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SAS CEO Blasts Old-School Schooling
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.'"
I work with a lot of university students who are extremely conversant with the tech-goodies referenced here. I find that a high level of comfort with finely-tuned consumer devices does not translate at all to things that require some effort, ranging from FTP programs to even similar items, like a DV cam.
To show them how to use these things, I use a procedure remarkably similar to the one being derided. It generally works.
Part --- not all, but part --- of the reason for more kids sucking in school is that when they go home, they've got all these gadgets that put them on a continuous reinforcement schedule. They get IMMEDIATE reinforcement on every click of the mouse, every push of a button, every touch of the stylus.
It's been a while since I took Ed Psych, so I can't use too many more big behavior-analysis words, but when you saturate children with immediate reinforcement and then drop them into a classroom, it's pretty obvious that a good percentage of them will become zombie children. Human teachers just can't provide the reinforcement schedule that they've become accustomed to.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
The problem with schooling is that it's not "old-school" schooling. We just cater to the lowest common denominators who aren't interested in schooling which just makes it boring for those who are interested. I count myself lucky that my father instilled a great sense of curiosity in me at a young age. Yes I have an Xbox 360, gaming PC, iPod, cell phone, and all of that stuff, but as much as I like being entertained I also love learning. I have a deep interest in astrophysics, math, electrical engineering, computer science, and organic chemistry just to name a few.
Kids aren't interested these days because no one is showing them why they should be interested. All the kids see is their parents consuming mass amounts of entertainment, no wonder they choose their Playstation 3 over their algebra homework.
It's not to educate you, it's to keep you in line.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I do agree that what people do at school generally does *not* match what they will be doing at work. I'm not quite sure how to fix it because it is not easy to test for things like collaboration skills and balancing trade-offs. If its easy to test then its also usually easy to automate. Trivia can be searched on google-like tools, for example. Thus, we have a catch-22. Do we pick something thats testable so that we can measure progress and to motivate, or something more fitting to the real world but is difficult to test objectively?
Table-ized A.I.
I both disagree and agree.
This depends completely on the teacher.
My calculus-based physics teacher was a great example of how to teach a great interactive class by standing in front of a blackboard (or whiteboard in this case) and addressing the students orally. He probably did more to make me interested in Math, Science, and Engineering than anyone else other than my own father (who had a Ph.D. in Mathematics).
7 years later, after dropping out, working (for Microsoft!?!) for a few years, and re-starting college, I am currently taking calculus-based physics with a teacher who is a great example of how much standing in front of a blackboard and addressing the students orally can suck.
My only job is a school tutor and my study habits have much improved since 7 years ago, so I'm doing well in school. But I look around and I see many students who struggle because most of teachers are more like the latter example, rather than the former .
And I could probably put a satellite in orbit today given Google and enough money
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And why would a whiteboard be better than a blackboard? Chalk is harmless, unlike the solvent based pens, and it is far more environmentally friendly.
I'm an freshman at MIT, taking a physics course (8.01 classical mechanics) that is supposed to use technology to the fullest: radio frequency response cards, computer for every third person, full integration with experiments, video feeds from the professor's desk to screens all around the room, online extra homework assignments, etc, but undergrads pretty much all agree that IT SUCKS. Interaction is far lower, the professors are tempted to stuff absurd numbers of meaningless assignments into the syllabus since they no longer need to grade them by hand, and the end result is that learning physics has become a lot harder than it needs to be. A lot of my friends have moved up to 8.012, not because it is a harder class, but because they have -normal- lecture and recitation sessions, which makes all the difference. We may like flashy technology a lot, but right now it isn't an improvement over what we have. The 'blackboard' style of teaching goes back 2000+ years for a reason.
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It's not exactly PC to point it out but the average person from South Eastern country like Vietnam is light years ahead intellectually compared to the average Pakistani. Or for that matter the average American or English person.
And it's not racial at all - I think Indians are quite similar ethnically to Pakistanis, it's just that they have a culture which is capable of teaching maths and the Pakistanis don't. Americans are somewhere in between Vietnam and Pakistan.
And before people start to get all nationalistic and defensive about it, I said average as in Johnny Sixpack jock types in America and Madrassah fodder in Pakistan, not the 0.5% of the population who likes math and posts on slashdot. The thing SE Asian countries do well is to get average people to learn maths, mostly by old fashioned blackboard lessons a punishing curriculum and exams you can actually fail. America and Britain have dumbed things down to increase the pass rate and because telling people they're failures is a bit fascist, and Pakistan education is patchy and dominated by a poisonous religion.
In fact if you were looking at things from a cynical point of view, the War on Terror is a handy way to keep the people too stupid to pass Calculus 101 busy from both Pakistan and America.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
i would say that text messages often show that people have better understanding of the language then first impressions can lead to.
