Slashdot Mirror
How Do You Fix Education?
TaeKwonDood writes "Carl Wieman is the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics but what he cares most about is fixing science education. The real issue is, can someone who went through 20 years of science education as a student, lived his life in academia since then and even got a Nobel prize get a fair shake from bureaucrats who like education the way it is — flawed and therefore always needing more money?"
If it's a 9 to 5 job, then why do they need to do anything at home? There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about how Finland's education system is remarkably efficient considering that kids have a much smaller homework burden than in the U.S. Do things right at school, and perhaps there won't be any need to get the parents involved.
I fully agree that parents need to take more responsibility for their children; not just in relations to education. However, as you say, improving the actual organization and methods of the educational system is something that should be forever ongoing.
Seems to me that "parents need to take responsibility" is all to easy to use as an excuse for the flaws in the system. At least, easier than actually trying to fix the flaws. Further more it seems to me that the reforms the do try to push through are often based upon a perception of reality not fully bases in fact and research. There are brilliant people studying the ups and downs of various educational methods; but politicians and bureaucrats seem more interested in enforcing their party's, or their own, agenda.
Friend of mine is a teacher, 10-15ish age group; and he is very into reading up on the latest articles, papers, research, studies, etc, regarding all aspects of education. One of his greatest frustrations is the institutionalized stupidity of the system. Methods that have been proven to work are showed aside because they are in conflict with current dogma.
The Long Now Foundation
I don't think a voucher system will improve education on its' own... I do feel the to some extent it would be a very good thing, as it could/would increase competition in education, and raise standards dramatically in urban areas, where the number of students available are larger, and systems of scale become more reasonable.
On the flip side, I don't think it will help near as much in more rural communities. Also, many students don't work well in online/homeschool environments. I think having the option is a good thing overall though.
My son was home-schooled last year via an online charter school, and did very well, much better than the local school district (in a fairly rural community). However of my friends/family with children of school age, I don't think most of the children would respond nearly as well to that environment.
I think the biggest problem is too much funding is lost in bureaucracy instead of higher salaries for teachers... to be honest, I think a lot of teachers today probably don't deserve more pay, but more money needs to be offered to bring in those that may not have otherwise considered teaching. As a senior programmer, I make about 3-4x what the average the average teacher in my state makes. I honestly don't think that this is right. I feel that probably 1/5 of our teachers should be rotated out annually... have "teaching" programs for professionals, you spend 2 years as a T/A (all classes should have two instructors, one main, one TA, and a parent in daily, imho). After that year, the TA would take primary on a class, then after a couple years as the main instructor, go back into the private sector. There are some good instances of lifetime teachers... but imho these are too far and few between, and I'd rather see "fresh" teachers come in, and out in a relatively short period. And it should be an honor, to have served as an instructor for said 4 year engagement.
The problem seems to be, that the various educational systems seem to be dedicated to hiring trained "teachers" who don't have much, if any specialty, instead of people who are good at their professions who want to spend a few years teaching.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I had the privilege of taking a quantum mechanics course from Carl Weiman 2 years ago while he was teaching at the University of Colorado. It was by far the best college course I've taken, he had the perfect mix of well versed lecturing with "clicker" quizzes throughout the class, homework that was appropriate for the material, and tests which rewarded understanding of the material and not memorization.
The best part really was that by the end of the course, he gave his lecture on Bose Einstein Condensate which he won the Nobel prize for, and all the students could understand what he was talking about from learning things throughout the semester, it was incredibly rewarding.
Compare that to my next physics courses which were basically applied calculus, except they left out the important part of what the **** any of it meant and how it applied to... anything really. His course overshadowed the rest of my physics courses and in the end, because of the huge disparity in teaching styles, made the rest of my studies quite grating and rather uninteresting.
This is about as worthy of a "+5: Insightful" as a post can be.
In the 1960s, we used to have parades that celebrated astronauts. Let me say this again - we had PARADES... for... ROCKET SCIENTISTS... To become one was something that was considered the height of a child's aspirations. No wonder we were sending people to the moon with a pocket calculator and a roll of duct tape.
And what are we left with now - an utter disdain for anyone and anything that displays the traits of having even a shade of reason. Even more importantly, we've managed to "democratize" science. The "intelligent design", "vaccines and autism", and "global warming is a myth" campaigns are only the tip of the iceberg of targeted ignorance, that aims to teach the public, and especially the younger generation, that on one hand science is a mysterious black art, to be feared and distrusted, and on the other, it's little more than a game of weak, impotent men and women, that can be played by anyone... a medium where all voices are equal.
As a result, we have a number of situations, where people's beliefs are shaped not by scientific fact, but by whoever screams the loudest. Add to that an overall atmosphere of distrust of "the system", and you have a society where scientific "rogues" that spout senile and frequently openly fallacious concepts, are treated as heroes by much of the population.
How can we hope to fix education in such circumstances?!
Not to rant further, but the other major problem we've run into, that must be resolved if our educational system is to be salvaged, is one of unrealistic expectations. When kids dreamed of being "rocket scientists" in the 60s, it was understood that not everyone was going to achieve this dream. Which was more of a reason to pursue it! Instead, we now say that everyone must go to college, and everyone must achieve an X level of educations, which is... let's face it... unrealistic. But what these expectations HAVE done, is devalue higher learning, by trying to push everyone into the same bracket. And since you certainly can't raise the expectations for people who simply cannot meet them, we just lowered the bar for everyone, most likely leading many talented kids off the right path. In terms of primary education, there have probably been few policies as harmful as "no child left behind".
If we didn't acquire this dream of equality of mental condition, and didn't fight so hard to accomplish it, perhaps we would have less problems with education, and less 2 (and even 4-) year colleges with a level of education that does not even meet high school requirements.
one of the hallmarks of that is the kneejerk reaction that every bureaucrat is by nature evil and dishonest.
I had a conversation with an insurance lobbyist on a flight to Boston a couple years ago. She has a lot of dealings with state and federal senators and congresscritters, so I asked her what were the things she discovered in her interactions with them that came as a surprise. Three of them were:
The first one is relevant here, but the last one has been on my mind since then. Slashpac, anyone?