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Re: The Soapbox



Hi all-
Bruce Esser writes, in part:
**************************************************************
The top priority for a university today is to survive. Like any
organism, preservation is a strong and pervasive force at the
foundation of the organization. In order to survive, ways to maximize
revenue rate of return is paramount. This leads to the current condition
where students are herded into large lecture halls. I hear in person and
read in the pages of The Physics Teacher over and over that given the
"necessity" of large lecture groups the application of strategies like
modeling, activities based learning, socratic dialog and other innovative
and IMHO better methods of instruction are not possible. The need to
maximize roi is the number one driver of behavior within any competitive
organization.

This need also leads to the erosion of admissions requirements and
matriculation requirements. While listening to the laments of how poorly
prepared today's high school graduates are when entering college when
compared to N years ago (pick your own large integer for N) I can only
point to the obvious question. Why did you allow these people to
enroll? N years ago these individuals did not have either the
motivation, work ethic or ability to do college level work. Nothing has
changed except now we allow....neee encourage these individuals to
continue their education in college. More revenue, more tuition payers,
better roi.
***************************************************
Bruce, there are so many exceptions to your dogmatic generalizations
that they do come across as sarcastic invective.
MIT, for example, has not lowered its admission standards. A
conversation last summer with "Tony" French, who ran the elementary physics
program for several years, left me with the distict impression that the
quality of high school graduates has been deteriorating over the years.
Yes, I learned my Freshman and Sophomore physics in the context
of large lectures + recitation sections (manned by faculty, not grad
students). I also studied Quantum Mechanics in the same context, as a
graduate student. Two future Nobel Laureates were among my fellow graduate
students. I never thought to complain about the large Quantum Mechanics'
lectures.
The externals that you inveigh against may be largely irrelevant
to effective learning (note that I said "learning", not "teaching"). The
large physics lectures (given by Frances Sears) were irrelevant because
I seldom attended, except when forewarned to catch some of his better
demos. The lectures, I quickly found out, merely regurgitated the contents
of Frank's Mechanics and Heat Text, so I stayed in my room on week-ends
and learned the material by working the problems (week nights I explored
Boston). I now realize that, in modern parlance, "I was taking responsibility
for my own learning".
The importance of "taking responsibility" came home to me with
especial force recently during a series of dialogues with a visiting
Chinese graduate student. She pointed out to me that the Chinese elementary
schools inculcate their students with independent study habits from the very
beginning of school (there are some similar intimations in Ken Wilson's
book). The American students, in contrast, hardly ever (in my school district)
escape the moment-to-moment supervision of their teacher.
Let's face it, Bruce. In the first approximation, we can't teach
anybody anything - we can only give people the tools to enable them to teach
themselves.
Regards,
Jack