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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jeremy H. Sproat writes:
> Much of what I thought I never needed in high school, I've ended up using in
> the real world. I've been surprised more than once that X - (2Y pi r squared
> etc) has turned out extremely useful. I wish I'd taken better notes in
> math class. (Note that I am not an advanced algebra teacher at college.)
> Same
> is true for the English, history, science, and sociology classes.
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 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.
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]".
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!")
*#&$!@. 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.
> 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.)
-Shiri
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Idle Ramblings
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| (...) In my experience, the teachers who fail to convey the usefulness of basic concepts just don't have a good understanding of how they are actually used. I might be wrong, but it seems to me that not many people are willing to give up an (...) (25 years ago, 20-Apr-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Idle Ramblings
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| (...) 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. (...) (...) (25 years ago, 22-Apr-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Idle Ramblings
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| (...) I don't even know where to trim Chris' words, so I'll just quote the whole dang thing. I'd venture to say that the attitude he displays helps drag down the standards of American education. It's one thing to be upset with the quality of your (...) (25 years ago, 19-Apr-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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