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Why Kids Should Be Building Rockets Instead of Taking Tests
An anonymous reader writes "MAKE Magazine founder Dale Dougherty has an article in Slate about how educators are missing the punchline when it comes to getting kids interested in learning. He describes a recent visit he made to a middle school: 'The science lab was empty, as were the library and the playground. It was not a school holiday: It was a state-mandated STAR testing day. The school was in an academic lockdown. This is what the American public school looks like in 2012, driven by obsessive adherence to standardized testing. The fate of children, their schools, and their teachers are based on these school test scores.' Dougherty's preference would be to more tightly integrate basic engineering projects into the science curriculum. 'I see the power of engaging kids in science and technology through the practices of making and hands-on experiences, through tinkering and taking things apart. Schools seem to have forgotten that students learn best when they are engaged; in fact, the biggest problem in schools is boredom. Students sit passively, expected to absorb all the content that is thrown at them without much context. The context that's missing is the real world."
They're doing exactly what they've been told to do by the system that politics has created. To fix our schools, you need to keep congress's nose out of the process, return responsibility to the individual states and local boards of education.
I was fascinated by all things science as a little kid. Doing, enjoying, fantasizing. I craved books for kids about science, electronics kits and chemistry sets - these were what I enjoyed. And toy robots. Then I got to junior high school and started formal science classes. Awful. Hated chemistry. Math was painful. Only physics became vaguely interesting. I did a BS, but school nearly ruined that path.
There are good teachers that don't teach to the test. Unfortunately, because of the high-stakes testing which can determine pay raises and personnel decisions, this is typically on non-core subjects. My physics (which does have a STARR test now) teacher was great. We rarely used the textbook but we measured the speed of sound and used a lot of hands on physics demonstrations. This is a good article. I'm hoping to begin teaching science, math or computer science next year. Maybe I can be part of the change.
My third grader informed me one day that "science is boring". You could have hit my in the nuts with a hammer and it would have hurt me less. I inquired more and found out that he is reading a lot of stuff and he just doesn't find it exciting.
First, I got ahold of a few interesting science videos dealing with astronomy and robotics. He was intrigued. On a trip to Disney I took him on a behind the scenes tour at their greenhouses where he got to talk to a Botanist and learn more. And I"ve found a few other opportunities to get him involved in some hands on science.
I'll be damned if I let school choke out his love for learning. He's border-line gifted if not gifted (I'm Triple Nine) and it would be a shame if he limited his options because of school...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I'm in complete agreement that kids should be engaged and care about what they're learning, and be actively learning it. But at the same time, not all kids are going to love making rockets. Some would love working with animals, or arguing about literature. Making those kids build rockets isn't much better than making them study 17th century geography or cram for a stupid standardized test.
Ideally we'd figure out what kids want to learn, and help them learn those things, with some encouragement for them to learn things that benefit society as a whole. A problem is we don't all agree on what benefits society as a whole. Standardized testing is a reaction to a widespread perception that kids were learning stuff that wasn't useful (by some scrupulously unspecified definition of useful.) So, trying to get all, or even most, kids interested in subject Y is going to involve lots of bored kids, and trying to facilitate kids' interest is going to get big chunks of the community at large upset that Kids These Days Are Just Wasting Time In School Learning About whatever this week's bogeyman is, be it vocational education, renaissance literature, sculpture, or evolutionary biology.
Which is to say: he's totally right, but he's not addressing the root cause of the problem he's trying to solve.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The context that's missing is the real world.
Arguably, real world context should be provided in post-secondary education... when middle school and high school have enough trouble laying theoretical ground work for that. Of course in reality university education is purely theoretical, with graduates being absolutely clueless when it comes to being employed in the real world... if anything, technical colleges is where the real world context is provided.
I guess my point is - Dale Dougherty is an idiot who obviously haven't tried teaching algebra to teenager, so he/she can get into a post-secondary institution later. Or he thinks they could launch some rockets during their entrance exams...
Bow before me, for I am root.
Right. Give fucking Homeland Security something else to go after...
I'm simply happy that the schools have the paper to actually print the tests. Here, the budget is so out of whack that most school systems require that parents to supplement their classrooms with much more than notebooks, pencils, and tissues. The budgetary issues aside, it comes down to the parents (who elect the folks in charge of the school systems) to decide how their children are taught. I do believe that children who are engaged are more apt to learn than those who are bored to tears. Go beyond engineering projects, teach kids that math can be fun, how to have fun with the English and/or foreign languages, or demonstrate how historical events can be fun to learn about. These things are important as well.
And if you feel like you child isn't getting enough education at school, try bolstering their education outside of normal school hours. Get involved with the education of your kids and find out exactly what it is that they're learning. Only then, can you as a parent determine where their education is lacking.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
private schools...
It may be a suboptimal result but it is at least a demonstrable result.
People like to whine about rote learning and facts, but before you start applying "more sophisticated thinking" you have to have a solid grasp of the facts.
You have to have something that can be measured.
Clearly this idea scares a lot of people.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Against state's rights? Then this article explains lays out what you asked for.
When the public got an ear full of "Johnny cant read", No Child Left Behind and the STAR test is EXACTLY what a large faceless federal bureaucracy (aka, President / Department of Education) is going to have for a solution. To expect anything else is living in fantasy land.
Therefore, give back education requirements to a per state basis and get rid of not only No Child Left Behind, but also the Department of Education. If you feel a state's electorate isn't qualified to determine what's good for their kids, tough.
If you expect education to be run by a federal executive branch with no input, you will continue to get these solutions. And for those who love this, don't complain when that same bureaucracy is run by a president you didn't elect.
This is Defective By Design brought into the Western education system. Standardised tests cater for the "average" or below; they do not challenge the intelligent, who are later deemed to be mentally ill(!). Normality these days is shuffling fries and frying burgers. When Joe 170 stands up and says "I'm going to do something different", he's ridiculed by those who scored Cs across the board because they do not know any better - because none of them were taught to challenge.
I pity those Average Joes because as a 170, I see the world from outside the box and often see better ways of doing things. Following several years of having my self esteem floored by the knuckledraggers around me, I'm at the point of "fuck it, you know what, I don't care anymore. Enough of trying to do good for others, I'm doing this for *me* and the rest of the world can go fuck itself."
The rest of the world can go fuck itself. I won't even gloat when the oil runs out and you're all sitting there bemoaning the fact that you all didn't listen. I'll just fire up my solar powered car and leave you in the shit of your own making.;
Flame away, Joe Average, let us know who you are so we can avoid you.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Virtually useless, until someone invents a standardized student.
