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Re: Students and Tests - Kyle and business models



I agree Allen, many people _perceive_ education to be a service industry
and we should work very hard to correct that notion. I like your fitness
center analogy. We should make it clear that we offer the equipment and
coaching but that the student has to preform the (mental) gymnastics in
order to have any effects.

kyle

I think that Kyle is right. But let me point out that, as has been
mentioned, many students and parents _perceive_ education to be a service
industry. In the same way that they might take a shirt or dress to the
dry cleaner on Monday, saying "I'll pick it up, cleaned, on Tuesday", they
drop their kids off in the morning saying "I'll pick them up, educated,
this afternoon". It's that attitude, in which parents and students are
viewed as customers seeking some value-added service, that leads them to
the conclusion that what happens in education is more about you (as
teachers) than about them. I call it the "I showed up, so why didn't I
learn anything - it must be your fault" mentality.

In my dealings with students and parents I always pointed out that
learning requires some "cerebral inconvenience" (... that constructivist
ghost from Boise wails again in the background ...). One analogy
that I did use, in moments of exasperation with "clients" who said _all_
the responsibility resided with me vis-a-vis whether or not the learning
that they had paid for had occurred, was that of a fitness club. You can
pay to join, use the facilities, take the classes, and receive the
instruction, but in the end it's the partnership between teacher and
learner and the efforts of _both_ that determine success.

Allen Brown

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! Natural Science Division !
! Indiana University Southeast !
! New Albany, IN 47150 !
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