Fucking education! How does it work?

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Demimonde

I gave up asking other students about their impression of profs. Unless I have had a class/study group with them and I know that we have similar learning styles or outcome expectations, their opinion is really worthless to me. So many professors who I absolutely loved I heard horror stories about, while others - whose students raved about them - I thought were complete rubbish.

Of course, I like hard ass teachers who keep the stupids in check during discussion and have higher expectations for students to work independently without hand-holding. I always feel like I am able to go deeper into the material without wasting time on the things that are self-evident to me. I do my best work in that kind of environment, while many of my peers complain that the prof isn't "teaching" them anything.

I loathe micro-managing teachers who spoon-feed info, waste time in repetition, let idiots prattle on about the most obvious observations, and give tons of busy work/assessments to make sure everyone is "keeping up." I understand though, that many students want and need that. For those students that prof IS a gifted teacher who can get great results out of them, it just feels like a waste of time to me.

Different strokes to move the world and all.

One of the hardest things for me to learn as a teacher was that you can't please everyone. And you shouldn't try.

I'm sure there are plenty of former students who think I'm the worst teacher ever.

I've gotten into the habit of telling students on the first day of each class: "My job is not to teach this to you. My job is to help you learn it; that's an important difference."

Not everyone appreciates that.

[Ohm]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

One of the hardest things for me to learn as a teacher was that you can't please everyone. And you shouldn't try.

I've gotten into the habit of telling students on the first day of each class: "My job is not to teach this to you. My job is to help you learn it; that's an important difference."

Not everyone appreciates that.

I agree. If the students cannot exercise their brains, and make an effort to want to learn and understand a concept. They won't remember it anyway. Only the ones who want it so bad will appreciate your teaching methods.

[LadyShea]

Chicago teachers are striking for the first time since '87. CPS, teachers fail to prevent strike in morning - chicagotribune.com

[Ohm]

This right here is the result, when teachers who care meet the students halfway.

[LadyShea]

I had no idea. That's a beautiful story.

[Jerome]

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

[Jerome]

Michael Jackson- Bad (Lyrics) - YouTube

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Ohm

This right here is the result, when teachers who care meet the students halfway.

Was that on TMZ last night?

:blanksay:

[The Lone Ranger]

Yesterday, in my "Introduction to Science" class, we were discussing the phenomenon of Universal Expansion -- how we know the Universe is expanding, what it tells us about the age of the Universe; that sort of thing.

Now then, we had spent all of last week talking about electromagnetic spectra, and how it ranges from radio waves at one end to gamma rays at the other. Also, the assigned reading in their textbook was largely about radio telescopes, what they are, and how we can use them to study distant objects.

So, on the subject of radio telescopes, I said: "The telescopes most of us are familiar with use electromagnetic radiation in the visible part of the spectrum; what part of the electromagnetic spectrum does a radio telescope use?". [And yes, I did emphasize the word "radio," to make it clear that this was intended as a clue.]

After a full minute or so of watching the students diligently looking down at their desks or flipping through their textbooks in the hopes that an answer might leap out at them, I asked again. "What part of the electromagnetic spectrum does a raaaadio telescope use?"

After another minute or so, one of the students finally got up the gumption to suggest ... "Infrared?".


I suppose I should have been gratified that he actually knew that "infrared" was part of the electromagnetic spectrum.



It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident. But it isn't. At all.

In teaching Introductory-level courses, I always find myself utterly shocked at how ignorant a great many of our students are, and how utterly incapable they are of even the most basic reasoning.

More than anything, what I've learned over the past several years is that it's apparently entirely possible (and indeed, far too common) for someone to graduate from high school with no understanding whatsoever of what science is, how it's done, or its most significant findings. And furthermore, no capability whatsoever for anything approaching critical thinking. I can only assume their ignorance in other fields is comparable.

I'm absolutely sure that if I went in tomorrow and told them that the Sun is a ball of fire 5 miles in diameter that orbits the Earth at an altitude of 500 miles, they'd diligently write it down. Maybe, maybe one or two of them would look confused, as if they were thinking "Gee, that doesn't seem right." But I'd almost be willing to bet good money that none of them would try to contradict or question me on the issue.



It's not that they're stupid. They're badly educated. How on Earth did we let our educational system reach this kind of low? How on Earth is it that we're graduating kids from high school who are so completely ignorant, and so utterly incapable of reasoning?

And what kind of future do these kids have?

