> Standards and testing drive education today.
IMO this is a mostly healthy reaction to the obvious dumbing-down of
curriculm in the last few decades.
I had a student from Trinidad. What do you think was his gripe with the
U.S.? Bad weather? Racial predjudice? He was upset that his kids would be
set back so much relative to their Trinidadian peers, through exposure to
U.S education.
> Many questions are ambiguous, especially if
> prior knowledge or creative thinking is
> involved.
Just like real life.
> teaching to the test clearly doesn't address the
> urgent needs of many children, especially in our cities.
I agree, teaching to the test is not productive, but the awareness of the
need for excellence and the striving for excellence is healthy.
I'll end with a post I got yesterday from Dav Devalle:
Dale
How math has been taught over the years.
Teaching Math in 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1970:
A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money.
The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one
dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M".
The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points
than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and
answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the
set "P" for profits?
Teaching Math in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. Her cost of
production is $80 and her profit is $20. Your assignment:
Underline the number 20.
Teaching Math in 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20.
What do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did
the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees?
There are no wrong answers.
Teaching Math in 1996:
By laying off 40% of its loggers, a company improves its
stock price from $80 to $100. How much capital gain per share does
the CEO make by exercising his stock options at $80? Assume capital
gains are no longer taxed, because this encourages investment.
Teaching Math in 1997:
A company outsources all of its loggers. The firm saves on
benefits, and when demand for its product is down, the logging
work force can easily be cut back. The average logger employed
by the company earned $50,000, had three weeks vacation, a nice
retirement plan and medical insurance. The contracted logger
charges $50 an hour. Was outsourcing a good move?
Teaching Math in 1998:
A laid-off logger with four kids at home and a ridiculous
alimony from his first failed marriage comes into the
logging-company corporate offices and goes postal, mowing down
16 executives and a couple of secretaries, and gets lucky when
he nails a politician on the premises collecting his kickback.
Was outsourcing the loggers a good move for the company?
Teaching Math in 1999:
A laid-off logger serving time in Folsom for blowing away
several people is being trained as a COBOL programmer in order
to work on Y2K projects. What is the probability that the
automatic cell doors will open on their own as of 00:01, 01/01/2000?
Hazard Press Ltd, P.O. Box 2151, 62 Gloucester Street (courier -
upstairs at rear, Christchurch, New Zealand. Phone: +64 3 3770370, Fax: +64
3
3770390. Quentin Wilson - Publisher. e-mail: quentinw@hazard.co.nz
>
> This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth
>
> (C) 1998, Bill Duesing, Solar Farm Education, Box 135,
> Stevenson, CT 06491
>
>
> Bill and Suzanne Duesing operate the Old Solar Farm (raising NOFA/CT
> certified organic vegetables) and Solar Farm Education
> (working on urban
> agriculture projects in southern Connecticut and producing
> "Living on the
> Earth" radio programs). Their collection of essays Living on
> the Earth:
> Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future is
> available from Bill
> Duesing, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491 for $14 postpaid.
> These essays first
> appeared on WSHU, public radio from Fairfield, CT. New essays
> are posted
> weekly at http://www.wshu.org/duesing and those since
> November 1995 are
> available there.
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