TCS Daily - For Whom the Bell Curves: America's Education Dilemma: "Thirty years ago, a vocational school for typists or for TV repairmen would have made sense. Many professionals used secretaries for typing, and many people took broken televisions to the shop for repair. However, not many people could have spent their entire careers doing typing or TV repair. Today, people throw out broken televisions (unless they are under warranty), and most people do their own typing on computers. "
How are to design a curriculum for our children when we have no idea what their lives may be like in 20 years much less 50 years in the future.
• 5 years ago the iPod was just getting off the ground
• 10 years ago the Web found it stride
• 15 years ago computer became affordable to most people
The most important lessons we have to teacher our children in to be flexible in learning.
I truly believe most people can learn anything they want if they think it is important for them to know it. The problem with most schooling is that the material is not interesting and presented in a way that emphasizes that it is not worth knowing.
IQ is a good predictor for how well someone will do in school, but it doesn't predict how well someone will live their life, or how well loved they will be, or how much money they will make or how happy they will be.
You can pick people at random on the street and find out their IQs and their earnings and the people with the highest IQs probably won't be the highest earners and the difference between the lowest earning and the highest will be over 10x while the differences between their IQs will be less then 2x.
IQ isn't useless but it isn't all that useful either.
Children are different from each other. but they can be clustered together pretty well, if we wanted to. However we can't do that any more in our schools so we will have to pick up the slack for ourselves.
For example if we have a set of children very interested in playing musical instruments we can start them off by learning all about scales and technique, but we can expand on that interest and relate it to many other branches of learning. The mathematics of the octave are beautiful to ear and brain. The chemistry of metal to made a trumpet or of lacquers to coat a violin can be all related to musical learning.
But what do we really do: we throw 30 random children into a class and expect them all to be wildly enthusiastic about every subject from any point of interest. When the reality is only 5% of the students (1.5 students or 2 since we can't really have half a student in class) will care about the presentation of the material at any given time.
If we could group them together into classes of interested students they would do much better and much faster too. Though we would have to be a bit sneaky in presenting material they may be less interested in but are sure to need later.
I mean how can you go through 12+ years of school and never take a course in basic banking functions (checking, saving, credit card, mortgages, simple investing)? I did and it slowed me down.
So what do we need to teach?
• Reading and writing
• Mathematics
• Learning how to learn
• Life skills (cooking, cleaning, banking, driving, first aid, &etc.)
• General Knowledge (history, Chemistry, Physics, Biology)
• Talent honing
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Federal Report Shows Course Inflation
Grades are rising but learning is lagging, federal reports find - Los Angeles Times: "Among other things, Hall said, the transcript study provided clear evidence of grade inflation, as well as 'course inflation' %u2014 offering high-level courses that have 'the right names' but a dumbed-down curriculum."
The papers are full of plenty of stories that test scores are rising, but that is not the whole story. There has been a certain undercurrent of worry about grade inflation. But it is much worse then that, whole courses are being inflated.
I keep seeing young people who seem to be missing important skills, but this kicks it up a notch.
I understand that there are plenty of families that cannot afford to do anything but send their children to public school. Just realize that all it is. is a babysitting service not an educational institution.
We have to take care of our children ourselves and teach them ourselves at night and on the weekends.
The papers are full of plenty of stories that test scores are rising, but that is not the whole story. There has been a certain undercurrent of worry about grade inflation. But it is much worse then that, whole courses are being inflated.
I keep seeing young people who seem to be missing important skills, but this kicks it up a notch.
I understand that there are plenty of families that cannot afford to do anything but send their children to public school. Just realize that all it is. is a babysitting service not an educational institution.
We have to take care of our children ourselves and teach them ourselves at night and on the weekends.
Federal Report Shows Course Inflation
Grades are rising but learning is lagging, federal reports find - Los Angeles Times: "Among other things, Hall said, the transcript study provided clear evidence of grade inflation, as well as 'course inflation' %u2014 offering high-level courses that have 'the right names' but a dumbed-down curriculum."
The papers are full of plenty of stories that test scores are rising, but that is not the whole story. There has been a certain undercurrent of worry about grade inflation. But it is much worse then that, whole courses are being inflated.