Education will suffer until the Powers-That-Be realize not every person learns the same way.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You Sir, should watch 5 dangerous things kids should do:
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html
No child left behind: lower the bar far enough, and nobody can slip underneath.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The next year they shot off rockets, one hit a car at a local dealership and damaged it, and that was the end of rockets in school.
In these times, I'm afraid the lawyers won't let them...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Some would love working with animals, or arguing about literature
Ok, then YES.
Standardized testing is a reaction to a widespread perception that kids were learning stuff that wasn't useful
What makes you think that? It was wholly a response to the fear that kids were not learning enough. It was designed so that teachers could demonstrate we should not fire the lot of them and start public schools over from scratch.
he's totally right, but he's not addressing the root cause of the problem he's trying to solve.
Sure he is. It's right there in the summary - give kids the real world experiences that provide context to learning. That works for any and every subject.
By giving kids the context they automatically spend less time doing stupid things, so it does help address the root problem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Blame the teachers unions.
You do what you're told - nothing more and nothing less.
False. My sister has consistently been doing more, and as a reward they are paying her for the additional education requested to make her an Assistant Principal, where they want to keep her for a year before making her a full-on Principal of a whole school.
The problem here is that the members of the teacher's unions behave as if the guideline is exactly what you want to do, and not just the minimum.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I love the idea of home schooling, but after serious investigation, it is not something that would work for us. My wife isn't really cut out for it, and I'm cut out for making a nice income. Believe it or not my kids are in private school but with a switch to a higher-income city we'll switch to their public schools.
I love teaching, so I spend probably ten hours a week with my kids directly on academics and because I'm a nerd even when I am playing , education comes out.
What we really need are more nerds and less politicians in charge of our education system...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
You have to have something that can be measured.
Oh, you mean like English proficiency and whether or not students have coincidentally picked up the exact same misguided oversimplifications presented in the test questions?
As far as I know, accurately measuring intelligence and/or the potential for academic success are both open problems in psychology and neurobiology.
.: Semper Absurda
That's what an elementary school teacher calls timed tests for math (give students 10 minutes to finish arithmetic test). She promoted math is more than just doing calculations (add, subtract, multiply, divide), she liked to have students do hands-on stuff like filling different shaped containers with beans (not cooked of course) to illustrate proportions. However, hands-on kinds of stuff is hard to measure with a number saying how well (or poor) student performance. So the admins always want timed-tests ("drill and kill!").
mfwright@batnet.com
If they had come to my school in the 70s they would have seen us kids hunkered down the same way for SRA tests. Remember the SRA test? They were just an evaluation, AFAIK. I don't know what they did with them, other than call you in for a parent-teacher-child conference to let you know how you did and what you could do to fix problems.
Standardized testing came about in the first place because of declining quality of graduates. When reasons for that decline were examined, one of the things we found was that the previous methods for ensuring quality... reliance on teachers and local schools to police themselves and give tough tests... was failing because new ideas about education stressed that such demands were detrimental at times to the child. One of the first practical applications of this thinking was that things like class discipline, rote learning, and traditional English instruction had to go. The sixties and seventies then brought us such fads as "new math", whole language instruction, and "open classrooms", where some schools actually brought in workmen to knock down walls joining several classrooms into one large, cubical-farm like space. The 80's and 90's brought us the "self-esteem" craze. Meanwhile, real knowledge and understanding of curriculum declined, but for various reasons, many kids were passed and promoted to the next grade anyway. In other words, standardized testing came about to ensure that kids really did have the basics, because we could no longer trust the classroom process to produce those results.
It says everything that there was truly a time where an A could be trusted to really be an A... a mark of excellence in classroom work... and now it can't be.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Some would. Just not enough.
Kids should stop using numbers and just have some sort of directed play-time, all the time.
Maybe instead of having to read Chaucer they can just watch the Lord of the Ring movies?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I've watched the American school system degrade into the pathetic excuse for an education system that it is. The whole issue is not as much as getting children interested in this stuff as much as the parents focused on standards of learning.
Since no child is able to be left behind you have not just 1 child who is behind instead you now have 34 other students suffering academically due to the one. At what point do you admit something is a failure? Is it when future generations are so dumb they make Frito Pendejo from Idiocracy look like Einstein?
The system is a failure, admit it and move on. Smarter kids should be moved to the head of the class the slower ones should not drag the rest down.
Parent of a child in a public school.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
No day in physics class was more fun than the lab involving calculating the angle of trajectory of toy cars and them smashing them into stuff. If you did the math just right, your car would fly across the track in a perfect arc and then knock over a tennis ball propped up on a paper cup. (Or, more likely, knock the entire cup and tennis ball assembly clean off the table.)
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
We had a similar discussion with my son's middle school science teacher. We asked why there wasn't more hands on activities. He said that he would like to do more but that getting the materials can be expensive; preparing a lab takes a lot more time than preparing a lecture, and a great deal of time is spent policing the kids to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do. Further, he was limited to things that could be started and completed within an hour.
The previous science teacher was much better about preparing hands on stuff, but she got burnt out and quit after a few years.
If you really want to teach science in a manor that would engage kids, you need some exceptional teachers. Short of that, building some flexibility into the schedule might help. Give science teachers more prep time. Instead of having science 5 days a week for 50 minutes at a shot, make it four days with one of the days being longer for lab time.
To fix our schools, you need to keep congress's nose out of the process, return responsibility to the individual states and local boards of education.
Would you also eliminate federal funding and let states and localities pay for their own schools? Unless you do, the feds are going to put conditions on what they're paying for, and justifiably so. Personally I'd like to see the feds out of many areas, including education, since their participation comes with a lot of strings.
Well, then, when you have kids - remove them from public education system and get them to launch some rockets for MIT. I'm sure it won't at all lead to them living in your basement well into their 40s.
:)
Problem with public education (and post-secondary education, actually) isn't that it follows a defined program and scoring systems, it's that those are designed for the lowest denominator. There should be more tests, and they should be hard enough for kids to fail, and be afraid of repercussions of failing - that's the real life context for you... not playing with rockets, on tax-payer's buck... that would provide a "wasting taxpayers dollars in NASA", not "real world" context
Bow before me, for I am root.
Dogs can also handle contexts. Funny how school administrators and politicians can't.
Teachers Unions don't have say in the curriculum. That's set at the State and Federal levels by the government; taking away the unions will just let teachers be paid even less then they are now.
teach them the theory, and only after that make them practice it
This. Also, nothing prevents you from "doing" creative things with your kids outside of school. If you want to teach your kids cool creative things - spend some time with them doing just that, don't try to delegate parenting to public education systems... slackers.
Bow before me, for I am root.
