Slashdot Mirror
How can we Keep Our Teachers Updated?
Keefesis continues: "The information is out there, readily available, yet it seems that teachers are rarely notified of new information. Case in point: My high school chemistry teacher still teaches us that there are only 109 elements; while element 118 was discovered almost 6 months ago. Even the planners that the school gave us list up to element 114 (every teacher uses the professor version of the same planner as a gradebook.) What does it take for our high school teachers to stay up-to-date?"
Update: 11/25 02:24 by C :After perusing some of the discussion, a lot of you feel that the system itself, not the funding, is at fault. How can we fix the system? Do we need better teachers? Better administrators? Or is this something that we just can't do without tearing the whole thing down and starting over?
When I was in high school the problem wasn't getting the new information to the teachers, it was getting them to care. Some teachers just have an apathetic attitude towards teaching new things. They would much rather stick to the books they have been using for 20 years, because they know them inside and out.
... about upcoming information and research in the physics feild. It not only taught the student and the class, but it also taught the teacher.
There was an exception though. My 11 Grade Physics teacher made us go out and find magazine articles, webpages,
In one of his excellent books (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, I think), Richard Feynman railed against the selection processes for schoolbooks; on the selection panel he was on (can't remember where), he was the only one to actually read the books that were submitted for approval.
First and foremost, what's needed is to ensure that the teachers are using the right books. Volunteers would seem to be the ideal way of doing this, but there's the significant danger that this would result in -- amongst others -- the creationists filling as many selection panels as possible.
Okay, I don't have a solution. But I do know that the percentage of teachers that goes outside the designated books is very low. So the books have to be the best.
Every government, organization, or knitting club in history has encountered the same problem. You get together, agree on a certain set of rules and practices, and start a society.
But over time, more and more rules are added, and things start getting cumbersome. Instead of a little red school house with one teacher and a dozen students, you have a school with several teachers, a hundred students, and a principal. Then you have a few schools with hundreds of students, dozens of teachers, and a school board. Sooner or later, you have a "school district" with hundreds of teachers, thousands of students, principals, coaches, band directors, custodians, paperwork, security cameras, and even more paperwork.
Modern teachers don't spend most of their time teaching. They spend most of their time socializing delinquents, filling out sexual harassment paperwork, documenting troublemakers, grading tests, and working out the lesson plans for the next two weeks, which have to be approved by their bosses.
Teaching? That's for the copious spare time left over after they take Little Johnny to the office because he wore a "Free Kevin!" t-shirt, and nobody knows what in the hell that's supposed to mean.
A class is a board with a teacher on one end and a student on the other.
Why does this happen (ie. education being short-shifted)? It happens because the citizenry is not free to choose the proportion of tax revenue that is allocated to each area of government expenditure, in this case education.
If one could choose just one tiny change that would have the widest possible effect in improving democratic responsibility and giving power to the people, that would have to be it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Hmm, this seems to be a problem in more areas than just IT. For example, when I was in college (admittedly more than 10 years ago), I was memorizing my way though advanced Calculus and Statistics, both of which were pretty much meaningless to me.
... I'm not sure if the past was better, but I think it was simpler ...
However, there were other areas of (applied) Math that would have been of great interest to me but weren't tought at the time: I'm thinking of stuff like cellular automata which back then were brand new and very exciting. As a software guy, this stuff was real and mad sense right away, but it was too new to have real classes on it.
I guess as our body of knowledge expands ever faster, we'll all have difficulties keeping up. I should also note that we seem to live in a complex age that defies simple solutions. It seems that this leads us into a life which is rich in knowledge and poor in wisdom
...spend more money on actually doing the educational things instead of just going for the other things that are non academic. Here is an example; my school put in a new basket ball court last year and it costed something of 500k. Now couldn't they have spent that kind of money to update their sciences and math departments. Also to maybe get a nicer computer education system. That is one of the major things that I have against my school, they do not teach any courses about computers except on how to use M$ Excel and Word. The only thing close to programming is a web mastering class where they teach you how to use an M$ Frontpage to create web pages. Couldn't they just teach the html code itself? It is rediculously simple.
Well, back to the outdating of the sciences in schools. Even if they did have money they would probarbly spend more of it on things like sports equipment or for a really big grant add another building, but still teach the old and outdated material. Another example, my school is adding a 15 million (I think) dollar building right now. I see no problem with the old one, the roof used to leak but they fixed that before I got there.
It's not the money, its they way they spend it.
Malto
For most professionals, there is an impetus to keep up-to-date on current material. Many health-care professionals (nurses, pharmacists, etc) are forced to write exams or take courses to keep certification. For other professionals, there is usually encouragement to take continuing education courses, or learn on your own. (In some fields you need to do so just to remain competitive!)
I must admit it is probably difficult to teach current information when you are using 15-year-old teaching aids. And, in many cases, teachers tend to be overworked (during the school year, anyhow) and perhaps not paid as well as many other professionals, which may be a factor in the reluctance to do additional upgrading work. I think as more schools become wired, it should at least give teachers easy access to more of this information.
Unfortunately, at the moment, only certain teachers will take advantage of this technology. (They are probably the same ones who would have sought information elsewhere, too.) Without some sort of regulation about continuing education or recertification, there is no guarantee that teachers will keep themselves up to date.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Many teachers actually do learn on their own. I've had a number of science teachers who were activley involved in real world science (ie: my physics teacher was a particle physicist at an accelerator lab). I think many teachers don't keep up with the trends because, if you look at it...there is no reason to. Granted, the number of elements is pretty fundamental, and I bet is an exception to the rule, but teaching science isn't about teaching cutting edge stuff. It's about teaching the fundamentals, the basics, the building blocks needed to even come /close/ to understanding the cutting edge stuff. Particle physics is an excellent example: do you realize how incredibly hard it is to understand quantum theory fully without having an enormous knowledge of math, electrodynamics, and every other field of physics? It's nearly impossible. So, teachers teach the basics: (matter is made of atoms, atoms are made of quarks, etc.)..but that's it. That stuff isn't very cutting edge (relativly speaking), and it's a helluva lot easier to understand than partial derivatives and wave functions. And then again, there's always the fact that almost all of the new cutting edge stuff (in most every field) requires loads and loads of background knowledge that teachers just cannot give the students, if they have it themselves! Highschool, as much as I hate to admit it, isn't and shouldn't be about cutting edge, new, awesome science or tech; it's about learning the fundamentally accepted things, to be able to apply them in those nifty college classes everybody looks forward to, from Compiler Theory to Quantum Mechanics...you need BASICS first.
Now I think a better area that education in areas misses out is in the computer science field. My senior year programming class years back was in Basic on an apple IIe. Even there though, it was taught by a smart instructor who understood programming methodologies. I could start with that same class today, and because I had good teachers (not necessarily good teaching materials), I would arguably be one step ahead of a teacher who didn't care and half-assed taught his class Java. Sure I'd be behind initially in the college Java class, but I would really get it IF I was taught programming methodology. So even there, I think its more important to pay those teachers well.
Money does need to get everyone connected to the Internet though. All kids should leave high school with basic knowledge of the Internet and related. After all, the revolution isn't televised -- its packet filtered.
