Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1917 sci.math:5428 sci.physics:5620 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics Subject: Re: Student preparedness Message-ID: <1104@l.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 19 Jan 89 16:46:50 GMT References: <605@ucrmath.EDU> <6578@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <15007@srcsip.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department Lines: 47 In article <15007@srcsip.UUCP>, shankar@haarlem.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) writes: > In article <1088@bird.ldgo.columbia.edu> hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough) writes: > > >American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality: > > Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught > > right. Rather than ship the less promising students off > > to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass > > your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes > > up to at least eighth grade. > > Perhaps because every student *can be a rocket scientist if he/she is thought > right and works hard at it. Let's see, who was it that said genius is 1% > inspiration and 99% perspiration. > > I would rather not see elementary school kids tested, classified into > one of many professions, and then sent to an appropriate school. The problem and solution are both simpler and more complex than you have stated. There are massive innate differences of ability. Having seen promising-looking graduate students run into a stone wall strikes a fatal blow to the idea that students are even approximately equal. I believe that a student capable of understanding abstraction is more capable of it at the age of 6 than at the age of 16. Am I right? We do not know. We need great diversity in teaching children because their abilities are diverse. Sending children to appropriate schools is not feasible. We would need thousands of different types of schools. We need to consider the child who can advance rapidly in one area but not in another. So I even reject the idea that students in a given group get the same education. Advancing students rapidly in particular subjects is far from ideal, but is immediately feasible. It was widely used before the social adjustment people took over the educational establishment 50 years ago. But there is another way, which involves technology. I mean electronic classes, NOT lectures. That is, the class is assembled, not by physical presence, but electronically. I think the expense is tolerable, and it need not be used for all students in all cases. This also allows students to switch if the ability and desire are there, and allows fairly quick correction of gross errors. Of course mistakes will be made, but will they be worse than teaching every child exactly the same material as eveyone else of the same age? -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)