Dale is confused. He's mis-framed his argument, based on the presumption that (American) public schools are intended to spawn entrepreneurs, inventors, and creators. Unfortunately, that's not true, and never was. They're designed to create a competent workforce and serve a lowest common denominator, nothing more. Now, we can argue all week long about whether a "conspiracy" brought about this particular evolution, but it doesn't change the design. The emergence of those entrepreneurs, inventors, and creators is simply left to chance, assuming that the inherent ambition and drive such people possess will speed them along to success in those endeavors, as opposed to nine-to-five employment. That in fact is also substantially true, though there are undoubtedly edge cases of the sort that Dale is fretting about here.
It brings to mind the lyrics of an old Rush song from the Eighties, Mission.
Or "a fire to be Nookd" if the book of quotes is from Barnes & Noble.
Proverbs 21:19
So, the reward for being a great teacher is that they get you out of a classroom and into an office?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I had a rocket blow up in my face before.
IT WAS AWESOME!!!!
The shrapnel was worth it.
Step-dad made a rocket out of a used CO2 cartridge that has its nozzle enlarged and then filled it with match heads. That does create a nice easy safe rocket, the problem happened with he decided to make it a little more powerful by adding gunpowder.
It was a fun little time waster.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Yea, but sadly it's so damn expensive to do anything but Public School.
Best you can reasonably do is some kind of After School stuff when they get home. Assuming they're not bogged down with hours of homework and memorization.
That would mean that is the type of education that the majority of the people where you live want their children taught. Guess what? They are their kids, it is their call. If that is not what you want for your kids, either move, send them to a private school that teaches what you want or home school them.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Similar deal for me, but in our case we often did not have time to do the experiment, either the class was too short, prep would take too long or other kids would horse around. And then we would have to write the report on what SHOULD have happened.
You went to school on what happened to be a testing day and were shocked that all the kids were taking a test? Go back on a more normal day and get back to us.
Editors: Seriously?
I've never had an Estes rocket blow up by accident.
They are safe as houses.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What you think that the Teacher's Unions don't give campaign contributions to State and Federal office holders so that they get a say as to who is appointed to the groups that make the curriculum decisions.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
At least here in California (your state may be different) the CTA (California Teachers Association which is the largest teachers union in California) is *very* powerful in state politics. Per wikipedia:
"The CTA is the most influential spender in California politics, spending more money on politicians and to influence California voters than Chevron, AT&T, Philip Morris and Western States Petroleum Association combined"
So yeah, if you don't think teacher unions don't influence politics here you're not paying attention.
My mom hit at least three of those with me at an early age. I just love the saying "Don't childproof the world, worldproof the child"
We seem to be raising generations of ever-less-capable people by trying to childproof the world
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You can't possibly provide students with hands-on experience. Hands-on experience in anything may lead to:
* Possible risk of injury (sue-happy paranoid America) .00000000000000001 kiloton incindiary device. We can't risk that. Won't someone think of the children?
* Possible smuggling of drug manufacturing materials (again, sue-happy paranoid America)
* Only ter'rists would want to build a rocket
* Only ter-rists work with chemistry kits
* The noise from a rocket might "offend" someone somewhere (sue-happy pussified America)
* The rocket is a dual-purpose vehicle. Sure, it may have academic and even fun value, but it might also be used to deliver a
* It is important to teach children that it is better to be safe than to have an interesting life with some element of risk involved.
Let's reference a chain email that I'm sure everyone has seen by now (and I never checked Snopes to see if it is really originated from Jay Leno), but it is well worth repeating anyhow:
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
To be fair, I've got one friend from childhood who is short a finger due to his foolish use of an M-80.
Another who is dead due to his foolish use of LSD (suicide).
Two others that died from their foolish drinking.
More then I can count, dead in cars.
One dead at the hands of his woman. One more wishing he was.
All these things carry risk.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Home schooling is for parents who's religious views are so extreme that they cannot integrate with normal society.
What you're doing is called parenting. Well done. The people complaining here are expecting too much from schools. It's not there to take over your responsibility as a parent. But it's par for the course on Slashdot to expect government to solve all our problems (and then complain about it more when it tries).
:wq
Because the schools are too afraid the parents will sue them if someone breaks an arm horsing around or gets a splinter on the jungle gym.
I agree whole heartedly that our school's lack of hands on learning is screwing our kids education. But the system also won't let them be kids for fear of some helicopter parent suing when little Joey something childish and gets himself hurt. It wouldn't surprise me if some teachers are too afraid to do experiments in class for fear of a child doing something lawsuit worthy.
Lastly: exercise helps people think and be happy and lets the children vent some much needed energy in order to be able to concentrate. In my opinion, the school system sets children up for failure.
Home schooling is for parents who's religious views are so extreme that they cannot integrate with normal society.
Home schooling is for parents who don't want their kids to grow up as Marxists.
Yes.
Parents are the problem
If schools are teaching to the test, then I'd say that schools are also a big problem.
It's a bad thing to teach only the test
Which appears to be what happens in many places.
it beats teaching nothing.
And getting punched in the face is probably better than getting killed. Doesn't mean that either are a good thing.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Public school. Then do your job and continue teaching your kids when they get home. Stop depending on the government for everything.
My wife is a teacher. Half her kids are english-second-language even though they're born in the U.S. WTF?!? How is she supposed to teach science to these kids when they can't even read? Most parents spend more time training their pets then teaching their children.
:wq
Well, then, when you have kids - remove them from public education system and get them to launch some rockets for MIT. I'm sure it won't at all lead to them living in your basement well into their 40s.
I was home schooled until college. I got into college, BTW with the aid of some 3D paper models I included with my submission, a real world architectural example of a Buckminster Fuller dome...
I did not end up in my parents basement, and was far better socially adjusted when I entered college than the poor fools who had gone to high-school. What makes you think socializing only with other kids prepares you for socializing with adults?
I was also accustomed to choosing what I wanted to study and being self-directed in learning.
There should be more tests, and they should be hard enough for kids to fail, and be afraid of repercussions of failing
Which will never happen in public schools as long as it would also illuminate teachers failing to teach.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hmm, at 6 I was driving a snowmobile by myself.
One time I went to get my brother because dinner was ready, I found him pinned down by a neighbor who was shooting at him. Issue was resolved without the use of police.
Had a homemade rocket blow up literally in my face.
Two out of the three are seriously dangerous, one isn't but parents nowadays would still freak over it.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
The M-80 is probably the "experience" most closely related to science and experimentation. I think it's rather apparent that M-80's save lives.
Home schooling is for parents who's religious views are so extreme that they cannot integrate with normal society.
What a shame such bigotry and ignorance has become so prevalent, and appears at all on Slashdot...
There is a whole wing of homschooling entirely unrelated to religion. Look up "John Holt".
When I was home schooled (up until college) I also went to many group events with a number of kids who were home schooled by parents who were very religious. That did not stop them from learning anything at all. They all grew up normal and well educated - better educated and more self-confident than the kids who went to public school.