I remember hearing one of the most drastic proposals on this subject in a Usenet discussion a long while back, that schools ought to revert to teaching only maths, for analytical thinking, and speed reading, so people can teach themselves.
Most people just start screaming about elitism at the notion of this (certain people seem to believe that very concept of freedom is elitist because it hurts the stupid people), but I really think that it is fitting for the information age. School should no longer, in fact, it can no longer, teach students information. The information is readily available elsewhere, and more plentiful and dynamic than in any school to boot.
What students need to learn in school is no longer information: but how to gather, handle, and learn from the information they will be presented with continuely for the rest of their lifes.
Think about your own schooling: how much of what you learned has really been helpful to you later? I know that for me, it was extermely little. In my own subject I realized I could have learned everything I did from grade 1-12 by adding one more term at college rate study. And as for the other subjects, I have either forgot most of it, or realized from own my experience that what I thought I knew about them is probably as infinitesimal.
What I did bring with me from school, and that I am thankful for, is that it introduced me to the subject of my passion, that it taught me to think, and that I learned how to learn effiently. I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
- Full time teaching schedule (on average, of three of the four teaching periods she has a class to teach)
- School Library - she is responsible for purchasing, reshelving and repairing books, and anything else that comes up
- A Minimumof one hour's prep/marking per class - that she has to do in the evenings at home
- At least three "cover" lessons per month - covering for sickness or other absence of a collegue
- "School activities". A catchall for extra stuff the school wants done in the evenings and lunch breaks, but isn't willing to hire staff for
- "Pupil management". Meeting parents to discuss any problems, PTA meetings, and so forth.
this is a full time occupation, 8am-8pm weekdays and most of every saturday, and it is a wonder she can still walk and talk by the end of the week. If she could find space for keeping up with new stuff as well, I would be astounded.--
-=DaveHowe=-
I'll tell you a few reasons why your teachers aren't up to date. First and foremost society expects your school to raise you instead of your parents. They might have time to look up the latest and greatest information if they weren't having to beg student to read, not take drugs, avoid sexually transmitted diseases, not shoot each other, etc, etc. The second thing is that most teachers barely make a real salary. Understand that they do make a living wage (comparable to those who are successful with no degree) but they get paid much less than any real job that requires a degree. Start someone off with twice as much work, half as many resources and half as much pay, and they get a bit behind no matter what profession they are involved in. Finally, with regard to education at the elementary and secondary level, the teachers simply need some help. Can you imagine any other profession where the most mundane details have to be handled by the people who are supposed to be using their brains? Teachers not only have to teach, they still have to make sure the window sills in their classrooms aren't dusty. They have to waste time fetching (or begging for) books, grading papers, holding fund raisers, etc. Imagine how up to date your doctor would be if he had to go around worrying about what medical supplies are in stock, or worse yet if he had to hold a bake sale to buy them. Imagine if your lawyer had to actually type up all his(or her) legal documents or look up the case law. Heck your dentist doesn't even clean your teeth, he has an assistant for that. In almost any other profession it is easy to see that they reserve the knowledge work for the knowledge workers, and the drudgery for those less skilled. Your teachers have to do both the knowledge work and the drudgery, they get paid less than the man collecting your trash to do it. (He doesn't even have to tune up the truck) The situation could be fixed, but of course the cost of education at the elementary and secondary level would be comparable per student to the university level.(I wonder why no one ever mentions cost when they continually site our college system as the best on the world and elementary and secondary as the worst) (Figure about $20,000 per student per year)(A hint California spends about $4800 per student per year) Teachers today can't even claim a classroom as their own. (put them on a year-round schedule and let them pack up all their stuff and wander from room to room) I doubt this will even be fixed. The general populace is more interested in Pokemon cards, did Hillary smoke pot, or just about anything else than raising and teaching their children. Nicholas Kelly trumptman@earthlink.net
Actually, he's probably trying to get his karma bumped a little. I used to post as soon as a story came out with a little non-contraversial comment that was either just a little insightful or just a little humorous, and get at least a point. Now, I've got karma of 82 or so, don't visit or post as much due to a recent promotion and less time on my hands, and I get karma just for Meta-Moderating as well as the chance to moderate every once in a while. What's his face should learn from my example and slow it down a little. More thought out comments will get you at least two points.
I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
However, even though you never cared less about history and social studies, the point is that you *do*, to be an educated and well-rounded person, need to know a certain base level of knowledge about these things.
The point of education is to ensure a common base level of knowledge for all citizens in order to ensure productive workers and reasonably educated voters.
So even if you never cared less about those things, and even if learning them made you less happy, I think it's good that they still taught you those things.
The principle of aggrandizement is the fundamental law of every government. - Frederick the Great
The fact of the matter is that at the current teacher salary, schools will not attract the highest-quality, most-motivated, most-intellectually-curious people. To my way of thinking, one has to be a martyr in order to put up with the current frustrations of teaching: no ability to discipline students, belligerent and uncooperative students and parents, stupid clueless school boards and administration, inhumane workload, AND low pay to boot.
If you want a better pool of teachers, ones who will inform themselves and pass that knowledge on to their students --
Pay them well.
The principle of aggrandizement is the fundamental law of every government. - Frederick the Great
Once upon a time when I was young I would dream about the underling process of how things actually worked.
I thought it interesting that there was so much knowledge. I changed my proposed ocupation many, many, times. I at one point wanted to be a beta tester for console video games before I fully grasped the concept.
I did well at traditional mathmetics and thought it was fun. Then I hit the 7th grade. I was assigned to a fellow who had about as much right teaching an algebra class as fly to the moon (he minored in math). The experience was quite bad for me. I did however pass the class. I later took classes in math up through differential calculus. That was an equally sour experience. I went into college and am currently taking a similar course as the one that I had in high school. TO say that the material is difficult is an understatement. Much of this "body of knowledge" is rarely accessable to everyone. Now I don't mean that even people with mental retardation should be able to understand special relativity or dark matter but how much work would it be to simply make a book that had advanced topics packaged into a better framework? We did it with the internet (html,dhtml,java, java script, Active X, cgi, etc) why can't there be a group who takes advanced topics and uses them to be presented into say textbooks?
Most of the current base of knowledge is in the form of academic journals, papers, and dissertations. If this would be routinely integrated into "supplement books" for textbook updates and then could be integrated into standard textbooks.
Quite frankly I think that cellular autonoma is something that would be interesting to look at. However when a subject usually takes about 5 years of solid math traning even to get to the confused stage I think it's time to make it more approachable.Has anyone taken the liberty of creating some sort of learning oriented method of teaching. Take some AI that allows people a student to ask a directed question aloud or maybe on a command line such "Gee I still don't understand why space time curves at the 39th parralel quantum axis when graviton particle concentrations reach 45% why is that?"
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
One thing that no-one seems to have mentioned is the level at which you teach.
Let's take for an example the structure of the atom, which I was first taught at age 14 in GCSE Chemistry. Back then they wanted to keep things simple, so the model we were taught basically said there are 2 electons in the inner shell, then 8 in each shell from then on out, the nucleus contains all the neutrons & protons. This model, although simplified, worked for the calculations we were doing, however even then we would sometimes think up situations where it didn't seem to make sense - the answer from the teacher was "this model is simplified...if you do A Levels (the next set of exams) you will learn a more realistic model which will answer your question".