[Ohm]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Now then, we had spent all of last week talking about electromagnetic spectra, and how it ranges from radio waves at one end to gamma rays at the other. Also, the assigned reading in their textbook was largely about radio telescopes, what they are, and how we can use them to study distant objects.

Reminds me of the scene of the enthusiastic Chemistry Professor "Walter White", in a classroom of apathetic students, before the cancer.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

It's not that they're stupid. They're badly educated. How on Earth did we let our educational system reach this kind of low? How on Earth is it that we're graduating kids from high school who are so completely ignorant, and so utterly incapable of reasoning?

Just yesterday while browsing through my books. I wanted to get more information on a book I used to have, but regretfully gave away. Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything".

Bill Bryson wrote this book because he was dissatisfied with his scientific knowledge — that was, not much at all. He writes that science was a distant, unexplained subject at school. Textbooks and teachers alike did not ignite the passion for knowledge in him, mainly because they never delved in the whys, hows, and whens.

"It was as if [the textbook writer] wanted to keep the good stuff secret by making all of it soberly unfathomable."
—Bryson, on the state of science books used within his school.[2]

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[LadyShea]

They don't teach critical thinking or resources anymore. It's all about spitting out the "right" answer, not finding information and reaching a rational conclusion one can defend.

[Ohm]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

They don't teach critical thinking or resources anymore. It's all about spitting out the "right" answer, not finding information and reaching a rational conclusion one can defend.

Agreed, which is why its important i teach it to my daughter. Particularly choosing reliable sources. Can you believe that i didnt know how important citation were until recently? I always knew but teachers really didnt make it a practice. Thats why i have a new found love for wikipedia. Large amounts of sources at the bottom of most article.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

It's not that they're stupid. They're badly educated. How on Earth did we let our educational system reach this kind of low? How on Earth is it that we're graduating kids from high school who are so completely ignorant, and so utterly incapable of reasoning?

And what kind of future do these kids have?

When I was teaching Jr. HS it was not uncommon for the Guidance Dept. and even teachers, to give a student a passing grade, just so they wouldn't have them back next year. I'm not proud of the fact that there were just some students that I did not care if they learned anything or not, I just did not want them back in my classroom next year, and I was not alone with these feelings.

Those kids don't have a future, except on the street.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Ohm

Agreed, which is why its important i teach it to my daughter. Particularly choosing reliable sources. Can you believe that i didnt know how important citation were until recently? I always knew but teachers really didnt make it a practice. Thats why i have a new found love for wikipedia. Large amounts of sources at the bottom of most article.

This may come as a great shock to you, but teachers do not always know as much as they pretend to know. My older daughter and I were in a disagreement when I tried to explain that there was more to a subject than her teacher said. She insisted that according to her teacher what she was taught was the sum total of the knowledge on that subject. There have been several points over the years where my HS teachers and My college professors were completely wrong about what they were telling students. I have a BS in Education in Industrial Arts and much of what I was taught there was totally wrong, which I discovered when I worked in industry later, as a machine opperator and a draftsman.

In HS there was an English teacher who assigned her class to write an essay, and one student wrote about getting a pilots license for an airplane. She flunked him because he was only 14 and couldn't possibly know anything about getting a pilots license, but he had gotten his license because the age requirements were not the same as for driving a car. She then acted like a stupid arrogant bitch, refusing to change the grade when the facts were pointed out to her.

In retrospect I'm lucky I learned anything usefull at all in HS or college, but I did learn a lot more later, after graduation.

[thedoc]

I hope this link works

Our deepest fear - YouTube

&feature=player_embedded
I borrowed this from a friend.

[wildernesse]

LOL, TLR, RA is taught his first class at this university. I think my favorite complaint he has told me is from the student who said he was mean because the test was supposed to be about genetics, but it was really about math.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Ohm

Agreed, which is why its important i teach it to my daughter. Particularly choosing reliable sources. Can you believe that i didnt know how important citation were until recently? I always knew but teachers really didnt make it a practice. Thats why i have a new found love for wikipedia. Large amounts of sources at the bottom of most article.

That's always a huge issue. Schools are mostly test based, and teachers are underpaid, so a lot of them are either totally incompetent or just overwhelmed.

Did I mention this already? My friend and her high school aged son were over here not long ago, I had to prove some totally obvious pop culture thing to her because she was being ridiculous, so I went onto Wikipedia. Her kid went "OOOOOH," like I'd pulled up porn or something, and told me that Wikipedia is wrong. Not "Wikipedia is not an appropriate source for citations," not even "Wikipedia is unreliable." Wikipedia is WRONG.