I keep seeing young people who seem to be missing important skills, but this kicks it up a notch.
I understand that there are plenty of families that cannot afford to do anything but send their children to public school. Just realize that all it is. is a babysitting service not an educational institution.
We have to take care of our children ourselves and teach them ourselves at night and on the weekends.
The papers are full of plenty of stories that test scores are rising, but that is not the whole story. There has been a certain undercurrent of worry about grade inflation. But it is much worse then that, whole courses are being inflated.
I keep seeing young people who seem to be missing important skills, but this kicks it up a notch.
I understand that there are plenty of families that cannot afford to do anything but send their children to public school. Just realize that all it is. is a babysitting service not an educational institution.
We have to take care of our children ourselves and teach them ourselves at night and on the weekends.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Do unions increase productivity? | Free exchange | Economist.com
Do unions increase productivity? | Free exchange | Economist.com: "Some thoughts on markets where unions will produce higher productivity:
There are opportunities for deploying capital to replace low-skilled labour
The union wage is higher than the average prevailing wage for the workers' cognitive endowments and/or educational level
There are significant transaction costs to finding and retaining labour, such as the construction trades, where it is more efficient to call the union labour hall and tell them to send over 50 guys than hire them individually
The work easily lends itself to classification and regularisation
Productivity is easily measured"
In interesting article to read not long after Steve Jobs' speech against teacher's unions and my post on measuring worthwhile things.
There are opportunities for deploying capital to replace low-skilled labour
The union wage is higher than the average prevailing wage for the workers' cognitive endowments and/or educational level
There are significant transaction costs to finding and retaining labour, such as the construction trades, where it is more efficient to call the union labour hall and tell them to send over 50 guys than hire them individually
The work easily lends itself to classification and regularisation
Productivity is easily measured"
In interesting article to read not long after Steve Jobs' speech against teacher's unions and my post on measuring worthwhile things.
The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine
The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine: "For a few decades, it%u2019s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent."
This is fascinating and it is something I am glad to have been reminded of.
I knew I had read something like this some time ago. It took me a little while to find up but I did. In the late 1990's Alfie Kohn wrote Punished by Rewards: The trouble with Gold star, incentive plans, A's, praise, and other bribes.
His work was a bit more comprehensive involving not just school children but also salespeople. The results from his work were very interesting:
• Children retain 30 times more information if they are interesting in it then not.
• Companies that do not use commission systems to pay their sales team will increase sales by 300%.
• Rewarding people for doing something will lose interest in doing that thing even if it was fun before, this appears to be a long term effect, too.
You probably know a few children that can spout of thousands of facts about their favorite sports team, collectable card game or cars. Yet they can't seem to remember their times tables.
How to make it interesting?
That is the easiest thing of all: relate it to something they are interested in.
Something that would really freak out old Alfie is Dora the Explorer: They drop praise throughout that little show. Can it actually be damaging to our little ones. I doubt that Dora's praise is counted nearly as much as our's but we have to make our praise mean more.
The most powerful boost to self-esteem is accomplishment.
"Do, or do not. There is no try." -Yoda
This is fascinating and it is something I am glad to have been reminded of.
I knew I had read something like this some time ago. It took me a little while to find up but I did. In the late 1990's Alfie Kohn wrote Punished by Rewards: The trouble with Gold star, incentive plans, A's, praise, and other bribes.
His work was a bit more comprehensive involving not just school children but also salespeople. The results from his work were very interesting:
• Children retain 30 times more information if they are interesting in it then not.
• Companies that do not use commission systems to pay their sales team will increase sales by 300%.
• Rewarding people for doing something will lose interest in doing that thing even if it was fun before, this appears to be a long term effect, too.
You probably know a few children that can spout of thousands of facts about their favorite sports team, collectable card game or cars. Yet they can't seem to remember their times tables.
How to make it interesting?
That is the easiest thing of all: relate it to something they are interested in.
Something that would really freak out old Alfie is Dora the Explorer: They drop praise throughout that little show. Can it actually be damaging to our little ones. I doubt that Dora's praise is counted nearly as much as our's but we have to make our praise mean more.