So along comes A-Levels...and I do Chemistry again, and indeed the first thing they say is "forget what you just learnt, this is the truth". Then they go into the d-shell, p-shell etc, the equations of a sphere, basic quantum theory and so on. Again, this model seems to work in the situations we are testing...again we find some holes. Again, the answer is "This is also a simplification - do Chemistry at University and you'll learn the truth".
Now I didn't do Chemistry at Uni so I can't complete the story, but I bet they present a model, which seems to work, and some bright spark finds a hole. He asks his tutor, who says "this model is a simplification - become a researcher and discover the truth!".
The fact is that although the frontiers of science & tech are moving forwards all the time, only a small subset of students ever need or want to be at that level, usually a simplified model is sufficient for their needs, and this simple model rarely changes. Another example of this would be in Physics, where students are still taught Newtons Laws although we know them to only be approximations. Why? Because Newtons Laws work for most people's uses and Quantum Physics & the g.t.of relativity is too complex for a 14 year old to get their head around!
You could bring a (not very good) analogy into the world of programming - do we teach C++ or asm to kids these days? No we teach them probably BASIC or LOGO or somthing like that. Is this because we want to hide the truth, or because we are lazy/underfunded teachers? I would say no, it's because the simple languages are good at getting a basic understanding going, and they fulfill the requirements of kids at that age. If they are interested they can take it further, and we'll teach them The Truth (tm) at some later date.
BTW: The real tradgedy is when people are unable to get to that higher level, because of economic, social, govermental or whatever other reasons.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
OK, I get rather pissed off when people generally blame teachers for the sorry state of affairs in US Education. Both my parents are teachers, and a large number of their friends are, so, while I am considerably biased here, I also have a very big insight on what goes on in a teacher's life, and how this affects the schooling of the typical student.
In the long term, if you want to keep teachers updated, you have to pay for it in increased school taxes. What a better teacher? How about this: Every 4 years, a teacher spends a semester where they teach a half-day, and spend the other half day taking unversity classwork AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE. PAY for 2 or 3-day seminars where the teachers get TOP-NOTCH instructors from relevant fields to come lecture them on advances in their field of instruction. And, even better, have the School Boards LISTEN TO THE TEACHERS when they tell them what works, and what doesn't. Having school boards (and for that matter, state legislatures) dictate exactly what should/should not be taught in the classroom is STUPID. They don't deal with the kids. They don't have professional degrees in the subject. They don't really get it. What other profession has complete outsiders dictate how they work to them, and yet expects them to do a good job? "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Engineer, but we can't have you design/build that bridge without direction from our committee - oh, and did we tell you that our committe consists of a minister, a librarian, a policeman, two shopkeepers, and a streetsweeper? They're be alot of help, and they're really concerned..."
-Erik, who usualy doesn't get this pissed off...
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
(My comments apply to my recent experiences in California.)
Teacher unions and school boards fear vouchers, charter schools, home schooling, and anything not controlled by the local school board because they have less influence there. They have also backed themselves into a corner over the paradox of other countries having better test scores, yet more students per teacher. The unions want more teachers paying more dues, and the school boards want to post christian morality commandments and expel 5 year olds for bringing plastic knives or aspirin to school and teenagers for writing disparaging web sites about their schools and teachers.
These two bureaucracies -- unions and school boards -- are united only in fearing loss of control.
Because of that, US schools have to "serve" everybody, so parents want schools run their way. They want certain books banned, prayers said, creationism taught, etc. If alternatives were available, parents wouldn't have to tussle over the only piece of pie available; they could find their own.
Most parents would quickly find the best educational institutions. The parents who choose schools for other than educational reasons would have second thoughts in a year or two when their kids' test scores plummet.
As for the unfortunate kids of those parents, certainly there would be a few whose parents would never wake up, but it doesn't take much investigation to discover that there are a lot of kids who went the opposite of their parents when they got a chance; the route might be more twisty than some, but they will get to the same end place.
--
Infuriate left and right
The question Keefesis asks shows up all over the place in different forms: "how can we get better teachers?" "How can we make students learn more?" "What can we do about the educational crisis in American public schools?"
Here's the answer:
Pay teachers more money! Pay teachers more money! Pay teachers more money!
I am really interested in computer science (from an academic standpoint), and I'm working my way towards a Ph.D. in it. I also love to teach and am quite good at teaching. I really want to be a high school computer science teacher after I get my degree, but it's really hard for me to justify taking the pay cut. The difference is substantial- starting salaries for teachers (depending on region) are in the teens to twenties (might be slighly more for those with a Ph.D.- anyone have better numbers?) Starting salaries at good universities and research groups for Ph.D. computer scientists, depending on the place and the specific field, can start in $40,000 range and go past $100,000 sometimes. What would you do?
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that if the brightest people can get jobs that will allow them to do cutting-edge work in their fields and get paid double or more what they'd be paid to teach, most teachers will be the people who weren't good at it. That intuition is borne out by facts: the majority of teachers come from the bottom 1/4th of their college classes [can't find the source right now, but if it really bothers you post and I'll dig it up].
Pay teachers more money, and maybe you'll attract more competent people to be teachers. This is not a secret. You may tell others.
-jacob
That's a good idea, except that just because they work in the industry doesn't make them good teachers. Being a teacher is more than just knowing the stuff, you have to know how to communicate it to the students and help them. I've had teachers who were supposed to be excellent in their field, but they couldn't teach worth crap. But I guess if it's that or not having that class at all, I'd take a person straight from the industry.
I think the point you made about the fact that DC schools were spending *more* money than comparative public schools in North Suburban Chicago is the strongest argument I've ever seen (even stronger than the considerable evidence regarding private schools, perhaps) in support of the idea that, given some minimal level of infrastructure and salary expenditure, additional funds are completely irrelevant to the quality of eductation provided.
Sadly, until more people realize this, and start holding the educational bureaucrats responsible, little will be accomplished.
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page.
There is so much wrong in this post I don't know where to begin.
First off, transitional forms. EVERYTHING is a "transitional form". Every fossil we have is the transition between that which came before it and what came after. The term 'transitional form' is a creationist invention; it allows them, no matter what sequence of fossils is shown to them to say "where is the transitional between 2 and 3?" If you show them fossil 2.5 they can then say "well, where is the transistional between 2 and 2.5?" A never ending story. No matter how much evidence is displayed, they will demand more.
2: There is no conflict between evolution and the 2LOTD. Those who claim there is have obviously never taken a thermodynamics course. The earth is obviously not a closed system as it constantly obtains energy from the sun, and radiates heat into space. Those who claim that "human's cannot have evolved from amoebas because they are more complex and that violates the second law" whould look at the similarity between that and the statement "snowflakes can not come from water because snowflakes are more complex" to see the stupidity of that arguement.
Third, we have seen evolution happen in out lifetimes. See the talk.origins FAQ for details, I'm not going to list all of them here.
Finally, a basic concept that shows me you are definately not a scientist. You don't "prove" anything in science. You gather a body of evidence. A thing is considered true if there is a substantial body of proof, such that it would be perverse to not believe the theory. Creationists are fond of saying "well, evolution is only a theory." Gravity is only a theory, too, but you probably don't try to convince people to fly.
