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


Donald,

What you say about spoon feeding is right, however remember that doing the
things like going to the library to find the answer and working through the
problems on your own take lots of time. In turn the beginning of this
discussion had to do with teaching to much, having to much information in
the text. Maybe if all of us covered less, and took the time to let the
students do the things you say we would be better off. But one without the
other may be impossible!

Doug Benning
Gyoshu High School
Numazu Japan



At 11:31 98/02/27 -0500, Donald E. Simanek wrote:


On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Richard W. 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? 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.

Didn't want to get into a RANT here, but........

Rick


You have summarized it especially well, and what you say is consistent
with my experience from 30+ years of teaching. I could rant about why
teachers have contributed to this problem, including their efforts to
facilitate learning by "doing things" in their teaching and classroom
which supposedly will enhance the learning process. We try clever
strategies, use textbooks with all sorts of "helps" for the student. And
yet, fewer students seem to be reading these "improved" textbooks.

What we have achieved seems to be this: A population of pathetically
dependent students. They depend on the teacher to explain things before
they will even bother to read the text. They expect to be led by the hand
through difficult material (rather than puzzling it out by themselves).
They expect problem "types" to be explained *before* similar problems are
assigned. They want teachers to dispense facts and information, saving
students the work of digging out facts and information from libraries and
other sources. They expect to be told exactly what to do and how to do it
at every turn, so they won't have to activate their brains and won't have
to deal with ambiguities. Now I suppose that some teachers like this, for
it makes the teacher feel "wanted", "needed" and an "essential" part of
the educational process. Such dependent students massage the teachers'
ego. But we should back off and remember that our goal should be to move
students toward *independence* as learners and doers, to reach that point
where they no longer need us. And the sooner, the better.

-- Donald

.....................................................................
Dr. Donald E. Simanek Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
.....................................................................