Frankly from what I saw how religious your parents are has no relation at all to how religious the kids are. Some of the kids from non-relgious parents ended up being very religious, some of the kids from religious parents eventually dropped religion altogether.
Every person finds their own path.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My wife isn't really cut out for it, and I'm cut out for making a nice income.
That is a problem, it takes a lot of commitment and work and as you say some parents may simply not be able to do it.
It sounds like you have as good an arrangement for your kids as you can, hopefully you find the public schools where you are going decent... I know there are some (although simply being in a higher income city is no guarantee).
Good luck and I hope your kid maintains his interest in science.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Testing is about verifing the method you chose is teaching children. It is about verifing that children have learned what you tought them. It is about seperating ignorant children from educated children. It is basic scientific method stuff. The summary of this article is stupid. Of course no learning is going on test day. But even if we switch to have children build rockets we still need to test them. If we don't test them we don't know if we are making progress or waisting time and money.
You can't reduce education to numbers. (...)
Blaming tests doesn't solve any problems. Why don't we have kids build rockets AND take tests?
How about fixing the tests before doing both?
My recollection of the US education system (I was in primary school) includes silly multiple choice tests done with a pencil. Looking back, and presuming things haven't changed much since there was an article recently on a school board member who couldn't complete a 10th grader's math test, I'd suggest it's lunacy.
I looked into a 10th grade test around when that article was on Slashdot, and did it in very much the same way as I did tests when I was in primary school: I'd look at the answers and then, barely reading the question, I'd eliminate those that were clearly wrong based on the figures that popped out while scanning the question. That's a very screwed up way to test math imho. My parents clearly recall me reaching out for the optimal solution: focusing on how to do the test instead of on understanding what the test was supposed to be testing. (Luckily, I was curious enough to do both, but I certainly surprised them enough that they rehash the story 30-years later.)
In France, here's how you test(ed?) math and physics (and much about everything else, in fact): you ask a series of questions. And then the kid, on a separate piece of paper, needs to provide an argumented answer. Both words count. Half of the grade goes for providing the correct answer. The other half goes to the underlying reasoning and argumentation, which you need to put down on paper as well. A similar process applied in Germany when I attended school there. The main difference was that you had a formula booklet and a calculator -- you were expected to know your formulas and how to do complicated calculations by hand in France.
The process reaches its climax if you head towards Sup/Spé (these are two years after high school if you want to attend our Ivy League schools). The Math-II test leading to Normal Sup, which trains researchers, is (or was when I passed it, anyway) a yet to be resolved mathematical problem. Correcters get no material since the solution to the problem fed to the students is simply unknown. What they're tasked to grade are your insights and the quality of your reasoning. (And yes, a few of them are actually solved by students in the allocated time. My math teacher then, had picked up a habit of inserting a bonus question to keep the brightest in the weekly exam room for more than two hours. His despair was unequivocal when his PhD got solved in the remaining two.)
Exactly what immediately came to my mind. As long as you follow the instructions, building and launching an Estes rocket is significantly safer than riding a bicycle.
They are also very cool, and exactly what a kid needs to get interested in that sort of thing. And some of them are dirt cheap, at about $10.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Well, what do you expect?
Most of the time the first steps in learning anything practical aren't particularly interesting. If you were forced to take a sailing class that was limited to learning how to tie a couple of knots and name the parts of a sailboat, you probably wouldn't look back on your "sailing education" as the high point of your school years.
Now take high school chemistry lab, which is typically the dullest lab experience most students will ever have. But gaining the advanced chemistry lab skills to synthesize interesting stuff or do useful analyses would be an entirely different kind of experience..
Making rockets is one of those things that sounds like it's the answer, but in truth schools *do* a lot of that stuff these days, particularly elementary schools. What they don't do is take activities like that to the point they become intellectually and creatively challenging.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Engineering, finance, aerospace, physics... nothing of any real consequence.
-
You already stretched the imagination when you imagined the rocket blowing up. Do you know how much work it takes to get the fuel in a commercial Estes model rocket engine to blow up? They're designed for maximum safety.
You sort of have the right idea, in that you should teach them in phases. You might start out with a demonstration to capture their interest: the teacher launches a rocket. Then, you teach them some theory - just enough for them to be successful. Then you have a construction phase, where you build models, and perhaps wind tunnel test them. Then you teach them range safety, just before taking them outside again for the launch.
The most important thing to teach them is that range safety is #1, and is not negotiable. Anyone violating it will be escorted away, no second chance to fire their rocket, and enforce that rule like iron, parents' whining be damned. As the adult, you'd be the range safety officer, and you'd always maintain the launch keys in your possession. Do those simple steps and it is not only far safer than gym class, but a fun experience they'll remember.
The most dangerous part? Asking parents to pay for the kits. Teachers don't have a lot of spare money for stuff like this, and bulk educational packets of rockets cost about $50 per 12 rockets. Multiply by 36 students per each overcrowded class, and you have to come up with $150 per class. About half your students will be from households where their parent(s) can't afford a $5 kit, so you need to find a beneficiary or you'll be paying that $75 out of your own pocket. If you go asking for money too often, the parents will likely complain to the principal and you'll find you're risking your job by just trying to be good at it.
John
Troll feeding, I know, but...
considering that some of us ARE educators, and some of us are pretty successful at the other things we do, maybe we have, you know, some valid input?
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no thank you. kids today don't need to learn how to shoot or how to blow shit up. they need to learn hygiene, nutrition, cooking, basic math skills so they don't get screwed at the store, and sex ed so they'll stop making so many goddamned babies. it wouldn't hurt them to understand how using credit cards is a great way to join the lower classes by indenturing yourself to debt, and maybe some history and civics lessons to understand how your vote doesn't count and won't be counted by electronic voting machines, but that's ok, they were probably going to vote for the GOP anyway because it's just so easy to listen to the pablum from Fox News and consider that the extent of all they need to know about domestic and foreign affairs.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I would have to agree with the context thing. I have lately been going through universities' research programs to find something to apply to. I look at the available projects and they don't seem to intrigue me, they all seem to be about the solutions and not the problems. But just two weeks ago I wanted to do something and I am still coding on it frantically. And the problem has been turned into something much more boring than the research that I have been looking at, but I still want to do it.
I have had an E engine explode right after ignition, however, 1) no one was hurt, since the rocket is constructed of lightweight materials, and b) it was a great lesson in why solid propellents should be handled carefully to avoid cracking. Failure is often an important part of learning, and shouldn't be seen as an unacceptable outcome (at least in hobby activities).
Unsafe? We did this in 5th grade as a class (each built a rocket) science project. It was *awesome*. We had so much fun shooting these off... Estes rockets are indeed safe as can be.