Sorry about the OT post, but dammit, he hit one of my buttons.
I enjoyed your hidden agenda slam against creationists. They of course would say that you have to be careful of the textbooks that claim that any theory is proven unless it actually is. Just because the average humanist scientist believes in evolution doesn't mean it should be taught as fact, but rather as a plausible theory.
I agree, sort of.. No good science textbook should be teaching evolution as fact any more than it teaches anything as fact. You have the common misconception that scientists believe evolution to be fact. They don't. Scientists do not believe ANYTHING to be fact.
In science, a "theory" is merely a hypothesis which has been backed up by a lot of evidence. In science, EVERYTHING is potentially wrong, since we know our observation techniques are imperfect. Newton's laws of motion (at low speeds), Maxwell's equations, evolution, these are all "theories" in science, yet we use apply them every day.
We could potentially find out that Newton's laws of motion are wrong (and we did.. though only at high speeds), or that our cherished laws of electromagnetism are wrong, and that the computer you're using now is really being run by something we don't understand at all.. It's JUST NOT DAMN LIKELY. Similarly, evolution is a "theory" because we must always be open to the possibility of our observations and logic being faulty, but it has been so well supported that it's just not damn likely that evolution is completely wrong.
In short, if you want science books to teach only "facts", then you'll start seeing some really empty science books with nothing but blank pages.
Science books must therefore teach scientific "theories", which are hypotheses which have been supported greatly by evidence. Among these theories is the theory of evolution.
And of course, I must plug The Talk.Origins Archive, which has lists of this and other common misconceptions about evolution.
here is an article I wrote about how schools (at least here in California) waste all the money they get for technology.
it's not a lack of money, it's a lack of effort and desire. Sure, there are a few good teachers out there, but do you really think most teachers teach because they really want to? No, they teach because it's a secure, relativley high paying (after tenure.. and that takes only a few years) job where they get summers and all holidays off, and only have to "work" (if you consider setting up a audiobook or a video and sleeping during class work) from 8am to 3pm. Ever heard the saying "Those who can, can, those who can't, teach?" It's the truth. Sure, we could spend millions subscribing every teacher to the latest technology magazines, but they'll go unread. We can spend millions taking our teachers to technology training courses, but even if they learn anything, they won't implement any of it.
The educational system has been bureaucratized, legalized, unionized, federalized, politicized, reformed from outside 3 times in my memory, and still manages to do worse every year.
This system was fine for early industrial revolution purposes -- produce a uniform, low-level product.
It is hopeless for an information/technology era where we need people with lots of idiosyncratic backgrounds probing many small areas of knowledge and performing syntheses.
The ultimate small class and small batch size is one -- tutoring is the future.
The net will make this easy -- with video, my kid can have an Calcutta high school math genius tutoring him in math, a Beijing high school history genius tutoring him in the impact of the Cultural Revolution (inMandarin),
Abolish the educational system. Give poor people a chance to get out of the morass which has held minorities back for the last 50 years.
Lew Glendenning
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
Gravity is
only a theory, too, but you probably don't try to convince people to fly.Gravity is
only a theory, too, but you probably don't try to convince people to fly.
Gravity is not a theory. Gravity is real. There are some
theories that explain why there is gravity, but gravity in itself isn't just a theory, it's a force...
The theory that says that gravity is proportional to the square of distance (or something like that, i'm into ephistemology, not physics) is a theory, gravity isn't.
What does it matter if Joe High school student is not aware of 5 or 6 rare elements? Most of these, the rare ones, are soon forgetten anyhow. Education is more about learning how to learn, than it is cramming "inert knowledge", as Whitehead would say.
I believe there is too much emphasis of "accurate" (newer) information, and less on the quality of the material or instruction. I am of the belief that a more traditional education serves the individual far better, even in today's high tech environment, than the more modern/"accurate" education. Furthermore, in the attempt to obtain the latest materials, they effectively dumb it down, ignoring the quality of the material. I think most every modern text book is pretty horrible. I'd rather have an older and outdated one (not to mention less P.C. stuff), than what is normally seen today.
The same can be said for "computers in the classroom". There is such an emphasis in education these days in "technology", that they ignore the important stuff. In one particular inner city system that i'm familiar with, the district spent a couple million dollars wiring each room with ISDN lines and the like, yet a good many of them were unable to use it because their electrical system couldn't even support the computers. In this same system, the kids are not even remotely literate. WTF are these educators thinking? A computer, or any technology for that matter, is not a cure all. Maybe, past a certain stage it can help. But for kids who can't read and write or do basic arithmatic, it is a poor return on dollars. Meanwhile, when you examine most private schools, they frequently have lower spending per student, and they pay their faculty significantly less across the board, yet they send the %95 to top schools.
Our public education system simply isn't rigourous enough; not enough is demanded of the students or teachers. It is premature, and most likely entirely unnecessary to worry about how old these text books are. The question is, does the system make students THINK and LEARN. It must be challenging above all else.
You can control for that and the results are still basically the same.
Off-hand, one notes that parochial schools typically have *very* low budgets, but often walk all over public schools in terms of academic performance. There are also plenty of examples of urban schools with insane budgets that still do pathetically poorly.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
To give you an idea of just how discredited it is, a few years ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the very liberal (American sense) Senator from New York, obeserved that the statistical correlation between eductional quality and per capita spending was so tiny, that even the Latitude of the school's location had more bearing. So he mockingly suggested we move all schools North 100 miles. Keep in mind that Sen. Moynihan is hardly known as a budget hawk.
The clamor for jacked-up school budgets comes from fatcat educrats who know nothing about efficient management. Catholic school systems, just as an example, operate at 1/3 the per capita spending but get higher test scores and graduation rates with worse kids.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
The first and foremost job of any school should be to teach students how to think, and how a particular discipline WORKS. But because people are being taught at a superficial level rather than being taught underlying concepts, it is suddenly taking at least a Bachelor's degree to accomplish what a HS diploma once would have in terms of training for the workforce. Sad, very very sad.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
The basic problems with the US education system have to do with attitudes of the parents, NOT failures in the formal school system. Everyone has noted that the money spent on schools in the US is very high; and in fact teacher educational requirements in the US are quite high too. Why is it in fact that this money does not deliver the desired result? The process has been studied and benchmarked to a fair-thee-well so if it were a problem with the process it would have been found by now.
This money is in fact wasted if the parents fail in their job to deliver a kid willing to learn to school.
The sad fact is that PARENTS are unwilling to accept any responsibility for the performance of their children in school, yet in fact they have FAR FAR more influence than teachers do. When Johnny can't find Canada on a map, the reason is because his PARENTS didn't treat learning achievement as important in the upbringing of the child.
The American media likes to trumpet low standardized test scores as evidence of the schools failing. Baloney. If you look at the DISTRIBUTION of test scores you will immediately see that the top 10-20% of American students perform equal to or better than the top percentiles in any other country in the world. If schools were incompetent this would not happen. These students were taught by their parents that learning is important.
Those that do not achieve are students whose parents have failed to do their part.
