Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!motcid!murphyn
From: murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <583@cherry5.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 89 17:20:30 GMT
References: <479@intelisc.nosun.UUCP> <7474@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Heights, IL 60004
Lines: 52


In article <7474@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>From snidely@nosun.UUCP (David Schneider):
>> Most students consider themselves incarcerated, and aren't 
>> willing to make it easy for teachers to teach.
>
>...
>
>   But surely (heavy sarcasm) this could not compare with the thrill
>   of force-feeding irrelevant material to a captive audience which
>   really doesn't give a damn, right???  After all, what could possibly 
>...

I don't know how many of you, out there, are parents. I myself am not one.
But, it seems that most of the problems in education stem from the changing
of society in general. Look at the East Germans going back to E. Germany
after a few weeks of working in the West: they didn't like having to work
so hard for what they were earning. Now, look at us, here in the US (and
perhaps elsewhere). We work exceedingly hard so that we can assure ourselves
a future where we won't have to work so hard. Our choice. But, there are
too many parents out there who are working long and hard hours. They simply
are not there to teach their children the discipline they will need later
in life. The children have no direction. They turn to drugs because that's
the only thing that forces them into a course of action. For years, parents
attempted to shift the teaching of discipline (I do *not* mean corporal
punishment, here.) to the schools. The teachers weren't (and aren't) prepared
for that. And the school boards, courts, children's advocacy groups, etc.
won't let them in any case. We have an entire generation of children growing
up with *NO* discipline whatever. They don't know the concept of doing something
simply because they must. They only do something if they *WANT* to do it.
Unfortunately for them, most of education involves force-feeding *seemingly*
irrelevant material to students. By this, I mean, "Take my word, student. You
need to learn this, even if *you* don't see its relevancy, because *I* see
its relevancy, and that relevancy may not become apparent to you for weeks,
months, or even years from now. So learn it, as best you can." Our teachers
have very little support from the parents. Education begins at home. It is
supplemented at school.

>...
>   is doing a FINE job of producing pregnant teenage dropouts who give 
>   birth to heroin-addicted babies -- why should we change a thing???

Our educational system is producing pregnant (and impregnating, to be fair)
teenage dropouts addicted to drugs because society, as a whole, has failed
them. We have failed them. And we are stuck with supporting them for the
rest of their lives. At this point, we have two choices: we can hope and
pray that the problem goes away on its own (not likely), or we can work
together to fix the system, to ensure that such widescale abuse of our
children does not again occur (also not likely to happen). Somebody -
anybody - please prove me wrong.

NPN