RE: The Soapbox

[woodrow wilson high <owings@libertynet.org>]

At 09:38 AM 4/19/96 PDT, you wrote:
> Could all of this discussion have something to do with the famous "five 
> levels" of learning development that we have been bludgeoned with for the 
> past 20 years?   As I recall (and I never paid too close attention, I must 
> confess) students do not achieve the highest level of abstract thought until 
> they have reached a certain physical and intellectual maturity==some of them 
> never reach it at all.  A large proportion of  HS students are simply not 
> ready for abstract ideas.
> M.J. Clarke, OSB
> ----------
> From: bhunt
> To: phys-l
> Subject: The Soapbox
> Date: Friday, April 19, 1996 8:58AM
>
> Maybe, the best and the brightest high school students learn very well,
> but maybe the low A's and the B's and below are just not getting what it
> takes to retain physics.  Not because the teaching is poor, because I think
> it is generally very good, but simply their environment is unsuitable for
> them to learn.
>
> Bob Hunt
> Johnson County Community College
> Overland Park, Kansas
>
> Bob:
     Beside the actual learning environment, I hate to say, but many of the
students who attend community colleges were not the most mature students in
high school.  Many of my weaker students who will attend the local comm.
college here are just as bright as the others.  The difference is that they
played around for 11 years, and suddenly are placed in a situation of
concepts, abstract learning and word problems where they couldn't play
around any more.  The awakening occurs about mid-way through their senior
year in Physics (and in many other subjects- the phenomenom is not unique to
science!) where the light bulb goes on and they see that a college education
in today's world is what a high school diploma was a generation before.
Unfortunately, they have missed the basics of math, and even communication
skills in the earlier years.  So, they are admitted into comm. coll.  (here
every student is admitted into the community colleges, no matter what they
did before!)  The level of academics is totally different from what they
have been used to and their grades suffer, until that "maturity" kicks in,
sometimes at the age of 19 or 20.  After that many of these same students
will go on to distinguished careers in four year colleges.
        The real issue, perhaps, is how to tell who will mature the way I
have described, and who will never grow up.  As a high school science
teacher for 29 years, I still have no way of knowing.  I have had students
pass through my class room who I could swear will do poorly in college, and
today they are doing well in good colleges.  The opposite has happened also.
If anyone has the answer I hope they will join the discussion.

Marty Weiss
Woodrow Wilson High School, Camden, NJ 08105
ownings@libertynet.org

>