Funny how the
While I agree that it should be easier to remove an incompetent teacher, this is unfortunately open to all sorts of abuses. A good friend of mine is a high school English teacher, and if he didn't have tenure, he probably would have been fired because some irate parents (one of whom was on the school board, IIRC) complained about dirty words in a book he assigned to high school juniors.
Abolish the unions, and tenure? OK, fine, but don't come crying to me when freedom of speech evaporates and creation science is taught as fact.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I'm a teacher, and I stay up to date. But why should I even TRY to teach a class when most high-school students are just interested in chasing skirts and joking around?
I deliver interesting courses. No book reading here. I have them work on the computers, make interesting labs, and deliver interesting theory. But most high-school "jocks" aren't interested, and when a student feels he's taking a course for nothing, he'll never listen.
An uninterested student leads to an uninterested teacher. Most teachers get so sick of teaching, that when they start a new semester, the first thing on their mind is "how can I get rid of this bunch of students the easiest way possible".
Many things need change in the ed system. Not just the teachers. Some of those changes can start at home, with Mom and Pop.
Something else I'd add: Stop scaring off the bright but strange college kids. Someone I went to college with has decided against teaching thanks to the post-Littleton crackdown on kids in black. Why? He WAS one of those kids. He would have been a brilliant teacher, too. It pisses me right off.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Teaching isn't as horrible and underpaid as some make it out to be, but it sure as heck isn't a "cushy" job, either. Especially not in this day and age.
As for firing "incompetent" teachers, who makes that decision? By what standards? It'd be really easy to stick a teacher with less-intelligent or less-cooperative kids as an act of deliberate sabotage so that teacher could be fired for "incompetence" by someone with an axe to grind. Better yet (this works best on male teachers), make accusations of sexual impropriety. Bye-bye, teacher.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Around here (Newfoundland, Canada), the problem is not with teachers but with school boards.
Teachers are not permitted to teach anything other than what the school board dictates. What makes this really bad is the fact that the school boards are not made up of teachers but with scumbag politician wannabes and (in the Catholic schools) Christian fundamentalists. Science is extremely low on their priority lists. They don't even know what's happening in the classrooms.
I had a computer teacher who had to literally fight the school board to change the curriculum of the computer courses from CBM Pets to (then current) 286s.
I was lucky to have good teachers. My chemistry teacher spent his off-class hours in the lab trying to recreate student's science fair experiments. He went out of his way to learn from the students. Once he was looking at someone's fiber-optic demonstration project and videotaped me explaining the simple 555 circuit and how light traveled through the medium for future reference.
Most of my teachers constantly cursed the foul school board. Our labs were understocked, the books were only updated every 6 or 7 years, etc. When I hit college it was a culture shock. New books every year or two (Some people didn't like that because they couldn't sell them, but I kept all of my books anyway), proper equipment in the labs, and best of all, small classes. I graduated in a class of 12 people.
I can't speak for him, but I would assume that his argument is based not observation within his own lifetime, rather the complete lack of any transitional forms in the available paleontological evidence.
May I direct you to the Talk.Origins Archive's list of transitional fossils, which includes far more than just the Archeopteryx. The table of transitional fossils is certainly not complete, since fossils are fragile and hard to find, but it is FAR more filled than Creationists would like us to believe.
(In the specific case of the Archeopteryx, we have yet to find its direct ancestor, but we have found many candidates and cousins which themselves bear many traits of both birds and reptiles.)
Of course, there is also the core issue of whether evolution can be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics. Which of course brings in the debate about whether the earth can be considered a closed system or not, yada yada yada
LOL! You're basically saying, "Then there's this argument... which I know is completely bogus, but I'm just going to ignore that little fact and say it anyway."
"The debate about whether the earth can be considered a closed system"? What debate? If the earth were a closed system, there'd be no photosynthesis (since no light could enter from the outside), and thus no plant or animal life. At best there'd be some of that bacteria that feeds off of geothermal energy (which again is finite).
So yes.. the entropy argument is completely bogus because life on Earth is fueled by solar (and geothermal) energy, and the increase in entropy caused by those emissions of heat more than offset the decrease in entropy of more structured life.
You seem to be ridiculing his position, when the simple fact is that there is probably no way we will ever *prove* either a creationist or an evolutionary point of view. At best, several thousand years of observation (including, hopefully, the opportunity to observe planets other than our own), should more clearly show the likelihood of one or the other.
You're almost right, of course. The only issue is that we don't need several thousand years of observation. We already have plenty of evidence to support evolution. As for the whole micro vs. macro evolution thing, the Talk.Origins archive lists many documented cases of speciation.
OK, I really hate having to respond to people like this, but this really burns my ass.
First off, the $300b is TOTAL OVER THE ENTIRE US. And, in case you aren't familiar with the statistics, school funding in the US is about as uneven as you can get, primarily due to the fact that most of it comes from local property tax. Of that $300b, maybe $50b or so is evenly distributed. The other $250b is concentrated in the school districts in wealthier neighborhoods. So, no, your Indianapolis Public School is almost certainly NOT getting $8000 per student. I'd guess maybe half that, or less.
Secondly, the major reasons why public schools have gone downhill in the last 20 years has nothing to do with teachers and the schools, and less to do with funding; it's all about society. Schools (and by extension, teachers) no longer simply get to teach knowledge - they are expected to be surrogate families, social workers, psycologists, policemen, and daycare centers. The family and community structure that used to provide this have dropped their responsibilies squarely in the lap of the schools. So, no wonder why they're doing poorly.
As for school vouchers: this is one of the WORST IDEAS to ever come up. Let me tell you why:
Fundamentally, I think there is only one way to really save the US school system: fund them exclusively via income tax, fund all school equally, and REQUIRE all children to attend PUBLIC schools. That's right. From a societal standpoint, private and parochial schools are BAD. Just as many people advocate (and many countries require) univeral military service to create a common ground for all citizens, we should require everyone to attend the same school system. That way, we ALL have a stake in how well it's doing, and ensure that EVERYONE gets a fair start.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
The major factor that prevents a science teacher or computer teacher from being totally up to date is time. At my school, I teach honors physics for two periods, basic chemistry for two periods, and some web design/programming during the two periods that I'm the unofficial technical coordinator for the high school, where I maintain a large writing & research computer lab, a FirstClass server, a linux web/cgi server, and the hundreds of PCs and Macs strewn about the school. I have a prep period where I'm supposed to have time to eat lunch and grade papers, but I'm usually running an errand or fixing a machine or trying to resolve a network problem, so I usually eat some stuff from the teachers' lounge vending machine while working on something unrelated to teaching. During the day, I have no time to prepare lessons or grade papers, so I do it after school or at night like most teachers. Usually, I'm still working on computer stuff after school, so I save the evening for grading/planning.
Realize that while our school day runs from 7:25 to 2:25, I never leave before 4pm at the very earliest, so when I get home, it's time to run quick errands before the bank/post office/any business except Meijer's closes, and then make dinner. It's 6 or 7pm before you're done with everything, and if I don't have an evening meeting for something, I can start working on school stuff.
