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SAS CEO Blasts Old-School Schooling

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuck-in-the-past dept.

theodp writes "What does SAS CEO Dr. Jim Goodnight have in common with 47% of high school dropouts? A belief that school is boring. Marking the 50th anniversary of Sputnik with a call for renewed emphasis on science and technology in America's schools, Goodnight finds today's kids ill-served by old-school schooling: 'Today's generation of kids is the most technology savvy group that this country has ever produced. They are born with an iPod in one hand and a cell phone in another. They're text messaging, e-mailing, instant messaging. They're on MySpace, YouTube & Google. They've got Nintendo Wiis, Game Boys, PlayStations. Their world is one of total interactivity. They're in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those 'toys' at home. They're not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.'"

6 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So...? by Wildclaw · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, schools doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator. The always cater to somewhere in the middle.

    This of course has the effect that those are above the level being catered to get bored, while those below the level fall behind, and never even learn to read or do basic math.

    You are right in that learning needs to be made more interesting/fun.

  2. Re:School IS boring by Thoguth · · Score: 2, Informative

    No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum. I don't think it can all be blamed on "conservatives" ... but it can fairly be blamed on politics. Conservatives in Texas won't stand for textbooks that are too critical of religion or "traditional values," whether those conservative values are appropriate or not. Liberals in California won't stand for textbooks that are politically incorrect ... whether the truth of history, science or literature is politically correct or not. Since Texas and California are both major markets for textbooks, the textbook manufacturers print only books that don't offend either end of the radical spectrum. The result is textbooks that are like lunchroom food... low-nutrition, not very good, but palatable to the majority.

    I'm not sure that school's mission has ever been to teach. I think the purpose is to act as a warehouse for children, lest they learn about the world around them too soon for the grown-ups to handle. You might be interested in John Taylor Gatto's Underground history of Education in America. He comes off as a little bit tinfoil-hatted at times, but it's an interesting perspective on large-scale federalized public "factory" schools, which according to Gatto's sources were engineered to create conformity, rather than intellectual superiority
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  3. Just to clarify... by langelgjm · · Score: 2, Informative

    hell, didnt some tests show that as long as the first and last letter of the word was in the right place, the other letters could be all over the place and not affect readability?

    Just to clarify, but the "tests" that so many people like to refer to didn't actually happen in the way that many people think they did. People are referring to a letter that was published in New Scientist making reference to the phenomenon. Some of the claims made in the portion of text that circulated around the Internet are clearly false; see this page for more information (he has some examples of sentences that are "scrambled" according to that rule, but are mostly unreadable).

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  4. Re:I happen to disagree. by afroborg · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am told that many teachers developed chalk dust allergies in the days of blackboards. Whiteboards are also easier to clean.

    However, I remember blackboards from my primary school days, and I don't seem to remember there being any problem with them.

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  5. Re: Just wondering.... by TimHunter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dr. Goodnight was a statistics professor at NCSU before he started SAS. Yeah, he's taught a class.

  6. Re:Wow, has Dr Jim's brain gone "Goodnight"!!!! by lwriemen · · Score: 2, Informative

    >If anything the modern "have it all now" youngsters have lost such qualities as
    > patience and long attention spans.
    >
    This is bull! Kids are the same; they just have different stuff.

    > I did well at school because I DAMN WELL GOT SOME COMMON SENSE AND BUCKLED DOWN TO
    > DOING SOME BLOODY WORK!!!!
    >
    I was bored at school 25-30 years ago, just like my son is now.

    School is about mass education, and not individual education. It is set for average intelligence.

    > Remind me - HOW MANY KIDS WITH DYSLEXIA AND ADHD WERE THERE 25 YEARS AGO???

    From what I've seen, I'd say the numbers were on par with today, except that societal awareness is higher today. This may have reversed the trend from under-diagnosed to over-diagnosed, but actual numbers might be constant.

    I don't have any studies to reference for this, but I'm just following your lead. ;-)