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Some very brilliant and creative people do not test well. To tailor teaching to test results will be a huge disservice to such people. However, it does allow some really poor teachers to continue in that profession.
"Don't childproof the world, worldproof the child"
But powered armor suits are prohibitively expensive especially since you have to keep buying bigger ones as the child grows!
The enemies of Democracy are
jedidiah,
do you learn best when the subject matter is dry and boring and not interesting at all? No you didn't. Did those boring classes you endured when you were in school stick with you, or you remember to content from a more engaging interesting class? Rote learning is the reason our kids are failing! You can teach the basic facts without getting it out of a boring book or a boring lecture in front of a class. Project-based learning can give students a "grasp of the facts" if we let teachers be creative and teach in interesting and engaging ways that do teach kids the basics and can be later modified to teach more advanced concepts.
What scares me about school is that with the current testing environment we are driving our kids away from learning, making it drudgery, and ruining our students from becoming lifelong learners. Learning doesn't have to be boring, in fact, we have to make it engaging and interesting by having kids learn hands-on and to get away from standards that have never accurately measured our student's success. We lose so many students to the black hole of low test scores because they hate school. Why do they hate school, you ask? Because we make it BORING by teaching to a test and by insisting that we stick with antiquated, lecture based teaching styles. We should be concerned about student engagement instead of standardized testing, because if the student happens to be engaged in a science or english class because we've made it interesting, they are almost certain to improve, which is what we really want to achieve in the first place.
But instead our solution is to let the federal government and our politicians dictate to us how to measure our students progress? That's stupid, and furthermore the system is set up as a way to politicize learning, with the end result being that all this information we garner from tests is being put to no good use except that it gives capitol hill the ability to point fingers at our problems instead of actually fixing them. our teachers and school staff can achieve demonstrable results, but we don't let them do it. We let some person that doesn't know our children determine through a one size fits all test how good of a student they are, when instead we should let the child's teacher do the assessing that knows the students strengths, weaknesses and home issues that can affect their learning.
Now my explode do you mean "kaboom" or you mean the nozzle blew out and it melted a hole thru the deflector and split the model body when the ejection charge went off and the cone jammed up against the launch rod thing? That happened to me once. And it was my favorite "Big Bertha" which sounds like a really bad 4chan thread, but its actually a pretty cool model rocket. Stored at too high of a temp, bounced around in car trunk too much, who knows. Turns out a rocket engine firing at 15 feet is way cooler than at 500 feet in the air so at least it wasn't a total fail.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We seem to be raising generations of ever-less-capable people
Intentionally, for profit.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The theory is that you are put into a position where you can influence the policies of the teachers below you. So long as you don't fall victim to the Peter Principle and can actually do the job (see the other guy's reply for a link) this is supposed to be optimum.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This is today's news, released as "Popular senior denied diploma because of too much cheering"
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/popular-senior-denied-diploma-because-of-too-much-cheering
The sad part is the kid of color can hardly read the reason for his denial.
This kid's apparently a football star, the very example used in the 80's to better the education system.
Whatever is being done now isn't working. Learning by making is sure worth a try in some areas.
We tested elastic collisions and momentum using steel pucks hovering on air cushions that would periodically spark down through the base and leave marks on a piece of paper. Fun stuff. Also ballistics with launch ramps and ball bearings, powered wave table machines, lots of good stuff.
That is absolutely what is missing from today's education: hands-on, fun, engaging application of principles to reality. Want to teach hydrodynamics? Build a miniature dam. Teach them the knowledge while you're doing something real with it.
But I'll go one farther than this guy: throw entrepreneurship into the mix. Teach kids how to start businesses and do things on their own, with no starting capital. Teach them how to scrounge and improvise and. solve. problems. Nobody, nowhere, now, teaches that. If you've ever been to a Maker's Faire, you know how much brilliance and creativity are out there in America still, and if we could spread that culture to our schools our economy and society would take a quantum leap in the next ten years.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Public charter school in Las Vegas (not usually known for education!) that is all about experiential learning.
http://www.ekacademy.org/
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Yet another article about how all standardized tests are evil, written by someone who knows nothing about testing. He saw a test question he didn't like and now he is an expert on tests. Furthermore he exaggerates by acting as though every day is spent on tests and they never get any hands-on learning.
The fact that the guy couldn't get the example test answer shows he doesn't have the reading comprehension to write for a major magazine like Slate. The correct answer (C) is almost *word-for-word* part of the instructions for the test question! Furthermore, if you have ever used a microscope, you should already know the answer.
Now, with that said, let me grant him this one point: the example question actually doesn't belong on a science test. It is a reading comprehension question, not a science question. It gives someone instructions, then asks them a question about the instructions in order to tell if they can comprehend what they read. These are good questions, but not science questions. If it was a science question, then they shouldn't even include the microscope instructions - this is something you should just know before using one. Don't let someone use your microscope unless they know this. They either learn it the hard way by breaking a slide, or the easy way by following the instructions. They probably added the instructions because people like him complained it was impossible to answer the question without them.
The author doesn't know anything about testing:
Nearly 60 percent of kids do not give the correct response. This is what test designers want. As an educator once told me, if the question was such that everyone got the right answer, then it wouldn’t be a good question
That educator knows what he is talking about. Would the author prefer questions that everyone gets right? Or questions that everyone gets wrong? Neither is useful in a test. One of the key attributes of a test question is the discrimination. A question with high discrimination is one where people who know the material tend to get it right, and people who do not know the material tend to get it wrong. That means the question is not easily guessable, and is not confusing. A question with low discrimination is one that is easily guessable, and everyone gets it right. You don't want those.
Kids should be learning and building. That's great, no one disagrees. Once they are done their learning, how will you know which ones actually learned the principals of rocketry and which ones didn't? Who learned how to use a microscope and who didn't? You have to give them a test. A subjective judgement of their rocket project is not sufficient.
Standardized tests tell you which students are learning, which teachers are doing well, which schools, which districts. This information is what determines if a student needs help, or if a school needs help, or if a teacher is cheating. Some standardized tests are better than others. I wish I could go to work and just build fun things. But sometimes I need to write a document, and sometimes I have to make a project schedule, and sometimes I need to attend a review. Those things are a necessary part of life. I wonder if the author has children. If so, I hope he pays attention to his children's tests and report cards. Home buyers who have children look at the local standardized test scores when buying a house.
But there are a lot of scientific jobs that use it fairly regularly.
My favorite were the rate-of-change questions:
You have a ladder leaning up against a house, the bottom starts to slide out away from the house. Assuming a certain amount of resistance due to friction, and a man halfway up the ladder, give a formula for the position of the man with time.