Does anyone else see the problem here? Like lots of teachers, I'm heavily involved in the school; I advise National Honor Society, I'm on at least 3 committees that I can think of offhand, and I'm developing curricula for two new courses next year (one of which is A+ certification). When do I have time to stay current? It's nearly impossible to get everything done as it is, but to try to stay current while grading papers, making lessons, filling out the typical paperwork involved with education, dealing with students, dealing with parents, and maybe somehow in some way have a normal life... that's even more difficult.
There are solutions, however. I read lots of news web sites every day (CNN, Artigen, BBC, Yahoo, and of course good ol' Slashdot), and I turn around and bring that information into my classes. I've been teaching nuclear reactions in chemistry, which means you have to talk about The Bomb, and so I used the new Encyclopedia Britannica web site for lots of reference material that isn't in the book. More importantly, I make my chemistry and physics classes go out and find news articles related to the class, read them, and write a summary and response to them. Physics has to do it EVERY week, and even though they largely whine about the assignment, at least one student every week gets really excited about what they found. One student brought in an opinion article from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who believes there may be a Grand-Unified Theorem by 2050, and the kid actually read the article and understood some of it. Not all of it, of course, but the effort and the exposure were very important. I think this is a realtively easy assignment that nets great results (especially if your school has internet access like ours; the stuff they find online blows my mind, and I love reading the articles I hadn't seen yet).
Another thing I do for physics is introduce them to "new" physics by teaching them relativity, a very tiny amount of quantum mechanics, and some cosmology. I also have them read the Feynman book that someone mentioned earlier, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman , because it's important that they learn to see scientists not as all-knowing demigods, but real people with real lives similar to their own. I think this year we might also read about another scientist, but I haven't had time to research another book. Any suggestions would be welcome! Anyway, it's extremely important for all physics students to have a basic understanding of mechanics, but to leave out the most important discoveries of this century really disgusts me. Do you know when I first learned about relativity? The very end of the second semester of first-year physics in college; we spent 3 days on it. Of course, it was covered in-depth in second-year physics, but there's no reason every high school physics student shouldn't graduate without the basic knowledge that makes up general and special relativity.
I apologize for rambling, but I hope people realize that we science teachers (most of us, at least) really do care that students get an up-to-date, appropriate education. We're just bogged down by all the other stuff that makes it very, very difficult to supplement the course of study. Hiring more teachers to reduce class size, providing money for teachers to attend workshops or take appropriate college classes, or even training the head of the science department to keep track of recent science developments to pass out appropriate information - this things will all help. Ultimately, it requires a sacrifice of free time by the teacher in order to improve their course. Doing this during the summer isn't always the answer, either; lots of stuff pops up during the year and then slips back into obscurity, and it's more difficult than you'd imagine to accomplish changes while you're off and you have a job just to keep paying the bills.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
I haven't seen too many solutions to this problem stated. I think I might have one.
;-)
We all know that teachers don't have the time and/or energy after teaching a class full of 30 kids (another problem... I'll save that rant for another day) to do the proper research into the topics they are to teach. They mainly stick by the textbook, and follow through their lesson plans. The REALLY lucky students out there get a teacher that takes it a step further, and tries to connect the textbook learning to more practical real life examples and attempts to use other sources of information to supplement the textbook (such as internet info, science shows taped from public TV, and public library visits).
So - how do we get the latest info into the textbooks? How about revisiting the idea of books all together? Wouldn't it be great if the book you owned updated it's self automatically? Well, with the internet and tools such as CVS the idea becomes a little more realistic.
I'm not proposing that CVS be used for anything other than keeping code in check - but what if a tool could be developed to make web publishing and updating textbooks easy and straightforward for publishers?
This might kill the textbook market as we know it - everybody would need palmpads or small notebooks to use as their text for the year - but the great thing is the following year you could just download the newest text from the net - and you have the latest and greatest info!
Publishers would have to charge a yearly renewal fee vs. every 10 years the school would buy new books. Sounds OK to me!
So, who out there is going to be brave enough to offer such a service to schools? In my opinion, if textbook publishers really cared about the quality of education, this would be a no-brainer.
This is SOOOO close to becoming feasable. I saw pictures in EETimes of some of the 'internet appliances' that are coming - and they seem ideal for students! Imagine a $99 dollar keyboard/LCD combo with just enough horsepower to drive a web browser that you could easily pack into your backpack.... very cool. If only they could get the resolution of the LCD up.
Like I said.... close. Might save some trees too!
Patent Pending (tm)
In Europe and Asia they spend FAR LESS money per student on education than we do here in the US and they get better results. I think the number 1 obstacle to improving the quality of education here in the US is the monolith of the teacher's unions. They oppose every measure that would hold teachers accountable for the education of the students.
Teachers get paid according to seniority and not to results.
MY solution, every yead give all teachers a competency test and a placement test for every student.
Every teacher that fails the test can't teach until s/he takes and passes the next test.
Teacher raises/promotions should be based upon where his/her students rank in the placement test.
If they had the incentive to be good teachers, they would be.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
1. My point on the funding thing was that vouchers aren't required to fix this. People seem to see vouchers as the only method for equitable funding of schools; this is false.
2. My fault. I was assuming you had taken the $8000 from the $300b / number of US students formulae. Sorry.
3. No, I wasn't claiming that under a school voucher system only the rich go to the best schools. I was pointing out that OVER TIME, the inherent advantages of being rich as relates to school performance would lead to the best schools being filled with the best students, the vast majority being rich. Conversely, the worst schools would be filled with the poorest students, which would be overwhelmingly from the poorer sections; thus, you'd end up with complete social stratification, and no hope of improvement withing the voucher system. It would be no better (and probably worse) than the current system.
4. & 5. (see follows):
As another poster here pointed out, if we wanted the "most efficient" system of public schools, vouchers would indeed work. You would end up with a system that looks identical to the college system in the US: the best students get the best schools, and the worst students get the worst schools. You don't get "balanced" schools, you get specialized ones. And massive stratification. That is a horrible idea. For it fails in the fundamental reason for public education:
Everyone is to be given a standard basic education that the society deems necessary for it to have.
Put it another way, Public Education is there to insure that everyone starts out with a reasonably even playing field.
The problem with school vouchers, private, and parochial schools is that they promote the attitude of (pardon the expression) "Fuck you, I got mine". There is no sense of community or societal responsibility. People not involved in something have no stake in whether or not it succeeds. With an issue so fundamental to the success of our country as basic education is, my argument is that it is both UNWISE, and ultimately DESTRUCTIVE to let people "opt out" of the public school system. By promoting the voucher system and private/parochial schools, you let those who have abandon those who have not (I speak in both terms of money and ability). Having a universal, compulsory, single school system, you insure that everyone gets the decent education and that everyone has a stake in making sure that "decent" education is damn good. Sure, you may hold back the top students, but that's where the college system steps in and works so well. And, as I've pointed out before, honestly, the Standard Education isn't about fulfilling everyone's complete potential, it's about insuring that we have a common base for all citizen to work from.
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
At the risk of ruining your GPA, you will find out and prove to yourself (on paper and in the lab) what our best guess at how atoms work really is.
Statistical mechanics sucks. Quantum mechanics sucks. Thermodynamics sucks. Learning them all and being able to put together a decent picture of how things actually work... rules.
