More J on J

["Rauber, Joel Phys" <RAUBERJ@mg.sdstate.edu>]

One comment,

> I agree that one thing is different is that college is more inclusive,
> however,

I wonder why (and would like some discussion) being more inclusive makes 
things different in the way Leigh was implying.  I don't think that the new 
people we are now including are any less capable of self-motivation, hard 
work and the positive student factors that Leigh was alluding to in talking 
about the student population of the fifties.  Also I suspect, that the 
categories that were included 3 decades ago are exhibiting the same negative 
factors now days that Leigh was mentioning.  I think some the other thoughts 
that were mentioned is the real reason things are different.  Perhaps some 
of those factors affect more negatively certain newly included groups that 
are now in our student population due to various socio-economic factors.

> > How many Jascha Heifetz would we expect to produce if we lectured to
> > violin students instead of giving them individual instruction? Maybe
> > physics is more like violin playing than it is like history.

> Unfortunately, university administrations will not let us teach this
> way. Our administration is constantly looking and the music department
> here because of their low productivity caused by their one-on-one
> private music instruction.

Yes!, Unfortunately at lot of the value of low teacher student ratios is 
lost by the above fact.  I can't resist mentioning that an earlier 
(sarcastic reply) metnioned using videotapes of lecturers in order not to 
waste "valuable lecture time".  This is starting to happen in our system. 
 My office neighbor had to deliver a nuclear physics course by videotape to 
another campus in our university system.  It was an awful experience for the 
students at the remote location.  But this was touted by our board of 
regents as an excellent example of cooperation and efficient use of 
resources.  Next to this, the evil use of pedagogically unsound lecture 
formats seem like a paragon of educational practice.

Incidently I swim most lunch hours with a music prof, here and our music 
department suffers from the same problem; scrutiny from administration. and 
this is despite there relative success in attracting majors to the program. 
About 2-3 time the number of physics majors (High schools, hire more music 
teachers than physics teachers in our state)

Joel