Because that's what his teachers told him because they are either really ignorant themselves (and some of them are) or they just can't be fucked to explain why it's not appropriate to cite Wikipedia as a source. And obviously, nobody bothered to show them how to use it to find sources. So I tried to explain to him how to use it, but who knows if that did any good at this point.

[Ohm]

Originally Posted by lisarea

That's always a huge issue. Schools are mostly test based, and teachers are underpaid, so a lot of them are either totally incompetent or just overwhelmed.

Did I mention this already? My friend and her high school aged son were over here not long ago, I had to prove some totally obvious pop culture thing to her because she was being ridiculous, so I went onto Wikipedia. Her kid went "OOOOOH," like I'd pulled up porn or something, and told me that Wikipedia is wrong. Not "Wikipedia is not an appropriate source for citations," not even "Wikipedia is unreliable." Wikipedia is WRONG. ..

I agree Wikipedia isn't ALWAYS the source for citations. But people should at least look at the list and make a decision. Specially where the article starts to make claims.

[Janet]

I've had that Wikipedia experience at the reference desk. I was trying to show someone how to use it to find sources and she said, "I can't use Wikipedia," and just blanked out on what I was trying to teach her. The thing is, learning to read the citations in a work and then hunt down those sources is an incredibly useful skill academically. The fact that I'd developed that habit from hunting down vampire books before I got to college helped me enormously at being successful. Using Wikipedia as an opportunity to teach that is a great idea that teachers don't use.

[Ohm]

Originally Posted by Janet

I've had that Wikipedia experience at the reference desk. I was trying to show someone how to use it to find sources and she said, "I can't use Wikipedia," and just blanked out on what I was trying to teach her. The thing is, learning to read the citations in a work and then hunt down those sources is an incredibly useful skill academically. The fact that I'd developed that habit from hunting down vampire books before I got to college helped me enormously at being successful. Using Wikipedia as an opportunity to teach that is a great idea that teachers don't use.

People also forget Citations in Books. Long after i'm done with my new book. I'm going back to get details in the sources listed in the books.

[Ari]

The wikipedia hate from both teachers and academics has really shown me what people's ideas of knowledge and information really are. While wikipedia does have some issues I've found it interesting almost no one who hates it is interested in discussing the more complex problems, and hates it just because. People care a lot less about true information than about it coming from the 'proper' source or done in the 'proper' way (often their way). No one seems to remember that big popular encyclopedias and school text books are notorious for poor facts. The belief that an invisible fact checker is incontrol of these books often washes away the proof that they are not.

[The Lone Ranger]

I seem to recall that there have been a few studies which found that Wikipedia articles tend to have fewer factual errors than do articles in standard encyclopedias.

Probably because Wikipedia has lots and lots of fact-checkers.

Which, of course, doesn't change the fact that plagiarism is plagiarism. So when I give students an assignment that says "In your own words, explain 'X'," and specifically tell them that they may not copy from their textbooks, or Wikipedia, or other sources -- if I get something that was obviously cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia or some other online source, they get a big, fat "0" and a lecture on the evils of plagiarism.

Amusingly, I had a student express outrage and shock -- shock, I tell you -- when I accused him of submitting something that he had copied from Wikipedia as his own work. When he demanded to know what "proof" I had that he had cheated, I pointed out that he had neglected to remove the "Citation Needed" note when he did his cut-and-paste.

You know the best example, though? About a year ago, a student turned in a written assignment. When I read it, it was immediately obvious to me that she hadn't written it herself. So I confronted her. She, of course, demanded to know what made me think that she wasn't the author of the work.


"Because I am," I replied. Evidently, she had found something online that I had written, and she turned it in as her own work. As coincidences go, it was a somewhat amusing one from my perspective -- less so from hers, I should point out.

[erimir]

But what if you write something that's so great, you decide that it should be in the Wikipedia article, so you update the Wikipedia article with your contributions and then you get accused of plagiarizing Wikipedia?!

[Waluigi]

Wikipedia edit logs should be sufficient to prove your claims. But let's be honest; if you're well versed enough on a scientific subject to contribute to the Wikipedia article on it, you're probably not in the "Science for Housewives" course TLR teaches.

[erimir]

That would've made a much more original story to give in response to TLR's accusation though, wouldn't it?