Re: Today's jaw dropper

[Richard Grandy <rgrandy@ruf.rice.edu>]

At 12:22 PM +1200 10/9/97, Derek Chirnside wrote:
> > > There were some places and teachers who did turn out lots of top flight
> > > students. Rutherford and Thomson did, and many of the early quantum
> > > theorists in Germany did.
> > Yes, but we should question closely  whether it was the place or the
> > teacher that "turns them out".  Cambridge (both of them) attracts and
> > accepts the brightest--it is not surprising, if they can do a reasonable
> > job of admissions, that they turn out the best. Brilliance in, brilliance
> > out!
> >
> > Whether the *teaching* makes any difference is totally unknown, so far as I
> > can see.  For all we know, being there and spending time with the other
> > brightest students in the country, perhaps the world,  may compensate for
> > the negative effects of the teaching! The same may hold for Gottingen and
> > Heidelberg in their prime, as for Padua in the sixteenth century.
>
> As a side comment, there is a debate in this country on 'What is a
> good teacher?' and how to use criteria to relate to salary
> increments.  One Politically right wing term is 'value added'.  How
> to judge this with a teacher and use it to reward good teachers and
> weed out the not so good.
>
> The issue is fraught with peril.  A comment from a 22 year old trainee
> teacher to me about a collegue of mine in another time and another
> place.
> "I learned more in (person X's) classroom, since he was away so much
> dealing with (extra-curricular activity) that we had to get on and
> learn on our own.  I really learned how to study"
> This interpreted ment 'I got the past papers, got the study notes and
> did what I had to do to pass'
>
> Here they now produce league tables of schools pass rates and means
> in public exams.
> Private schools are then compared to public schools in a lower
> soioeconomic part of town (and there are numerical indicators to
> determine this) quite uncritically by the public.
>
> 'Brilliance' in research is a different issue to success in exams as
> well.

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>      Derek Chirnside, Physics Department, Shirley Boys High School.
>      PO Box 27 025, Christchurch 8001, New Zealand.
>      chirnsided@mars.shirley.school.nz
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Derek--

I agree completely on both issues!   I think it is extremely difficult to
measure "value added" in teaching, because you have to measure value before
and after, and you have to have some agreed on measure of value!!!  But
even though it is fraught with peril, we need to address it because it is
of immediate relevance to the rewards for teachers and, longer term, for
the possibility of improving teaching.

I should confess that, as a philosopher at a university, my interest is
very real but it has no practical consequences for me.  But I would like to
aid and abet the concerned secondary science teachers.

As to brilliance, at Rice we only admit highly qualified students, but
there is a fairly clear bimodal distribution.  Most are quite able, have
good study habits, do the homework, take tests well, get good grades.  A
smaller number are "different", often have poor study habits, don't do the
homeowrk because it is boring, raise objections to test questions, and
often get mediocre grades.  Most of them will never produce anything of
consequence because of their poor work habits, disorganization,
indifference to social consequences, etc.  But I think that the really
ORIGINAL contributions, if any,  will come from a small subset of this
minority.

Richard Grandy
Philosophy & Cognitive Sciences
Rice University