School kills creativity

[tooblue]

He talks of the fictitious epidemic of ADHD ... we are getting our children through education by anesthetizing them.

[YOUTUBE]hkPvSCq5ZXk[/YOUTUBE]

[Devildog]

Good post.

Interesting watch and I think he makes some good points.

I always found school to be exceedingly boring and tedious. I ended up drifting towards more hands on learning (sports, P.E. martial arts, etc).

As I grew into my life, the military became a good fit, and I respected the officers that led by example. I realized that I also could lead, as I was frequently tasked by those in command to take charge of my peers. The military rewards initiative and competence.

I also realized that those opportunities also brought with them... more school. However, those schools taught material that I found very interesting and I excelled in them. Those experiences, and those schools led me to where I am now.

Looking back on my experiences... I wish I would have found a way to engage in school back during my middle school and high school education. Frankly I just didn't care about what they wanted me to learn, and I couldn't make myself lock in.

I am very good at finding solutions to problems. I can fix almost anything and reason through problems to find solutions. I learned to refine those skills, beginning with military schools and on to those types of training classes I take today.

I now look forward to training opportunities.

http://www.usmcscoutsniper.org/hogsden/becoming.htm

[tooblue]

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/ed...d.html?_r=1&hp

But, it turns out, middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion. The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out.

[dabrockster]

He talks of the fictitious epidemic of ADHD ... we are getting our children through education by anesthetizing them.

[YOUTUBE]hkPvSCq5ZXk[/YOUTUBE]

He forgot to draw a line between Utah and Colorado...

Very interesting...

[Devildog]

“We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.”

Thucydides

[Omaha 680]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/ed...d.html?_r=1&hp

But is there any real solution to that?

MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering.

But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon.

More application and labwork might keep interest, but bottom line is there is stuff you have to learn and be good at if you want to be an engineer. My 200 level engineering courses were a slog for me and I didn't do well. I found my upper level and grad school classes much easier. But they only got easier and enjoyable after the foundation built in that initial gauntlet of classes.

Even today, the things I learned in those first few classes are the basis for how I understand structural behavior. It would be hard to be a good engineer without having that stuff be second nature. And the only way for it to be second nature is practice, repitition, and study. I don't see a magical shortcut to building the foundation for a sucessful and enjoyable career in a technical field.

[tooblue]

But is there any real solution to that?



More application and labwork might keep interest, but bottom line is there is stuff you have to learn and be good at if you want to be an engineer. My 200 level engineering courses were a slog for me and I didn't do well. I found my upper level and grad school classes much easier. But they only got easier and enjoyable after the foundation built in that initial gauntlet of classes.

Even today, the things I learned in those first few classes are the basis for how I understand structural behavior. It would be hard to be a good engineer without having that stuff be second nature. And the only way for it to be second nature is practice, repitition, and study. I don't see a magical shortcut to building the foundation for a sucessful and enjoyable career in a technical field.

The problem is, from the sounds of it, he had already been through the gauntlet of classes once in some measure. Why did he need to do it again? As a college teacher, albeit teaching in a much different field, I see the same pattern repeat itself in my programs. We put many highly capable students through a "gauntlet," primarily because that's the system ... that's how things are done with very little thought invested in asking why? And really, that's what Ken Robinson is talking about in the first part of the video.

[Omaha 680]

The problem is, from the sounds of it, he had already been through the gauntlet of classes once in some measure. Why did he need to do it again? As a college teacher, albeit teaching in a much different field, I see the same pattern repeat itself in my programs. We put many highly capable students through a "gauntlet," primarily because that's the system ... that's how things are done with very little thought invested in asking why? And really, that's what Ken Robinson is talking about in the first part of the video.

I can't speak to other fields. But on the engineering side, you run into the reality that a degree is a sorting device. Like the video said, it's not a guarantee of a good job, but it does give you a better chance. The reason employers use it as a sorting device because it's cheaper to initially identify candidates based on their possession of an engineering degree than any other methods. It's not a guarantee on the employer-side either. Some very "smart" engineers in college can't design their way out of a paper bag when they graduate and are incredibly slow on-the-job learners. But on the average, a degree is has been an efficient sorting device.

Knowing this, engineering colleges have a strong incentive to graduate a high percentage of capable engineers to protect the reputation of their school's degree among employers. Capability in entry level engineering means strong grasp of the fundamentals learned in the guantlet discussed above and an ability to learn quickly. The former quality is fairly easily measured through classwork; the latter is more difficult to know. Thus I believe the initial slog of classes is designed as a sorting device in itself to ensure the highest percentage of graduates possible have that strong grasp of the fundamentals. Granted, this process probably drives away many of students who could be very capable engineers but who don't react well to the "weeding out" process.

The only way to capture those students but still ensure they grasp the fundamentals would be more testing out of lower level classes. But then you run into the same problem as the employers. Expanding your sorting device away from the traditional method is more expensive and unproven.

You may be right, though...maybe it is just done because that's the way it is and there isn't this much thought given to it.