The most powerful boost to self-esteem is accomplishment.
"Do, or do not. There is no try." -Yoda
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
What's Special About This Number?
What's Special About This Number?: "0 is the additive identity.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number."
This is a fun little site.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number."
This is a fun little site.
What Are You Measuring On Your Child's Education
There is a not so old saying, "What gets measured gets managed." The trouble is when what is getting measured is the wrong thing then what is getting managed is getting mismanaged.
In the computer industry there was a time when KLOC was all the rage. That is a programmers productivity was measured by the thousands of lines of code he generated. Well, programmers aren't dumb, so they changed their coding style to write their code in the most expansive way possible. It didn't make the code any better nor did it make production go any faster, but they got pay raises if their code was bloated. I was once part of a team working over some code and one of the developers found 10,000 lines of code that was never called and he deleted it because it was unneeded. Why was it there? To boost the numbers when KLOC was the managed number.
I was also in a call center, and the only thing they measured was call time. CSRs might not get paid very much but they aren't dumb either. It wasn't uncommon for them to hang up if a call went too long. There was no real way to measure customer satisfaction.
When it comes to your children's education: What are you measuring?
I think it is safe to say that virtually all of us have had classes that all you needed to do was cram some facts for the test, regurgitate them and then forget them because we had no reason to help them stick.
A test is a useful tool if you have a class of 20+ children. It gives you an idea of how the class as a whole is doing. You aren't going to have that many children. You can use more useful techniques to find out how well your child is learning. The best one is to just ask them to help solve problems for you as they come up in daily life. Watching how they solve problems as they come up will tell you a lot about how they are learning.
What we have to do is to be aware of all the teaching opportunities there are all around us. Cooking is one of the great ones. Cooking involves physics, chemistry, and biology. Changing the size of the recipe is a great for practicing fractions.
In the computer industry there was a time when KLOC was all the rage. That is a programmers productivity was measured by the thousands of lines of code he generated. Well, programmers aren't dumb, so they changed their coding style to write their code in the most expansive way possible. It didn't make the code any better nor did it make production go any faster, but they got pay raises if their code was bloated. I was once part of a team working over some code and one of the developers found 10,000 lines of code that was never called and he deleted it because it was unneeded. Why was it there? To boost the numbers when KLOC was the managed number.
I was also in a call center, and the only thing they measured was call time. CSRs might not get paid very much but they aren't dumb either. It wasn't uncommon for them to hang up if a call went too long. There was no real way to measure customer satisfaction.
When it comes to your children's education: What are you measuring?
I think it is safe to say that virtually all of us have had classes that all you needed to do was cram some facts for the test, regurgitate them and then forget them because we had no reason to help them stick.
A test is a useful tool if you have a class of 20+ children. It gives you an idea of how the class as a whole is doing. You aren't going to have that many children. You can use more useful techniques to find out how well your child is learning. The best one is to just ask them to help solve problems for you as they come up in daily life. Watching how they solve problems as they come up will tell you a lot about how they are learning.
What we have to do is to be aware of all the teaching opportunities there are all around us. Cooking is one of the great ones. Cooking involves physics, chemistry, and biology. Changing the size of the recipe is a great for practicing fractions.
The Big Math Question.
Herald & Review - Students learn the value of science and math skills in the world of work, By VALERIE WELLS - H&R Staff Writer: "Speakers representing a variety of careers explain to students how math and science skills are important to their jobs. The conference continues today and Thursday and will include schools from the entire Macon-Piatt region.'It answers that old question (kids ask),' said Jody Hunt, special project coordinator. ''When am I ever going to use this?''"
Math is so simple and easy that it is easy to forget that we are using it all the time. Most people even those with math anxiety use math all the time though they've forgotten that they ever really learned math in the first place.
Even if you are making a shopping list and you think, "Hmm, I've only got 2 eggs left and I'll need 3 for an omelet later this week. I better get more eggs." You are using math to make that decision.
If you are balancing your checkbook and accidentally press the zero on your calculator once too often you'll probably think, " Something's wrong! I can't have $14,000 in the bank. I only made $1,000 on this paycheck and only had $4,000 in the bank to begin with."