If you are one of the idiots that think our country is going Marxist or the Obama is a Marxist you are not worth talking to. You are part of the problem because, apparently, you are fine with redefining words to mean whatever you want them to mean.
Hint: when corporations can purchase laws, that is about as far from Marxism as you can get.
Now...a rocket blowing up is not "little" by any stretch of the imagination. And usually it doesn't provide a second chance (the event)....kids should be allowed to do more things, but unfortunately rocket building is not one of them.
You, sir, are a fine example of what is wrong with America. You know not what you are speaking of, and consequently, you are filled with fear because of what you don't know.
At 13, I blew up a model rocket engine in my face. Guess what? I'm still here (23 years later). No scars. No permanent damage. No missing appendages. I'm FINE, albeit I have a bit more respect for warning labels and for not doing stupid things that I frikken' KNOW are stupid, and yes, I knew what I was doing when I blew up the engine that it was a Really Dumb Idea (the engine wouldn't ignite, so I ground it up into a powder and tried to light it with a match -- kids don't try this at home!). I flew rockets from about age eight (with my dad doing most of the work) through college (solo) with not a single injury other than the above incident. In fact, I've carried on the tradition with my own kids now that I'm a dad myself; I'm currently building a twin-engine D-size rocket to boost an Arduino, which I'll be using to measure air temperature, air pressure and acceleration. I've had far more injuries due to riding a bicycle than I have had flying rockets -- do you therefore want to ban bicycles, too?
There's a reason they call that science: rocket science.
Ummm...because it's science, and involves rockets? What NASA or Space-X does *is* really hard, because they are dealing with very, very large, very, very powerful and very, very complex machines, which have to fly very precise trajectories. An A- through C-size model rocket is many, many orders of magnitude less complex and less dangerous, particularly if you don't try to DIY your engines. Building and flying such a rocket is well within the capabilities of a jr. high school student; designing and building such a rocket is well within the capabilities of a high school student with a little supervision from a high school science teacher.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
They are safe as houses.
Okaaay...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
He may not have the best delivery, but his point is valid. It's analogous to paper MCSE's (or CCNA's or whatever other acronym you want to use). When all you teach is how to recognize the best answer on a multiple guess test, you are doing your students a disservice.
I'd rather see who can actually apply the theory in a real-world situation (configure this PC as part of the domain, turn up a 10M port rate-limited to 5M on VLAN 42, calculate the center-of-gravity of this rocket and tell me if it will be stable or unstable if the center of pressure is located three and a half inches from the bottom of the body tube, etc.).
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Please revert to what ever was being done in the 30s 40s and 50s as it clearly worked.
No it didn't. My father was born in 1927, I in 1967. He attended one room schoolhouses. He told me directly that he could easily tell that young people of my day were far better educated than his generation was. We studied advanced topics earlier than they did
Every so often we get articles on Slashdot where some Engineer/IT guy/Progammer thinks he knows best and recommends adding more "nerd stuff" like LInux or model rockets or RPG's in education. Then all of Slashdot hops on the "Wow, I loved model rockets....this is a great idea" bandwagon.
Most kids, aren't nerds. And while we might love to see our pet hobbies in schools. a la "All kids should learn Python!", this is no different from a concert Pianist saying "all kids should study piano because it makes them smarter"
And lets not forget class differences...model rockets is one of those usual upper middle class son of an engineer" hobbies we see so many Slashdotters have. It's like all those articles where Slashdotters reminisce about their C64's and they don't even realize that most people "didn't" have a home computer in the 80's. Even the consoles of that time had less household penetration of today.
So no, turning every school into a Slashdotters affluent suburban school with rocketry and computer clubs, isn't the solution, even if they mean well.
Yeah, I love this.
Sit in school for 13 years, learn lots of stuff so you could potentially do / expand into many jobs out there, use none of it.
Let people get hands on experience on the stuff they love, so they can expand into. Have your basic academics in school and allow students to
pick one advanced academic that provides hands on training on the things they love. Be it rockets and physics, or chemistry and so on.
Plus it could be practical too. Like having students who have been taught how to repair computers be allowed to volunteer for experience with the local school boards or city itself, lessons the need on paid trades, gives students training / hands on experience.
It would be great for carpenters, metal workers, anyone interested in mechanics, and so on.
I became a computer tech. I work in IT. I don't care about poetry. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be available and encouraged, but let kids do what they love, they'll learn better.
All this infighting about local or federal control or teaching to the test or teaching hands on is missing the point. The problem of education is a cultural one. We spend more money per student then any other country but we don't have the highest of anything expect number of Teachers we pump out. Make education important and attractive and win the culture war and you will start seeing better educated people start coming out the far end of the education system in a few years.
Maybe they need to spend a lil more on Reading Comprehension, based on your update it seems you got a pretty substandard education in that area.
Did I or OP mention politics? NO
BY and large though they have little input into what gets included in the curriculum. They do advocate for less, so they can have more time to help boost test scores, but the specific subject matter? Nope
Teaching to the test is a problem. However the summary sounds disengenuous. 50 years ago you could go to a school and find every student in the auditorium taking a standardized test. This is not a new phenomena. We had state tests and federal tests and optional tests that we weren't told were optional, and extra tests if they though you were gifted and extra tests if they thought you were underperforming, tests for college entrance, tests to see if you were on the college track or not, and tests to see if you were meeting high school graduation expectations because the local school board was getting worried, etc. That's ignoring hearing tests, eye tests, and presidential fitness tests where you run until you puke. Basically for decades now, someone says it's test day and you dutifully follow along and do the test.
It should be no surprise to find students taking tests by filling in boxes with a number two pencil. Next time the author should ask the principal when it would be a good day to visit the school.
If you build enough rockets, eventually the lawyers learn to keep away...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The "test" especially college entrance has become all important in Japan, China and Korea. The US school system has started down this slippery slope, especially since No Child Left Behind. Asian industries do not create as much intellectual capital as the US, even though they are good and producing goods.
Designing, building, and flying an A-size rocket from raw materials was well within the capabilities of my entire 4th grade class. Rolling the tubes from sheets of paper and glue, shaping the nose cones and fins from sheets and blocks of balsa, the whole damn process with no premade parts aside from the engines and launch gear. If a group of 9 year olds with no formal training in the art can do it, with a 100% launch and flight success rate and no injuries, there's no reason we shouldn't be doing this in middle school or high school.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Home schooling is for parents who's religious views are so extreme that they cannot integrate with normal society.
No, homeschooling is for parents who care about their child's education. We homeschool, and belong to several homeschooling groups. I'd say about 1/2 of the families we know do it for religious reasons. Christians being the largest group, and Muslim being the second largest. We know some Hindi homeschoolers, can't think of any Bhuddists off-hand. The other half of the families homeschool because they don't feel the other options are good for their child. The public schools are not very challenging. The private schools around here are kill-them-with-homework factories that leave no time to build rockets and robots and take music and gymnastics lessons.