[edward777]

It not only kills creativity, it sets the stage for bullying as well:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoUIHIjB0Io&feature=related"]Michael (author of Freedom from Conscience - Melanie's Journey) about bullying part 1 - YouTube[/nomedia]

[tooblue]

I can't speak to other fields. But on the engineering side, you run into the reality that a degree is a sorting device. Like the video said, it's not a guarantee of a good job, but it does give you a better chance. The reason employers use it as a sorting device because it's cheaper to initially identify candidates based on their possession of an engineering degree than any other methods. It's not a guarantee on the employer-side either. Some very "smart" engineers in college can't design their way out of a paper bag when they graduate and are incredibly slow on-the-job learners. But on the average, a degree is has been an efficient sorting device.

Knowing this, engineering colleges have a strong incentive to graduate a high percentage of capable engineers to protect the reputation of their school's degree among employers. Capability in entry level engineering means strong grasp of the fundamentals learned in the guantlet discussed above and an ability to learn quickly. The former quality is fairly easily measured through classwork; the latter is more difficult to know. Thus I believe the initial slog of classes is designed as a sorting device in itself to ensure the highest percentage of graduates possible have that strong grasp of the fundamentals. Granted, this process probably drives away many of students who could be very capable engineers but who don't react well to the "weeding out" process.

The only way to capture those students but still ensure they grasp the fundamentals would be more testing out of lower level classes. But then you run into the same problem as the employers. Expanding your sorting device away from the traditional method is more expensive and unproven.

You may be right, though...maybe it is just done because that's the way it is and there isn't this much thought given to it.

What you've written above is a direct consequence of what the speaker in the video argues against starting at the 2:50 - 3:00 minute mark. Why is weeding even necessary? It is an old argument that is outmoded. There is nothing more ridiculous than the notion that students need to be weeded. In sports, certainly. In education? Why exactly ... what is the real motivation? It's a discriminatory practice designed to protect the wealthy, and originally, royalty or, the ruling class.

[Uncle Ted]

This lecture makes me wonder what kind of education this guy had in his youth...

Todd Rider Has a Kill Switch for Viruses

Todd Rider entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986 at age 17 and left nine years later with four degrees, including a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science. He also minored in relativistic quantum field theory and solid state and optical physics. “Once you start on the path of the dark side, you are hooked,” jokes Rider of his obsession with science.

[...]

Rider is a sci-fi aficionado, and he patented a rocket-staging system in high school. The invention earned him the grand prize at the International Science and Engineering Fair, along with a trip to Stockholm and a chance to meet Nobel prizewinners in literature and physics. “This was deemed sufficiently nerdy that I was promptly institutionalized at MIT,” he jokes. While there, and not busy studying for his four degrees, he took time to learn French, German, Chinese, and Japanese. He also picked up several ancient languages, including Sumerian and Mayan, because he wanted to be able to read the inscriptions on museum artifacts.

For his PhD thesis, he proved that a working hot fusion reactor would either consume more energy than it generates or spew as much radiation as existing nuclear power plants—a finding that did not endear him to many physicists and cut off some career options. Biomedicine, in a way, was a backup, but now consumes him. This latest finding, he says, “has the potential to revolutionize the way we treat viral diseases.”

[CardiacCoug]

He talks of the fictitious epidemic of ADHD ... we are getting our children through education by anesthetizing them.

You realize that ADHD meds aren't sedatives, right? They are stimulants, uppers. So kids with ADHD aren't being anesthetized -- quite the opposite.

If you want to make an analogy, kids with ADHD are more like inattentive, distractable drivers whose parents load them up on caffeine so they can pay attention to the driving and not get in an accident or fall asleep.

[ERCougar]

You realize that ADHD meds aren't sedatives, right? They are stimulants, uppers. So kids with ADHD aren't being anesthetized -- quite the opposite.

If you want to make an analogy, kids with ADHD are more like inattentive, distractable drivers whose parents load them up on caffeine so they can pay attention to the driving and not get in an accident or fall asleep.

Please don't confuse the discussion with facts.

[ERCougar]

I enjoyed the presentation (which I think has already been linked here before--finderson, maybe?) because I think it hits a few points where we could improve education. But I get a little frustrated at the implication that it is a school's responsibility to entertain children. I can't think of many worthwhile pursuits in life that don't involve a "boring" phase, when the initial excitement has worn off and you just have to stick through it. Education is no different and I think we do kids a disservice for life when we imply that learning should always be super fun. The best thing a school can do is facilitate learning and get out of the way. Teach a kid how to teach himself. That's very different from doing a song and dance at every stage. My kids are in a Montessori school right now and that's the one thing I really like about the approach (there are drawbacks, but that's a different discussion).

I do really like his emphasis on creative learning. We don't do enough of this in class and I think No Child Left Behind has probably just made this worse.

[Jeff Lebowski]

That was fun. These RSA videos all seem to follow a similar pattern. A rally against the staus quo fueled with some truths, some half truths, and a hefty load of BS, all presented in a highly entertaining package.