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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.'"
Just because some kid has an ipod and a cellphone doesn't mean they're a genius when it comes to technology. An ipod is easy enough for an idiot to use, it's not a badge of honor to be able to use one.
Standing in front of a blackboard and addressing the students orally is an excellent method of education.
And interactive, for that matter.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In the olden days, would you have let them bring cribbage boards and cards into the classroom? Get a grip. They're fancier toys, but still toys.
we will end no whine before its time
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.
OK, it's a generalization, just like his generalization. I hate the notion that "technology savvy" means "knows how to operate a user interface designed to be easy to operate". Yes, I'm an old fart (38), and grumpy. Regardless, my 4-year-old is proficient with a web browser. He is by no means tech savvy, and he learns more about real technology by interacting with a tricycle or bionicles than he does by playing some Flash game.
That said, I agree school sucks. It sucked when I was in school ("good" public schools in the 70's & 80's) and I hear it sucks worse now. I don't particularly see what text messaging can do to improve on the suckiness.
I certainly didn't like high school, but I don't remember being inflicted by boredom as much as frustration and annoyance. I never really understood why so many people called school "boring" until I started my first ever job teaching last year. I taught Arabic at a popular university in California, mostly to freshman and sophomores. Even in that rarefied atmosphere of over-achievers volunteering for a tough course, the difference between the top students and the bottom students (we were supposed to say they had "less capacity", as though they were hard drives) was vast indeed. So the problem wasn't teaching in and of itself, although that is a hard job and my hat goes off to people who actually make a career of it. No, the trouble for me was trying to teach to a bell curve of ability.
If I left no student behind and pitched to the slower students, then I would have completely alienated the average and gifted ones. If I pitched to the gifted ones, then 80% of the class would have felt left out. If I drove down the middle of the fairway, then both ends of the curve would be, well, bored.
So when I read this SAS guy's comment about how advanced these students are these days, with their MySpace and iPods and cell phones, I don't buy into the connection between their "cyber-lifestyle" and their educational ennui. I think a typical classroom with typical chalk and a typical board can be plenty stimulating in whatever topic, provided it's tuned to the students' ability levels. But if you are going to insist that everyone in the class is equally able to absorb the material just because they all somehow ended up in the same room together, then you are probably going to have a chunk of students tune out because they're too far behind, and a chunk tune out because they're too far ahead. It would not surprise me if those two groups together would add up to about 47%.
Think about what you know, and how much of it you got in school.
One of the biggest problems with schools in the USA is that they do not reward learning, they reward docility.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
... though not what he thinks.
He outlined the problem with the *kids*, NOT the problem with schools. Perhaps if the kids didn't have access to all those toys they'd have an attention span beyond that of a chronically depressed lemming and actually be able to learn something while in class.
I wonder if he has ever taught a class.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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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Prior to iPods, mobile phones, Facebook, etc. etc., were the youth of the day just standing around bored with their hands in their pockets any more than they do today?
When I was a teenager 25-30 years ago, I read a lot, built models, did a lot of home electronics, a bit of woodwork and started programming on some of the first home computer systems - and I'd argue that I'm more technically savvy than most of the youngsters today because I learnt to build stuff from scratch so much, whether software, some wooden shelves or an electronic gizmo.
An iPod is a portable music player like a Walkman was 15 years ago, Facebook is just an extension of writing and meeting pen-friends 20 or more years ago.
If anything the modern "have it all now" youngsters have lost such qualities as patience and long attention spans.
I did well at school because I DAMN WELL GOT SOME COMMON SENSE AND BUCKLED DOWN TO DOING SOME BLOODY WORK!!!!
Remind me - HOW MANY KIDS WITH DYSLEXIA AND ADHD WERE THERE 25 YEARS AGO???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Dr. Goodnight was a statistics professor at NCSU before he started SAS. Yeah, he's taught a class.
wont be exposed to the evils of the opposite gender
...
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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.
Reading that quote about the kids and their fancy gadgets all I could think about was my grandparents being frustrated with their cable remote and asking me to show them how to use their cell phones. It also reminded me of a class I had in elementary school with the somewhat vague title "Computer Class". I'm not totally sure what this class was meant to teach, but two days a week we'd march our butts down to the computer room (which, mind you, had one computer in it) and play "educational" games on an Apple IIe, or watch our teacher do something with Logo involving a "turtle". The most I got out of that class was a tremendous ability to find Carmen Sandiego.
Around middle school an uncle of mine who works in IT gave me his old 286, some manuals, and some software, and turned me loose. I learned more about computers by repeatedly breaking and fixing that thing than I ever did in elementary school.
What's my point? I guess I've got two, really. The first point is that a computer is just a tool. School administrators seem to think along the same lines as hillbillys, luddites, or the old and uninformed; to be "good at computers" in some vague and shadowy way means that one is technologically savvy, possesses sharp analytical skills, and is a good problem-solver. By putting computers in schools they hope to make kids technologically skilled through some sort of sympathetic magic, much in the same way shamanic belief systems might make amulets of bear teeth to confer that strength to the wearer. The idea that because kids can play video games and text message each other they can propel the nation in to technological advancement is like saying that anyone who can drive a car should be equally good a designing and building one.
The second point I would make is that, while I wasn't thrilled with school when I was a student and I would like to see a more free-form system of education, the point of school is not primarily academic learning. School teaches you to work within an institution. Anyone can crack a book open or mess around with an engine. Formal education teaches you how to interact with a social structure similar to what one would find in most workplaces. (Similar, mind you, not identical.) That's not a worthless skill. Our society is structure, there is authority, there are rules. Whether you want to change that or not, that's the game as it stands and you need to know how to work within it.
The third and final point I would make, although probably better made by other posts, is that this guy is pointing out the problem with students, not schools. Speaking as a knee-jerk hedonist who acts to satisfy my every whim as they occur, it's not necessarily a good thing that an 8 year old can whip out a phone and text his friends in the middle of class, or that he can pull out a PSP and watch a movie or play a video game because geometry is boring. And, seriously, as intellectually curious as I am, if I got to choose my classes in school I would be utterly incapable of even the most basic arithmetic today. Sometimes, just sometimes, it's a good thing that someone who's priorities including eating as much cookies and cream ice cream as possible and watching Duck Tales is not calling the shots with his academic future. And before anyone starts in I know that there are 6 year olds who are super focused and mature for their age who might very well be able to make responsible decisions as to their education, I'm just making the point that, when you've lived fewer years than the lifespan of some pets you may not have the perspective to make good decisions. So maybe having someone who is trained in their academic field and in the skill of education in charge might not be a bad thing? Maybe, in this case, tradition is tradition for a reason?
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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.
However, as most seasoned IT people have figured out, 90% of the public user realm will never know the real stuff you do to make their world better. However they will think you an IT genius if you can show them how to color code their excel spreadsheet. Which is, I think how many IT people got their jobs in the first place...."Woah, a pie chart???!? You must be able to secure our webserver, manage our devs, and negotiate 6 figure budgets, thats the same!"
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
"My space users are also building websites."
Sure they are, just like interior decorators are building houses.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.