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?
often what text message "shorthand" does is produce the sound of the word, not the letters of the word. or maybe enough of the sound so that it can be distinguished from a different, but similar word.
also, some languages (with english being one of them) have a lot of silent letters. letters that show up when one is to write the word, but isnt vocalized in speech.
then there is the difference between person to person communication and formal writings. much internet shorthand shows up where time, space and similar is limited. irc and now fps acronyms are one example where often a long sentence is turned into 3-4 letters so that one does not waste time typing them out. sms, where one is often priced by the message, and each message is some 160 characters long (including whitespace), the need (for a kid using a pay as you go or other limited plan) to write very compact messages shows up. and if one can get away with hitting those number keys less times, that may aid as well.
yes, there is a sad thing when they bring this kind of writing over into the world of formal letters, email and CV's. but i see nothing bad in the use of these techniques, within their proper context. the languages we know today have all evolved from more elaborate ones, that have been cut down over the ages for ease of use in the day to day world. if thats a good or bad thing have probably been debated as long as speech have been around, and kids have used slang in front of their parents.
and that may be another thing to think about. language is culture. its the basis for songs and stories. and via those culture and religion (often two sides of the same coin) is spread. the kids using their way of writing creates their own sub-culture. something kids of all generations have done, in writing, music and similar. there is no single generation x, thats always the newest one, the one whos culture the adults of the world find at the same time similar and alien to their own.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
=BAD
Students should have the leading role on their own learning process. Instead people still spend most of their university time taking notes as there were no computers, no photocopiers.
Put all the information online, let students make questions, update and repeat until any normal student can understand everything on their own. Let students learn at their own pace, dont drag them to class as listeners. Teachers should be just helpers, an accessory on our education.
So, explain to me how in years past children did so well in school? (I.E. when 'quality time' was unheard of and parents weren't expected to sacrifice themselves utterly for their children.)
You can't get someone 'back to' where they never were in the first place.
Etc... Etc...
I don't care what your credentials are - you haven't a clue what you are talking about.
My daughter's teachers sit in front of an active whiteboard, hooked up to a laptop, so that, for example, she can see the effect of changing parameters in an equation graphed immediately. She then puts headphones on in the language lab, then uses Google Docs to do he creative writing (so she can easily finish it off at home). Where is it that teaching isn't using technology?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I can still remember the moment that may have destroyed my aspiration to become a programmer.
I was in 3rd grade and lucky enough to go to a private school where they actually had a computer. Sure, it wasn't much, but that little Texas Instruments TI-99 was a powerful tool in its day. My family had a TI at home and I was always fiddling with it. I would endlessly type lines of code that I couldn't even save because we didn't have a floppy drive.
Anyways, one day during our designated free time, a classmate and I were using the computer. I was showing him some of the basic commands I had learned, PRINT, CALL COLOR, CALL SOUND, etc. I accidentally typed too many zeros or something and a CALL SOUND command resulted in an angry-sounding low pitched noise from the console.
The teacher immediately came over and scolded me for "breaking the computer." I remember how guilty she made me feel for making use of an skill I had learned. She didn't even bother asking me what I was doing or what had happened. She just turned the computer off and made me feel ashamed.
OK, 20 years ago many teachers didn't understand technology. I would hope that this ignorance has subsided, but I'm doubtful that even today, a student wouldn't still be discouraged from demonstrating any advanced knowledge or programming skills. A stigma still exists regarding technology in the classroom.
Technology can be a great learning tool. But just as the article says, students are ill-served by the same old-fashioned mindset that once discouraged me from typing code into a TI-99.
A lesson is a lesson regardless of whether it's in front of a blackboard or on a netmeeting whiteboard. When will these people realize that it's the MESSAGE that counts more than the medium. Not every fucking kid needs a laptop, or their own personal PDA/etc. We got along just fine in the 80s/90s with a paper agenda book, blackboards, and textbooks.
Maybe if we expected our kids to take an interest in their own education, we wouldn't worry so much if precious wittle Johny is bored in class or not. The incentive should be to learn and explore knowledge. If the kids aren't fundamentally interested in learning, no amount of toys, gizmos, trickery, or whatnot will get them through a proper education.
I was hardly an ideal student. I was into my own things by time I was 14, I taught myself comp.sci and cryptography usually at the expense of regular high school subjects. Yet despite all that, i still managed to graduate from high school, go to college, grad from that, and then land a career in my field of choice.
High school dropouts are nothing more than anti-social lazy people who want instant gratification and think the world owes them everything. Oh school is boring. Well you know what, not every subject in life is going to be the most exciting thing in the world. But you go through it just the same because the more rounded your education the more versatile and interesting you become. I sure as fuck wasn't that into english lit, but I still took the courses just the same, and participated as best as I could.
