Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!clong From: clong@topaz.rutgers.edu (Chris Long) Newsgroups: sci.psychology Subject: Re: Hi-Q societies Message-ID: Date: 30 Mar 88 00:48:58 GMT References: <7743@apple.Apple.Com-> <2042@mind.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 72 In article <2042@mind.UUCP>, Eliot Handelman writes: > One day, fellah, you might, through some mismanagement of our pedagogical > resources, find yourself in the position that you described earlier, > "helping" gifted kiddies. Is there something wrong with teaching at below the university level? In my opinion, something should be set up to allow, no encourage, professors to teach 1/4 - 1/2 a year at various high schools. I'm trying to do my bit; I'm currently arranging to lecture on preparing for the SATs at my old high school. No big deal, but it's a start. > And your dullness and lack of understanding is going to be noticed > straight off by one of the kids in your class. Gee, I hope not. Ya, see, I keep it hid *real* well. > Because whenever you fail to understand, you don't assume that somebody > is saying something that you might actually have to think about - > you conclude straight off that what they're saying is drivel. I call ANYTHING intentially obfrucated drivel. > I called that, in an earlier posting, "resentment". Face up, pal, > you're not "interested" in helping gifted kids. You feel threatened > by people of any age with better brains than yours. You just want > to kill the feeling in yourself that that are a whole lot of people > out there who are intrinsically more gifted than you are. This is a pointless comment. Everyone feels this, some to a greater, and some to a lesser extent. What *I* want is to prevent other kids from going through the crap that I had to deal with when I was growing up. When I was in 5th grade I was tested at the 9th grade + in terms of mathematics knowledge. Did I get access to math resources, encouragement, *anything* at all from my teachers at that point? No! Was I accelerated? No! Why didn't *I* do anything about it? I didn't know any better! I used everything I had available to the maximum, but that wasn't much. I had to wait until 6th grade for some real math, when I bought "Experiments in Topology" at a book sale for $.99. From that point on, I was on my own, buying any and all math books I could get my hands on. Didn't amount to too much, though. The neighborhood library? The most advanced book they had was some bit of strange work entitled "Non-Newtonian calculus", basically worthless. They re-did calculus using general tangent curves as opposed to just tangent lines... big deal. The notation was pretty, though. I have all kinds of stories like this to tell, like me having to continually correct my *biology* teacher in 9th grade about basic probability. He was the type who always thought each element of the sample space was equiprobable, just like the Monty Hallers over in rec.puzzles. I do math because I *love* it, not to impress the "kiddies" and make myself feel good. > Tata, sci.psychology. I've got better things to do than have discussions > at this level. I hate discussions at this level also. I don't plan on making this a habit, and I'd like to hear any *constructive* comments on your part. -- Chris Long Rutgers University RPO 1878 CN 5063 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (201)-932-1160 clong@topaz.rutgers.edu