No pain, no gain.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
One of the things I noticed about a few of the teachers I have had over the years of my schooling was how they stood out from the rest. How their classes got higher grade averages than the rest of the country. And how they managed to keep the students captivated.
They showed us how to learn, and where to find things. They didn't expect us to just soak up everything in the class, but to use our brains. And most importantly they showed us how to apply what we were being shown in life with examples, in many cases relevant to what we were interested in, or later on, what courses we were attending.
The system itself tends to bring this about, as it doesn't allow for much in the way of corrective feedback to fix any of the problems. And the students are often left out of the loop as well, even as they approach the end of their schooling.
I don't think the answer is teaching only maths and speed reading, but mebbe teaching less of the subject and encouraging more learning in an of itself, in and out of the classroom. There are many subjects that simply must be learned at a very basic level to encourage individuality, and to encourage these people to take different careers. It might be nice for the IT industry if a whole year level was to be focused on computing, programming and system administration, but the woodworking, metalworking, textile, produce, marketing, et al, industries might get a little peeved.
I attended a public school all my life, so this isn't just the dedication of private school teachers that is rubbing off on me. In fact I tend to see the opposite here in Australia, where they teach to what is required and nothing else simply because the contracts at private schools are so long, and the pay is reasonable.
I was in the unfortunate position at school during my 8th year of education wanting to do Electronics but ending up in Accounting because there was one student under the class minimum required. My mother (thankfully) stormed up to the school, and after garnering support from other student's mothers, raised a petition to get the class running.
Something that I am also proud of is that while I attended school, I never did much in the way of homework out of school hours, preferring to do so within the school environment, and enjoying myself outside of school. In most subjects (unless they seemed utterly ludricous, or the teachers specifically did not understand what they were teaching) I did exceptionally well, because I learned the subject, and not just absorbed the information.
Those that I refused to participate in, I usually refused to do almost any work in at all. History in my 9th year of education was one such subject, where I failed deliberately. The subject matter was in fact the exact same course information that I did the year before. Only a very few parts were removed and new bits replaced. I did all the new bits, but refused to re-do all the work I did last year. Near the middle of the year I suprised the teacher when they started teaching new parts of the subject for the first time and I got 90+% for each of them. She apparently thought, even despite my complaints, that I had a learning disability. It's amazing what it takes to convince some people.
Unfortunately, one thing that some teachers are not good at is learning from their mistakes. It's a pity really, because this simple thing makes so much difference. Unfortunately because of this, the system on a whole suffers the same fate, despite the few good teachers out there.
What is needed is less federal involvment, more control turned over to the states and less bureaucracy.
That is an interesting theory and commonly stated theory in this forum, but one that has very little basis in evidence to support that it would make things better.
The states so far seem to be doing a very poor job of keeping politics out of the classroom. Look at the mess with the teaching of evolution. Just based on this issue alone I would be in favor of totally REMOVING the states from having any control over the education system.
The fact of the matter is that the countries that are doing very well in these international standardized tests of factual knowledge have far MORE centralization than we do in the US. France, for example scores very well in these sorts of tests. Their education system is so centralized and rigidly controlled that at least until recently you could count on exactly the same material being taught in EVERY French classroom on exactly the same day at exactly the same time.
Personally I have a great deal of mistrust of the commonly accepted statement that our schools are performing very badly. US students do poorly compared to the rest of the world in regurgitating factual material, true. But when they are tested on things like creative writing and problem solving skills, they are in fact equal to or even the best in the world. I have heard educators in other countries complain that the rigidity of their educational system, in particular rules on what factual material the students must know, combined with competitive college entrance examinations that are the SOLE determinats of acceptance to college prevents them from developing the reasoning skills that they consider to also be important.
What is the bottom line? I think if that the American schools were to be doing as badly as people think, we would see the difference in the productivity of our adult workers. But the fact is that the American worker is the most productive in the world. To me there is a real contradiction here.
I think people that are blasting the American education system have in part been taken in by the news media in the US who are want to try to build an impression that something is disasterously wrong when in fact the question is not at all that clear.
If you were to believe the news media on the Y2K issue, you would have taken all of your money out of the bank 3 times this year, have a generator and 6 months worth of food and medicine in you basement. It will be interesting to see what happens Jan 1 when in fact the disruptions are very minor to non-existant. Will the media acknowledge their propensity to shout the sky is falling after we get just a whimper this New Years day?
complacency
Pronunciation: -s&n(t)-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Date: 1650
1 : COMPLACENCE; especially : self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies
2 : an instance of complacency
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
School does many things other than just teach --
It gives a chance to develop our social skills (which well, as we can see what's going on in current events, isn't working in many places), and it gives us a general smattering of many topics, so we can find what interests us, and what doesn't.
As for your concept of school, I believe there are schools that give the kids the materials to learn, and the kids are given the option to learn if they want to, but from my understanding of it, it's only shown to be an effective form of teaching at younger ages. (I wish I could remember the name of this style of teaching, but it escapes me)
Speed reading, if I recall correctly, was found to have a lower retention rate than standard reading. Unfortunately, as many people 'study for the test' rather than studying in general, it's a bit of a moot point, as students may prefer this method.
Math and the like are useful in life, but they're not typically taught in such a way as to show how useful they are. I mean, we've all had the stupid 'presentations' for an english/history class that we had to do, which effectively taught us how to prepare and execute a public presentation. (which as an introvert, I despised)
Math, unfortunately, many people see as useless...
Geometry and Trig come into much more use when you're working on building something in a TechEd class; I've even heard of private schools in Vermont who have 'applied geometry' classes, which is essentially surveying. I thought Differential Equations was the most useless thing, until I actually had a chance to apply it in fluid dynamics and solid mechanics.
What's more important than just teaching, is in finding how each student learns. Some people are hands-on, some prefer self-learning. Some like lectures, some need the one-on-one question/answer sessions.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The bible says that pi is 3. I wonder if literalists ever oppose trigonometry because of that...
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Yep, this is offtopic, but if anyone is looking for the reference, it's:
1 Kings 7:23
7:23 Then Huram cast a large round tank, 15 feet across from rim to rim; it was called the Sea. It was 7 1/2 feet deep and about 45 feet in circumference.
Not sure which version this is from, since I've never seen it in feet before. (The "New Living Translation") But here's YAT (KJV this time)
7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
and one more, this time NIV...
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
So there you have it...3 translations, two different units, pi=3.
Have fun with this one, literalists.
regards,
-efisher
---
this
Sheesh. Where to begin ... this is such a chestnut, it's hardly "fun" anymore.
First of all, about units and translations -- the text is certainly "cubits," it's just that translations sometimes attempt a units conversion, since nobody measures things in cubits anymore. (A cubit, IIRC, was the distance from fingertip to elbow -- kind of like that personal unit of measurement, the "foot," that no modern country uses anymore. :^)
Second, ever notice that 3 is a fine approximation of pi, to one significant digit?
Third, the text says "round", but does that truly mean perfectly circular? Tell you what -- you cast a 15-foot diameter basin, using iron age technology, and we'll see how closely your ratio of circumference to diameter approximates 3.14159...
Fourth, since I Kings doesn't come with an engineering schematic, who's to say that the basin didn't have an overhanging lip? That's a common enough design.
