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From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <4933@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 17 Dec 88 05:57:34 GMT
References: <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 75

[I've done some editing to keep the below short]
In article <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes:
>in article <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) says:
>> In article <776@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes:
>>>Paideia proposal.  However, be prepared for some extensive
>>>complaints from people (students) who believe that they should
>>>be allowed to have electives during K-12.  The notion that 
>>>students know what they should be taught, how they should be
>>>taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous.
>> disgusts me.  I counter your snide remark about K-12 students with my own
>> equally unsupported claim: a curriculum that is blind to the needs and wants
>> of the students is blind to everything education is about.  
>In general, in K-12, the "wants" of the students are totally opposite
>the "needs" of the student. I don't know about your school, but at
>ordinary public schools like the ones I attended, most kids were there
>because they had to be, not because they wanted to be... if they had
>their "wants", they wouldn't be there at ALL. 

Granted, but the original poster wasn't talking about what the students want
in general, he was writing about curriculum and teaching methods, specifically
referring to a proposal which apparently would eliminate electives.  As far as
I'm concerned, if some students want to take extra math/science, and some
want to take extra humanities, they should be allowed to do so.  This doesn't
rule out the possibility of a core curriculum.

>>school applications. A good curriculum should adapt to the students, and part
>>of that involves teaching what the students want to learn and how they want it
>>to be taught, at least some of the time.
>A good curriculum should adapt to the students, in that if a student
>wants to do/learn things beyond the minimum requirements, he/she
>should be encouraged in such ventures.  But most of them DON'T want to
>be taught, and DON'T want to learn! You obviously attended very
>exceptional schools, if your classmates didn't, for the most part,
>feel that way.

As it happens, I did attend unusual schools, but that's besides the point.  I
don't see why only exceptional students should be allowed to choose between
electives.  I think it's important to do some custom fitting for all students.
Just because, as you say, some students don't want to learn, it doesn't mean
that they should have a fixed curriculum jammed down their throats.

>I remember, painfully, my immature years in my early teens, and some
>of the things I did in those days. If I'd had total charge of my life
>and education, I'd have screwed up even worse than I did. Childhood
>and adolescence, by definition, mean that you don't have adequate
>information to make an informed decision.  Believe it or not, a
>substantial portion of the population isn't the sort of self-directed
>high achiever that you proclaim yourself to be.
>...How are the kids going to have enough
>information to make an informed decision about their education?

Wait, who's talking about total charge of education?  I just think that
students should have *SOME* control over, at the very least, the curriculum.
And, to respond to the broad comments made by the original poster, I think
that high achievers should have control over how they are taught, too, since
they actually care.  Besides, I don't think that administrators are making any
better decisions right now than even the least intelligent student would make
if the system were shifted so that students had more control over curriculum.
In other words, I think they're at worse than chance.  Which means they aren't
just doing a bad job, they're being actively stupid.

>[description of tv abuse]

While I agree that many people in a sense abuse television (i.e. use it as
a drug), I think that what was objectionable in the original posting was the
idea that the television was the cause of the problem.  I don't think that's
the case.  I think it just makes it easier for the problem to develop.  I
have a television, and I don't have to lock it in the closet to prevent myself
from turning into a vegetable.  In addition, the original poster made strong
suggestions that the only acceptable use of television was for traditional and
conventionally accepted cultural spectacles.  The example was the nutcracker,
but I assume it generalizes (to taste) to things like operas, documentaries
about the holocaust (not mini-series), and on rare occasions political events.

                                                       -Dan