So there is some actual real-world data for you, based on several hundred homeschool families and dozens of school choices. You're spouting off without either data or experience.
In our case, we homeschool in order to find the point of optimal challenge. My daughter doesn't need a mountain of homework to 'get it', and she needs to be challenged in order not to get bored out of her nut. At 13, she took the AP Chem this spring. That's her third AP exam. She is probably going to jump into the third quarter of freshmen engineering calculus this fall at a local university. There are simply no local schools that would have let her accelerate enough to keep her sanity.
The STAR tests are my poster child for how testing should not be done. I have looked at the 5th grade STAR test. It has questions where not of the answer choices are correct. It has answers where the correct answer is listed as a distractor and graded as an *incorrect* response, because "fifth graders shouldn't know that" -- the simplistic answer is graded correct. $DEITY help the child that actually *knows* some science -- they will not be a top scorer.
Thanks for posting, and I view yours as a reminder. For every poster who says "I had a rocket that destroyed 60 square feet of the earth near where I was standing, and I'm all ok", there's others who are
/. posters may be on the more scientific/careful (subtext: likely to survive) side of the population. Were we to ask this question at ClumsyDot, or somesuch, we'd see a lot more issues.
a) deceased
b) unable to post 'cause of injury
I suspect also that
(Count the hits, ignore the misses....)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
That's the theory.
Can't say as I recall any principal at any school I was ever interested in (either the ones I went to, or the ones my children went to) every having any real influence on their teachers.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Well, since this was a whole drinking-age ago, I don't really recall. I believe the teacher did take measurements of the placement (spacing and angles) of fins, and assisted several of the students who didn't fully understand the concepts they were working with (hey, at 9 that can't be expected). My design passed the inspection and, indeed, flew the straightest and highest (I angled my fins and added secondary fins onto those, to give it more spin and add to the stability). Nobody had a rocket take off, spiral out of control, and nose-dive; all of our rockets were recovered undamaged and several were launched multiple times, they were then placed on display for the year. There's 100% no way a group of untrained students, let alone 9 year olds, did that without supervision or guidance from someone taking measurements and vetting the designs.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
study-experiment-test-learn applies to the way we teach just as much as it applies to the way we learn. Fully agree, it's not very accurate, but imperfect does not mean useless and it's the only practical measure we have. Of course people who failed to commit the scientific method to memory through rote learning may disagree.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I said I never had one blow up by accident
It sounds to me like your shop teacher didn't have any blowup by accident ether. Too much of a coincidence for me to believe.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Launches at Moffett Field are limited to G engines with a max altitude of 1000 feet with a limit of 350 people on the field at a time. That's not even one single high school grade level worth of students for most San Jose/Bay Area high schools. If they want to get away from those limits (M class, 15,000 foot ceiling), then they have to go all the way out to Snow Ranch, which is East of Stockton, about 130 miles out of town and only in the fall.
There's basically no other place you can launch in the Bay Area.
I do think, however, that the author of the article drank the Fleming VARK model kinesthetic learning koolaide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Fleming.27s_VAK.2FVARK_model, and maybe needs to back up a bit.
-- Terry
A "little" danger is relative to how you define "rocket."
Strictly speaking, a rocket engine is just something that uses propellant to create force downward in order to achieve lift upwards, in keeping with Newton's 3rd. If you turn that trusty old baking soda volcano upside down, it might just be a rocket. Probably won't achieve lift, because of the weight, wide opening, low propellant velocity and a variety of other reasons ... but that's exactly what you can explore with your students. Lets get this thing lifted off!
Start with the obvious one, weight. Any kid can see that this thing is probably too heavy to fly ... so shave off some weight and try again... from there, teach them how the muzzle velocity affects things, and on and on. Get the kids thinking about what they're doing, with a clear goal (get this thing lifted off) and let them figure it out. Bonus points for making things like "Rocket Flight" part of the advanced lessons, make it a reward. If you do well on your test about Newton's Laws, we'll get to put that 3rd law into action...
This signature is false.
Leonardo da Vinci defended his own lack of formal education by saying "They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words. And [experience] has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases. Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy: on experience, the mistress of their masters."
This is why we are educating our children using "The Da Vinci Road: Observation and the Art of Learning" method, which is based on experience. Everything that we really know is from observation - not dogmas. But most modern day education has been reduced to just that: dogma.
Stop trying to make school fun. You are doing it wrong.
Yes! Make it boring, monotonous, and grueling! That will instantly solve all of our problems, and we'll finally have an educated populace. While we're at it, let's continue to instill within the students an unquestioning obedience to arbitrary authority figures. They're just slaves, after all.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
A lot of the "boring science" is politically correct trash that is conclusory, untested and non-factual in nature like CAGW rather than fundamental discipline sciences like biology, chemistry and physics. Garbage in...
Whereas visual demos and labs can be exciting, to create a sense of participation and wonder that propels a hunger to learn more.
Sometimes homeschooling is for parents whose views are so extreme that they want their kids to stay alive. Drive-by shootings by druggie-dealer kids was a deadly reality during my kid's public high school years. I remember when some after school events were disrupted in the days following a 9th grade girl getting whacked.
I read all the 5 comments until I found this.
Sure, in theory, students might learn more by doing labs or projects. Which is all fine and dandy.
Except lets look at how the results of testing are used
1. Admission to universities. How do you determine who gets into which program? Just let everyone in? Subjective measures based on the teachers input? Subjectivity rarely works on any large scale.
2. Admission to professions. Follow up the chain in terms of educational credentials. Who gets to be a doctor, lawyer, nurse...
3. Now some libertarian might argue... yes.. just let everyone be anything and let the market work it out. Sure, that would work in a libertarian paradise. But not in a world where government provides a lot of services and regulates it. Want universal healthcare? Who gets to be a doctor and get paid from the government purse?
Rote learning might suck, but if you can't learn it by rote, you're
1. not smart enough
2. not hardworking or conforming enough to work in our institutionalized and regulated society.
Also, nothing prevents you from "doing" creative things with your kids outside of school. If you want to teach your kids cool creative things - spend some time with them doing just that, don't try to delegate parenting to public education systems... slackers.
My kids are in school from 9 to 4 after which I need to feed them, teach them a foreign language while they are still young enough to pick up the accent easily, and provide extra-curricular activities like piano piano and chess, and make sure they get some exercise. Bedtime is 8:30. If you want me to have time to do science with my kids then you need to fund the schools well enough that they can do a decent job on things like music, gym, and foreign language in elementary schools and reallocate the time they waste preparing for and taking standardized tests so they have time to do those things effectively.