Fifth, this is a straw man anyhow. Practically nobody, other than anti-Christian propagandists, take the notion that "I Kings 7:23 means that the Bible teaches that pi is equal to 3" seriously -- including those (fnord) fundamentalists and (fnord) inerrantists. (I say "practically" because, in a world with more than a billion Christians, you might find a crank or two as who does believe that pi is 3 "because the Bible says so.")
IN the UK, to much controversy, a National Curriculum was introduced about 10 years ago, which pretty much set in stone what should be taught and what should be in examinations from nursery up to A-Level education.
While I'm a little concerned that it takes away teacher's flexibility, it does ensure that content is reasonably up-to-date (since there are bodies constantly revising the curriculum for every subject). I know that fractal geometry and some basic chaos theory has been introduced somewhere in the curriculum since when I was at school, for example.
... and of course it means that nobody ends up with great big holes in their education because their teacher was biased against a certain subject.
I know very little about the US education system, though, except what I've seen on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Weird Science. Oh, and Heathers.
--
Well, the math books would still be full of the same letters as before, since math doesn't tell you anything about this world. Math is perfect, because it makes up its own assumptions (axioms).
BTW evolution: "evolution" isn't just one theory, it is a set of theories. Darwin's theory is just one evolution theory, it bases evolution on mutation and selection by survival of the fitest. Lamark's theory is another evolution theory, and it's based on something like a "genetic memory".
Actually, we know a lot more about genetics now than both Darwin and Lamark knew. We know that Lamark isn't completely off, since there are ways to exchange genetic informations, including gene ferries (mostly for bacterias and plants), and gene editors. We don't know if these gene editors are just deactivated retro virii, or if they are used once upon a time, but one thing we can say with pretty high accuracy: this live as it is now wasn't created, but evolved. Even the pope accepts this.
There is no observation whatsoever that any species ever was created. All creationist arguments I know of focus around "proofs" that this or that can't have evolved, mostly by taking something complex as the eye, and leaving out all the steps that led to that eye as it is now, and even failing to explain why the human eye has the sensors behind supply and sense, instead of having it in front of it like octopus eyes do.
Creationism is a "last resort explanation" - if everything else fails, assume it was created. It's also only shifting the problem, since it explains something lesser (the world) by being created by something higher (God), and completely misses to explain how this higher (God) came into being. He for sure hasn't evolved? So who created God?
In all my school days, only one teacher told us things as if they were facts, and that one was the religion teacher of elementary school. After all, her facts weren't based on observation or by formal proof, but on reading of just one really old book.
And so we are back on topic: why do teachers tell things from old books as if it was truth and no new insight has been gained later? Well, it's because teachers never left school. They haven't seen the real world. They aren't "authentic". For them, all knowledge is like a fairy tale, something that goes from generation to generation. It isn't. Knowledge is but a tool to get around with the real world.
What pupils really need, apart from meta-tools like letters and math, is to learn how to solve real world problems, problems they'll face in their future life. Today, the most important thing is to learn how to learn. I mean: to learn yourself, without being driven by a teacher. This isn't a budget problem, it's a cultural problem. Few, if any teachers like it if pupils know more than them. Many even dislike if they knew more than they have been teached in school yet. This must stop!
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
Have you actually read any science texts or even popular books in the last 30 years? They almost universally begin by assuming that evolution is a fact, even when they actually say "theory", then scrabble around trying to support their assumption. Many of them have phrases like "the fact of evolution" dotted around.
:) Actually, I can say one more thing.. Because of the stigma about the word "theory", some scientists may occassionally use the word "fact" to refer to scientific theories.. nonetheless, these "facts" are still as subject to scientific inquiry as anything else.
:)
Then you've been reading some pretty crappy books, is all I can say.
I'm also not saying all scientists behave scientifically all the time. After all, scientists are human beings, and are notorious for being resistant to change. Tons of ideas, from relativity to black holes to pulsars, were resisted vehemently by many top scientists because they didn't want their own perfect little picture of the Universe disrupted. These scientists could very well want to refer to their own ideas as "facts" to make them feel more correct because of their own insecurities or whatnot, but that doesn't make it a "fact"!
Let's also keep in mind that not all scientists keep in mind scientific method at all times, though they should.
The method of science calls nothing a fact. Just because a few wayward scientists say something is fact doesn't make it so. Actually, it is these scientists who are probably most often proven wrong!
So, do they really believe, or are they lying?
I'd say these scientists are either using bad terminolgy, saying "fact" when they mean "scientific theory that's been rigorously proven", themselves unclear on the scientific method, or just plain self-righteously annoyed as "those idiots" and feel a need to assert the superiority they feel by calling their stuff "facts".
Personally, I'd say it's most likely a combination of all three.
Yes, semantics. And scientists should care as much about how they use terms as anyone else. You cannot discount a creationist's comment that "evolution is just a theory" (of how things got to be how they are) by saying "gravity is just a theory too" when in fact, it isn't.
... like the exact density of Jupiter ... )
... (gravity).
... but we theorise about them. To throw out "just semantics" is discounting the point.
We KNOW that things are how they are (although not everything about them
We KNOW that things are attracted to each other on large-mass scale
We don't know WHY either of these things is the way it is
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Umm, no the Bible does not say PI is 3 ... it uses dimensions that have enough precision to be considered correct (seeing as no-one making the criticism can give me the exact value of PI ... oops, wrong number to pick an argument about). Considering the time period, an estimated value of 3 for the sake of making measurements and not transcribing values in decimal form (which didn't exist for Hebrew numbering) is perfectly acceptable.
:-) ... the accuracy of the Bible is debated on the valid levels of historical truth, claim accuracy, etc. However, because it reports that a measurement was made, and these are the numbers within the system given does not make it inaccurate, but thanks for starting an off-topic thread :-).
We're talking a historical narrative people, has no one here studied Hermeneutics as much as Insolence?
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
You obviously need to re-read the post a few times. The reporting of historical truth that they measured the diameter at one length and the circumferance at that length * 3 may indeed be accurate. The Bible teaches that those were the measurements made by those people at that time, using the tools they had ...
... (without modern tools!) and then measure ... give us measurements using a piece of string 1 inch long (for scale's sake ... unless you want a 30 cubit piece of play-doh ... ).
... that's like "how many miles between NYC and TORONTO?" ... well, better get it to a meter's precision! :)
... listen! ... it is to be 3 times further around than it is wide! ..." it is not "Bible teaching" ...
... you don't attack a system without using that system's presuppositions ... because those being attacked take all of their presuppositions to be true, not just that one plus all of your own :-). If ALL presuppositions are considered, do the facts still end up making a falsehood? No, not in this case.
... like he said, go grab a piece of play-doh and mould it into a hand-made circle
We all understand significant digits here? Why would the people reporting the measurements have been concerned about measurements beyond the significance they were dealing with? We're measuiring in CUBITS
No, the Bible teaches a historical situation in which those are the measurements given. Unless Moses got up and said "God has taught us the concept of CIRCLE!
... ask a Bible scholar.
And, BTW, for the philosophers out there
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Mind you, the whole point of this thread was that teachers need to be given better materials to work with or else them being up to date will not be relevant to the students reading these text books. If you think the books are pretty bad
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)