Answering this question is a big deal and it is important to give children an idea of how math can be used and even better to show them you are using it often. Balancing the checkbook, evaluating career choices, choosing retirement options and the like.
Math is so simple and easy that it is easy to forget that we are using it all the time. Most people even those with math anxiety use math all the time though they've forgotten that they ever really learned math in the first place.
Even if you are making a shopping list and you think, "Hmm, I've only got 2 eggs left and I'll need 3 for an omelet later this week. I better get more eggs." You are using math to make that decision.
If you are balancing your checkbook and accidentally press the zero on your calculator once too often you'll probably think, " Something's wrong! I can't have $14,000 in the bank. I only made $1,000 on this paycheck and only had $4,000 in the bank to begin with."
Answering this question is a big deal and it is important to give children an idea of how math can be used and even better to show them you are using it often. Balancing the checkbook, evaluating career choices, choosing retirement options and the like.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Concept of the Grouping of Things
Sets of ThreeThe image above shows three groups of three objects. What we are trying to get across to our children in the learning numbers stage is that those groups are the same even though the contents are different and the patterns they make are different.
If you are using flash cards make sure that there is enough variety to get the point across. You can teach numbers to children using playing cards but often they are picking up on the pattern of the layout rather then the concept. For example they might be able to easily identify a three of diamonds or hearts but get confused if you drop three marbles in front of them and they roll apart, not forming a nice line like they do on the cards. Also if objects overlap it may be confusing too, if you put down three leaves and two of them over lap your child my think of them as one really big leaf and one small leaf.
There are really only two ways to get information to be retained by your brain.
1. Repeat it often enough so that the brain throws up its hands and says,"Okay, you've looked at this 25 times in the last two days it must be important, so I'll remember it."
2. Make it interesting, so your brain says, "Wow, that's interesting. It must be important I better remember this for later."
It also helps if you can link new material with stuff you've already learned and have found interesting. That is where most schools fall down. Math is almost always taught in a vacuum. It is never related to anything outside of math, except the occasional anecdote. It isn't like that If you clicked through the last post about Gauss his work in tracking an asteroid was important later to Einstein.
8 year old discovers a math flaw in a national traveling exhibit
STLtoday - Life & Style: "For years, Parker has amazed his parents and teachers with his math skills. When he was 3, his parents could tell him which coins they had in their pocket, and he'd add the total in his head. "
This is an amazing child, I hope he is getting the support he needs to magnify this talent of his. There have not been many mathematical child prodigies. Gauss being the big one. Yet I fear for him too, because most mathematicians peak fairly young. Of late most do their greatest works in their 20-30s and then fall out of the sky not producing very much. Why? I have no idea neither do I have any idea how to help. All I know is that here is something here to be aware of.
This is an amazing child, I hope he is getting the support he needs to magnify this talent of his. There have not been many mathematical child prodigies. Gauss being the big one. Yet I fear for him too, because most mathematicians peak fairly young. Of late most do their greatest works in their 20-30s and then fall out of the sky not producing very much. Why? I have no idea neither do I have any idea how to help. All I know is that here is something here to be aware of.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Steve Job and Micheal Dell on Teachers Unions
AP Wire | 02/16/2007 | Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions: "'What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?' he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.
'Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.''"
I found a bit of an example of what it might be like under those circumstances.
"Back home in Florida, I have a French friend, AW, who used to own several nightclubs in Marseilles. "They were very successful in terms of sales," he told me. "But it just wasn't worth it. After working 80 hours a week for five years, my clubs were the most successful in the entire city. Still, after I got through paying all the regulatory fees, employee benefits programs, and taxes, there was nothing left for me. I was making less money than my managers, who were working only 40 hours a week...
France is not alone in this regard. Many modern democracies - including the United States - face the same problems. But when you mix an aversion to work with a love for bureaucracy, you have a potent poison for entrepreneurs. And because small businesses are responsible for most new growth and employment ... that's not a good thing for a country's economy."
