Re: What to teach (was: American students do poorly)

[George Spagna <gspagna@rmc.edu>]

At 10:06 AM 2/27/98 -0500, Richard Tarara wrote:
> Does anyone who has been teaching for 15 years or more think the
> intellectual skills of students have improved or even stayed constant?  Are
> you spending more time dealing with poor reading skills, poor math skills,
> poor listening skills, all but non-existent analytical thinking skills, than
> you did in the past?

I can't speak for "anyone" - but for me ...  

no to the first question, yes to the second.  In honesty, the good students
are as good as they always were, but they make up a smaller portion of a
cadre whose mean level is lower.  This means that the disparities between
the best, average, and worst students are greater than before.

>  It occurred to me the other day that many of the
> INTERACTIVE classroom techniques that are all the rage today are perhaps
> really substitutes for what students USED to do in the past, ON THEIR OWN,
> during study sessions.  We now formalize such, spoon feed it to students,
> and use our very limited contact time to teach them basic study skills.

I agree, but what's the alternative to teaching the students we get?
Changing the quality of incoming students will require a major change in
the K-12 system, including especially the way teachers are trained.

George Spagna           **********************************************
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