In short, stop crying and whining, nobody owes you jack squat, and if you stop making excuses like "we need laptops and powerpoint!" you'd actually realize that the problems are mostly with the students, not the system.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I heard a story about that too. Some teaching school graduates got their first job in an inner-city school working with hard-to-teach kids. Realizing that the kids were missing out on all the other activities that the suburban schools had, and that having teachers leaving after one term due to the stress, they made an effort to stay and help bring the kids back up to speed with extra tuition and after school classes. The kids grades improve. What happens next? The education board sees the improvement in grades, and transfers a whole load of troubled kids from other schools. The teachers quit from the stress.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Go read the historical reasons why school really sucks
That book explains everything you need to know about the education system, why it is so fucked and yes, why it is boring, what it really is supposed to do and how it is doing Just That Real Well.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
COmplaining aboutmodern education hasnt changed in 2400 years. Reminds of the passage from Plato's Phadreus dialog condemning the invention of writing. The speaker claimed people would use their memory less and it would become much weaker. Homer's epics are pre-writing. Lore-masters would memorize them - tens of thousands of lines. In the original greek they have a beat and rhyme fairly similar to modern rap, to assist memorization.
Dr. Goodnight is also the de-facto CEO of Cary, NC, a well-to-do suburb of Raleigh. He attempts to rule the place with a velvet-clad iron fist, much like David Packard tries to dictate terms to Palo Alto, CA. As a result, all the new development in Cary (and there is a lot of it) tends to resemble the set of either "The Stepford Wives" or "The Truman Show". (I know, I lived there for 13 years.) Thus Dr. Jim has the occasional delusion of God-like powers within the town limits.
To his credit, he also started Cary Academy, a boarding school with a very intense math and science curriculum. (I think it's K-12, not sure, but I do know that SAS employees get a break on the tuition.) But I'm convinced his insights are marred by the bias of the student population he's observed there: motivated, intelligent kids with affluent parents.
He only needs to venture a few miles west to Granville County, NC to see what the rest of the student population looks like: neglectful parents who have never known the value of an education, and who are barely scraping by in construction or crappy service jobs. (I know someone who taught there. If you ever want to know where the left-hand side of the bell curve lives, go to Granville.) I don't think any upgrade of classroom tech will transform the young lives there.
So Jim, if you read Slashdot, please heed my advice, and pull your head out of your academy.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
You do realise it used to be 'normal' to only have one working parent (usually father) with the mother at home doing parenting things such as disciplining children for misbehaviour, showing them how to be productive (chores) and educating by reading them stories right? Or were you born yesterday?
You do realize that what you state is largely a myth, not a fact? back in the day when only one working parent was common (actually a briefer era than many realize), Mom was busy with cooking and cleaning and other chores. I wasn't born yesterday, but I did spend part of yesterday (and many part of many days before it) reading actual books and research on what life used to be like (a sideline into my research on cooking in America) - rather than parroting myths.
From the time I was born until after I started school, my mom didn't work at all. She cooked everything from scratch at home (we're talking making sauce from tomatoes, not buying a jar of sauce and heating it up and calling that homemade), she was a neat freak (honestly, her constantly picking up after me is why I never got in the habit of doing it myself and while I'm neat at work, I have to force myself to pick up at home) and she still had a ton of time for me. She spent hours reading with me, practicing counting, taught me math up through long division and I could write in cursive before I started school, etc. She took me to go get my library card when I was about 3 so I could learn to answer my own questions rather than rely on someone else just telling me things were a certain way. My parents bought me this little desk with a chalk board and stuff on it and taught me that learning was fun. We weren't loaded, my dad made $3-5/hour (this was 1977-1980), but they made it work and I benefited from it.
Even after I went to school, they arranged it so my mom would usually be home when I was. Despite working, coming along on field trips with my school, taking me to baseball, etc, I'd still come home to fresh baked cookies and my mom would still make pizza (dough included) from scratch. My sister is 7 years younger than me and while she's as smart as me (though in different areas... I'm more science/math and she's more language/music), she dropped out of school, has a kid of her own that she refuses to spend any time with, etc. I think the main difference is my parents got divorced when my sister was 4 and in the process, it really cut down on quality time with the parents since both were busy doing everything to maintain a separate household (which means needing twice the old income to pay two mortgages, my dad spending time doing the domestic work at his house and my mom spending time doing yard work at her house, etc), both parents undermining the authority of the other and/or disparaging the other to the kids, them trying to buy my sister's affection with gifts, etc.
I turned out pretty smart but I've got a problem called avoidant personality disorder which really has its roots in that time frame for me. Basically, I'm compelled to avoid confrontation (especially rejection from women) rather than take risks (even minimal ones) because I'm predisposed to thinking things will end in certain failure. I tend to constantly test people for their acceptance before I even let them see the real me and when it comes to taking a risk (talking to a woman, applying for a new job, going back to college, etc), I have a default state of inferiority and I have to work really hard to overcome things people won't even think twice about. It is sometimes bad enough that if I find a waitress attractive, I'll completely clam up, stare straight forward and if I'm feeling particularly uncomfortable, my right hand might start twitching.
Compare that to my sister... she dropped out of high school with 2 months left to go. Hasn't ever worked for more than 3 months at a time. Uses and abuses every guy she comes across. Got knocked up and refuses to take care of her kid (16 months old), making our mom do it for h
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.