RE: What, Me Think? (was RE: clarification needed)

["Mike Hiatt" <mhiatt -at- vocaldata -dot- com>]

I'll wade in here on this one, though I don't normally. I don't teach and I
don't play one on TV, but my sister is a teacher of many years, as is her
husband. I live in Texas where accountability for schools is a big BIG
agenda item of the current gov/pres candidate/pres-elect (maybe?). I also
had a daughter who went through the school system here (in one of the more
respected districts in the state) for 11 years (K-10).

Students have to pass the TAAS test to graduate and are tested at various
grade levels on the TAAS skills for their grade. School rankings, teacher
pay, teacher evaluation, etc. is tied to how well students do on this test.
Would you like to guess what teachers are expected to teach in the weeks (as
much as a month or more) before the TAAS test?

After the test it is a race to get through the material to be taught for the
year. My point is, don't blame just television, video games and email. Our
elected officials and the public's requirement someone (other than the
individual, generally) be responsible for education and thinking can also
share the blame.

I'll also note that a former colleague and I (in a different job, in a
different company in a galaxy far, far away - opps) noted that new hires in
a proposal writing group (most 20-somethings and a few early-30s) couldn't
"think their way out of a wet paper bag." We were often bemused by the fact
that they did fine as long as their assignment followed all the steps and
pre-digested responses they were to use. But let the words in a question
change or the answer require a little different twist and they were totally
lost.

As soon as you told them what was different and how to respond, they were
happy. And they could answer that set of words and required twist, but given
them another slight change and they were lost again.

Unfortunately, I have no answer for how to reverse this trend. If I did, I
would either be a professor (or more likely educational consultant) or
candidate for school board or higher office. Students in many of the
advanced placement classes seem to get the challenge to think and I would
assume their teacher do not feel the need (and may not spend time) to teach
to the TAAS test and do teach their students to think and challenge them to
do so. I know of several young people I know who are quite capable of
thinking clearly and are challenged to do so. But the great majority, if
they learn to think critically and logically, it is because they find it on
their own or a mentor teaches them.

Whew. Off the soapbox and back to work.

Mike Hiatt
Manager, Tech Pubs
VocalData, Inc.
Dallas (yep, that one)
mhiatt -at- vocaldata -dot- com

Lisa Miller writes:

"Last September, I began teaching Freshman Composition.  I was somewhat
surprised
at the lack of concern given to punctuation by my students.  I was also
surprised at the lack of hard knowledge my students had about punctuation.
Most
seemed unwilling to correct their lack of knowledge through study.

snipped

Walter Crockett responded

My father was a professor of social psychology at the University of Kansas
and several other colleges from the mid '50s to the late '80s. In the '80s
he stopped enjoying teaching, particularly teaching undergraduates. He felt,
and many of his colleagues agreed, that students in that decade no longer
enjoyed thinking. In fact, he said, many students became downright indignant
if an assignment required them to think, rather than to regurgitate the
facts he handed them.

I don't believe the situation has improved since then. It sounds trite, but
I imagine television is much to blame: we no longer have to work to be
entertained. (snipped for brevity)


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