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Re: Weight



I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the preparation issue. It is my observation
that students today come to class with a much narrower range of experiences
than those from earlier years. I think in a large part this is because
everyone is depending on schools almost exclusively for education and schools
just can not offer the variety of experiences that are available in the real
world. A secondary factor is of course TV, but another is the lack of variety
and challange in the jobs students have outside of school. These jobs do not
demand or develop problem solving skills and are mostly routine unenriching
experiences. The modern home in the suburbs is no improvement. With only
a couple exceptions, my neighbors homes are educationally sterile. They
have no books or magazines, no tools, no scrap wood, no scrap metal, no old
cars,no legos, no paper no crayons, no darkrooms. There is nothing to
stimulate creativity, imagination, or problem solving skills. On top of that
their parents provide an equally sterile example. The example they set for
their children is to write a check or use a charge card to pay someone else
to do whatever it is that needs to be done. Hire an expert or buy a new one,
don't try to figure it out for yourself. The result is our students ask why
they should take our courses. They say "I'm never going to use this." The
sad thing is that they are probably right. It probably is a waste of their
time. They have no interests and no hobbies and so they have no place to use
the stuff we teach them.