn't
understand something they would try hard to find out why you were having
trouble and did whatever they could to help. And did this without holding up
the rest.
> b. he let us figure out things on our own. This is a major point. He would
> never tell us "this is the equation for this and that"... OTOH, he would have
> a class discussion about the topic, and slowly work us thru the steps of
> figuring out how and/or why something worked as it did. We got the feeling of
> discovering something ourselves. And (someone smart said this, can't remember
> who :-) "when you let a child discover something on his [or her] own, he
> [/she] is gaining much more than if you teach it to him [or her]".
My two art teachers taught this way. They would teach you basic techniques
and walk you through how to do something, but the real learning started when
they turned us loose on our own projects. If you wanted to try something they
would let you do it and let you learn from your own experience. When you try
something out on your own, even if it doesn't work you learn alot more then if
some one just tells you how to do it. Lego taught me that little lesson.
> c. he explained to us the actual usefulness of the things we are learning
> now. He often used real-life examples, not just letters and numbers, in our
> class/HW problems. And when you now how something will help you in the future,
> you are more likely to try to remember it.
>
>
> To show my point: Jeremy knows that X - (2Y pi r squared) [forgive the
> reoccuring example] is very useful and he wishes he would've paid attention in
> class when he learned that.
> Chris is learning that equation now, but it seems to him that it is useless
> and is not paying great attention to it in class.
>
> Well, duh! Why in the world can't teachers tell you, at least *briefly*, what
> uses there are for X - (2Y pi r squared) in real life? Huh? Maybe Chris would
> pay more attention now, and will understand it better when he runs into it
> later. ("Oh! That's that equation Mr. Bower taught me and said would be useful
> for digging holes! And here it is!")
The 3 4 5 method of laying out a 90 degree angle comes to mind. If you had
a perfect right triangle with one side measuring 3 inches[substitute inches for
whatever unit of measurement you like it still will work] you would find that
the other two sides measure 4 and 5 inches. So when you need to make a right
angle simply draw out a triangle with one 3 one 4 and one 5 inch side and you
have a 90 degree anngle. When you are in scool you think why would i ever need
this when i can simply use a square to find a right angle, but i find this
method far more versitile than a square could ever be and never relized this
until after school.
>
> *#&$!@. I wish teachers would think about their students once in a while, and
> what good they're doing by teaching those theoretical
> equations/principles/ideas. Gosh. • Agreed
>
> > Conversely, about the most wated time for me in high school was spent in PE.
> > I
> > have never been in a situation where I've had a need to throw a football or
> > slap a hockey puck. *IF* the physical education classes contributed to
> > bettering my health, I might have a different opinion. Sorry, it didn't
> > happen. All PE did for me was to help alienate me from the crowd. Give me
> > more books and less PE, say I.
>
> PE is a bad issue with me. I have tough asthma, and I'm pretty much restricted
> from getting involved in PE. My elementary-school peers used to think I was
> slacking off, and couldn't realize that I had health problems ('specially with
> that one kid going around saying "I have asthma, but you don't see *me*
> sitting on the bench when we have to run 2 km..."). So I must agree about the
> alienation here. (I was that kid that's always chosen last when you pick
> teams. I mean, ALWAYS.)
I was terible in PE too. Yet ironicaly i find myself in a very physicaly
demanding job. Landscaping is not for the weak. I doubt how ever that many of
the star athletes at my school would last long.
And just for the record while i think that most of our public school system
is broken there are some exceptions. I like to think my highschool was one of
them. It wasn't the richest by far but i had some excelent teachers who cared
about their students, cared about what they taught us, and knew what they were
doing. Maybe things have changed there since i graduated in 96 but i hope not.
Cale
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Idle Ramblings
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| (...) That is one of my major *major* beefs from the normal schooling system. They teach you things which definitely might turn out to be useful; but do you hear the teachers ever mentioning that? Not in my current school. One of my favorite and (...) (24 years ago, 20-Apr-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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