Adding: The economy runs on debt. So, in order to grow the economy, you have to grow debt
This is entirely false, and a dangerous propaganda meme. The economy grows natually as a result of technological advancement. If no one is inflating any bubbles, economic growth is a pretty straightforward measure of technological growth.
Technology makes life better. You wouldn't think that would be a controversial statement on /. of all places, but we seem to be crawling with Luddites these days.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I guess you weren't around in the early to mid '90s. C6-7s would blow up on launch and E-15s for the Astro Blaster would too. Unlike what Nervous Nellie up there claims, it's not that dangerous. You're supposed to be far away from the rocket when you press the launcher button anyways. It does destroy the rocket though. That C6-7 was in an Astrocam. The camera survived but you needed that special tube so I had to buy a new one. Never did get the distributor to honor the warranty.
Mostly random stuff.
My biggest gripe with Slashdot is how overwhelmingly anecdotal it is. We are supposed to be bright statistical types, and it is just full of comments from people telling their singular life experiences. Do the math people, I don't care about your limited life.
Ed.
Having built many a model rocket, I'm not entirely sure how a model rocket could blow up in your face. Maybe I was just lucky, but short of trying what the kids in "October Sky" did, I don't think there's a lot to worry about. Granted, we obviously don't want to have the public schools exposing kids to projects that could lead to lawsuits, but there are plenty of things (model rockets included) which are more than safe enough for children to be trying out and experimenting with in schools which would lead them to become more interested in learning and turn on a life-long love of learning. Despite what the title may say however, the issue at hand is not whether children should be shooting off rockets but in fact is about whether learning should be more hands on than it currently is.
Tests don't teach. Practice does.
Testing doesn't inspire. Making things does.
~theCzar
Provided those kids know where their dicks are, which most of the rest of the world thinks that it requires studying and taking tests rather than growing up with a sense of self entitlement.
I run an after-school engineering club. I ended up taking the 'own money' route for the first month, because it took that long to figure out the procedure for buying any supplies through the official channels. I still have to occasionally pay myself for things which can't be obtained from any of the officially authorised suppliers.
The long-term goal is to build a robot, but the rate at which these kids learn they'll have left by the time we finish it and their successors will carry on. Right now we are building an electronic die, which teaches them logic circuit design and how to read a datasheet. It took two 45-minute lessons to get a seven-segment decoder hooked up to a display.
I've never had an Estes rocket blow up by accident.
Yep, the only Estes rockets I've had explode were done by design.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Well. Initially I thought that this article is about Palestinian kids which are expected to construct rockets instead of attending the school.
I violated all the model rocket safety rules except retrieving rockets from power lines.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Playing angry birds is very boring too, seems kids do not have problem with that.
I had a D size blow up just after leaving the pad, essentially the end caps blew out both ends of the engine gutting the model and melting the chute. I was about 12 at the time and been launching rockets with my dad probably since I was about 9. If I recall correctly he contacted Estes directly and received a replacement kit in the mail.
I'm all for this because I was never a good test-taker. Fortunately, I was encouraged by my high-school physics teacher (who ironically had a PhD in nuclear chemistry) to be an "experimentalist". The real world rarely operates like a two-hour, make-or-break, regurgitate everything from memory test. You almost always have access to reference material. And the real world is and should be interested in practical results. That being said, the team environment enables slackers to get credit for other people's work. A colleague was recently an adviser for a FIRST robotics competition. He confirmed that there were two or three kids who did all the work and the rest just farted around. So, my question is, how do you ensure that the kids who really accomplish stuff get the grades, accolades, and scholarships that they deserve and the coattail riders don't?
I had one blow up as a kid. Catastrophic engine failure. Sent a piece of flaming debris past my head. There were a bunch of kids around too, but no one got injured.
I pressed the launch button, and nothing happened for a few seconds, then boom! We took the debris back to toys r us and they gave us a new rocket no questions asked.
That being said, I'm doing my best to get my 3 year old interested in science and he's eating it up now. I did buy him a rocket and it's brought back some good memories.
-Xoltri
Schools seem to have forgotten that students learn best when they are engaged
No, they haven't but they're mandated by law to administer these tests and the law then uses the results of these tests to justify firings and closings. If you put a piece of cheese into a maze and deposit a very hungry mouse at the start of the maze, are you surprised when they get through it as fast as possible to get to the food? Same goes for underfunded, even adequately funded schools whose staff knows their future rests upon the test.
Every time you hear a politician demanding new types of accountability and more evidence of outcome in schools, colleges and universities, know that what they're really saying is that they're putting yet another unfunded or underfunded mandate upon the education system. Good educators, and there are plenty out there, Aren't seeking to hide their achievements but every time you agree with the schemes of politicians that give us stuff like "No Child Left Behind" you add a new standardized test (created and assessed by a for-profit institute that'll also sell your schools the needed textbooks and prep materials to ensure student success).
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Two things are big drivers behind the disappearance of any kind of hands-on learning experiences.
(1) School district budgets are often squeezed and when they are the "expensive" programs are dropped. Expensive meaning anything that requires more infrastructure than desks and chalkboards. Once a program is dropped it is much harder to reinstate in the fat times. The exception is usually athletics, but that is a politically driven decision.
(2) The other issue is fear of lawsuits. Rocket building would give the worried district superintendent a coronary. There are so many hazards when kids are allowed to use real tools and instruments. It only takes one or two scared members of a decision making body to scare the rest of the group with visions of evil lawyers and an image of a kid with a screwdriver in his eye, plus see (1).
Of course there are the other thousand tiny (and large) cuts that keep anything fun out of the curriculum.
My local school board is a long way past this. I think it's mostly that they just don't value education, much less knowledge. They are closing schools and firing teachers.
I wish I had more solutions. I'd like to hear more solutions.
I mean this is a serious question.
For one, those kinds f people are threatening to about half of the population even before they open their open . mouths. Just their demeanor pisses people off.
Then there's the threat people feel when the new generation "gets away" from them. There are whole ethnic segments of society that specifically HATE the idea of their kids being smarter , more accomplished, more knowledgeable than they are.
Three, this is a PITA to the existing educational structure . It's not like hands on learning and experimentation are somehow new ideas in education. It's that education , at least beyond high school is primarily a business with a business model it's not going to willingly disrupt.
The only revolution in education that's going to occur is the revolution of defection. Too many players with too much to lose are in charge of what education is. We need students and their parents to defect from the system and create alternative educational environments . Never mind reforming the existing ones.
I use a Mortar and pestle to grind up the engine contents, good quality gunpowder. At least better than I've managed to make myself.
Gun powder in-place of a parachute is always a good upgrade.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"