Come on folks, we can talk about TV and tinkering till we're blue in the face,
but students are the way they are because the schools have deliberately made
them that way. What kids are supposed to learn in school is to do what they
are told and to behave themselves. Schools are designed to produce drones and
they do it very well. We just represent a small group of malcontents who
refuse to conform. Schools are after that "illusory sense of accomplishment"
mentioned in another post because it is 1. easier to achieve than real
accomplishment 2. easier to verify than real acomplishment 3. it satisfies
most of the customers real needs. We see #1 & #2 in our Institutional
Effectiveness Evaluations. Who thinks these things actually help education?
Not me! I think it is all smoke and mirrors so a bunch of stuffed shirts
who got kicked out of industry can foist their archaic business models on
education and justify their existance. As for #3 face the facts. In this
country anyone with a college degree who does what he is told and doesn't
rock the boat can easily make 50 -100,000 dollars a year, which is enough
for a house in the suberbs, 2 nice cars, 1.8 kids etc. The kids go to schools
that teach them to be passive and to score well on standardized tests, so
the parents are happy and the system perpetuates itself.
I think the questions we need to be asking are: 1. How can we change this
system and break this cycle? 2. Do we want to make this change? Could this
country tolerate 250 million independent thinkers? The current system seems
to work pretty well. Schools try to make everyone passive and their failure
rate produces enough curious, creative, and independent people to keep the
rest of the drones profitably occupied.
This summer I read a biography of Marie Curie written by her daughter Eve in
the '30s. Great book! If you can dig up a copy I recommend it highly. Here
was a woman who really wanted to get an education and to do research and who
overcame great obsticles to do it. They say you can't make a silk purse out
of a sows ear. I don't see many M. Curies in my classes and I probably
couldn't prevent their success even if I tried. Is it really such a bad thing
to let people be happy with their illusions?