It is odd: I have never met a teacher who isn't dedicated to teaching their students, yet it seems that the schools as a whole are just not doing all that great of a job of education. While I am sure that there are some bad apples (there always are in any large organization) I don't think they are all that plentiful. I tend to think that there is some systemic problem.
This opinion is bolstered by the fact that the number one objection to homeschooling is, "But what about your children's socialization?" I thought school was about education not just social skills.
That reminds me of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy "states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
Is the problem the teacher's unions or the administration or the mandates from the Federal government? I don't know and I don't really care anymore. I know what I want my child to achieve and I can help her pull it off.
I also believe that you can do the same thing. You need to have a goal for what you want your children to learn and be and help them achieve that and nothing can stop you except yourself.
'Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.''"
I found a bit of an example of what it might be like under those circumstances.
"Back home in Florida, I have a French friend, AW, who used to own several nightclubs in Marseilles. "They were very successful in terms of sales," he told me. "But it just wasn't worth it. After working 80 hours a week for five years, my clubs were the most successful in the entire city. Still, after I got through paying all the regulatory fees, employee benefits programs, and taxes, there was nothing left for me. I was making less money than my managers, who were working only 40 hours a week...
France is not alone in this regard. Many modern democracies - including the United States - face the same problems. But when you mix an aversion to work with a love for bureaucracy, you have a potent poison for entrepreneurs. And because small businesses are responsible for most new growth and employment ... that's not a good thing for a country's economy."
It is odd: I have never met a teacher who isn't dedicated to teaching their students, yet it seems that the schools as a whole are just not doing all that great of a job of education. While I am sure that there are some bad apples (there always are in any large organization) I don't think they are all that plentiful. I tend to think that there is some systemic problem.
This opinion is bolstered by the fact that the number one objection to homeschooling is, "But what about your children's socialization?" I thought school was about education not just social skills.
That reminds me of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy "states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
Is the problem the teacher's unions or the administration or the mandates from the Federal government? I don't know and I don't really care anymore. I know what I want my child to achieve and I can help her pull it off.
I also believe that you can do the same thing. You need to have a goal for what you want your children to learn and be and help them achieve that and nothing can stop you except yourself.
Steve Job and Micheal Dell on Teachers Unions
AP Wire | 02/16/2007 | Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions: "'What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?' he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.
'Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.''"
I found a bit of an example of what it might be like under those circumstances.
"Back home in Florida, I have a French friend, AW, who used to own several nightclubs in Marseilles. "They were very successful in terms of sales," he told me. "But it just wasn't worth it. After working 80 hours a week for five years, my clubs were the most successful in the entire city. Still, after I got through paying all the regulatory fees, employee benefits programs, and taxes, there was nothing left for me. I was making less money than my managers, who were working only 40 hours a week...
France is not alone in this regard. Many modern democracies - including the United States - face the same problems. But when you mix an aversion to work with a love for bureaucracy, you have a potent poison for entrepreneurs. And because small businesses are responsible for most new growth and employment ... that's not a good thing for a country's economy."
It is odd: I have never met a teacher who isn't dedicated to teaching their students, yet it seems that the schools as a whole are just not doing all that great of a job of education. While I am sure that there are some bad apples (there always are in any large organization) I don't think they are all that plentiful. I tend to think that there is some systemic problem.
This opinion is bolstered by the fact that the number one objection to homeschooling is, "But what about your children's socialization?" I thought school was about education not just social skills.
That reminds me of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy "states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
Is the problem the teacher's unions or the administration or the mandates from the Federal government? I don't know and I don't really care anymore. I know what I want my child to achieve and I can help her pull it off.
I also believe that you can do the same thing. You need to have a goal for what you want your children to learn and be and help them achieve that and nothing can stop you except yourself.
'Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.''"
I found a bit of an example of what it might be like under those circumstances.
"Back home in Florida, I have a French friend, AW, who used to own several nightclubs in Marseilles. "They were very successful in terms of sales," he told me. "But it just wasn't worth it. After working 80 hours a week for five years, my clubs were the most successful in the entire city. Still, after I got through paying all the regulatory fees, employee benefits programs, and taxes, there was nothing left for me. I was making less money than my managers, who were working only 40 hours a week...
France is not alone in this regard. Many modern democracies - including the United States - face the same problems. But when you mix an aversion to work with a love for bureaucracy, you have a potent poison for entrepreneurs. And because small businesses are responsible for most new growth and employment ... that's not a good thing for a country's economy."
It is odd: I have never met a teacher who isn't dedicated to teaching their students, yet it seems that the schools as a whole are just not doing all that great of a job of education. While I am sure that there are some bad apples (there always are in any large organization) I don't think they are all that plentiful. I tend to think that there is some systemic problem.
This opinion is bolstered by the fact that the number one objection to homeschooling is, "But what about your children's socialization?" I thought school was about education not just social skills.
That reminds me of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy "states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
Is the problem the teacher's unions or the administration or the mandates from the Federal government? I don't know and I don't really care anymore. I know what I want my child to achieve and I can help her pull it off.
I also believe that you can do the same thing. You need to have a goal for what you want your children to learn and be and help them achieve that and nothing can stop you except yourself.
What are your goals for your children's education?
Is it to have them get a diploma or degree so they can get a good job?
Is it to keep them out of your hair for the bulk of the day?
Is it so they can maximize their potential?
What is the point of the education or schooling of your children?
It doesn't really matter if you are homeschooling or private schooling or public schooling your children. How you answer or not answer these questions will effect how your children will develop over the course of their education.
My daughter is not old enough to make major decisions about her education, and we do try to let her make minor decisions about what she will do for her lesson of the day. But even teenagers while old enough just don't have the experience not to require some guidance. I had a guidance counselor in high school who I saw once but that hadn't been all that useful.
The most important thing I can think of for our daughter to learn is what here talents are. To find those things she has a natural ability for and to hone them so she can be the best she can be with them.
As important as that is it is also important that she learn other basic skills:
• Cooking, so she can feed herself.
• Cleaning, to keep her home clean.
• Art, to fill her life with beauty.
• How to balance her checkbook and handle credit cards and money in general.
• First aid, for obvious reasons.
• How to drive and maintain a car.
• Computers and technology because that is a major part of our lives now.
• How to communicate, to write, and speak in public.
• Learn to play a musical instrument.
• To participate on a team.
• To act alone.
These are only a start and they need to be refined as she develops, as we learn more about her too.
But for now we are focusing on fundamentals: reading, writing and arithmetic. And at this point it is letter and number identification.
She made a pretty big step yesterday in church, she identified all the letters in the Exit sign. We made a big deal out of that.
Is it to keep them out of your hair for the bulk of the day?
Is it so they can maximize their potential?
What is the point of the education or schooling of your children?
It doesn't really matter if you are homeschooling or private schooling or public schooling your children. How you answer or not answer these questions will effect how your children will develop over the course of their education.
My daughter is not old enough to make major decisions about her education, and we do try to let her make minor decisions about what she will do for her lesson of the day. But even teenagers while old enough just don't have the experience not to require some guidance. I had a guidance counselor in high school who I saw once but that hadn't been all that useful.
The most important thing I can think of for our daughter to learn is what here talents are. To find those things she has a natural ability for and to hone them so she can be the best she can be with them.
As important as that is it is also important that she learn other basic skills:
• Cooking, so she can feed herself.
• Cleaning, to keep her home clean.
• Art, to fill her life with beauty.
• How to balance her checkbook and handle credit cards and money in general.
• First aid, for obvious reasons.
• How to drive and maintain a car.
• Computers and technology because that is a major part of our lives now.
• How to communicate, to write, and speak in public.
• Learn to play a musical instrument.
• To participate on a team.
• To act alone.
These are only a start and they need to be refined as she develops, as we learn more about her too.
But for now we are focusing on fundamentals: reading, writing and arithmetic. And at this point it is letter and number identification.
She made a pretty big step yesterday in church, she identified all the letters in the Exit sign. We made a big deal out of that.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Why isn't science part of a liberal education?
I know lots of engineers who've gone and added some liberal education into their lives. mainly it is just going back and reading some of the great works of literature. I found an example of this in my alumni magazine which I read yesterday.
Becoming Generally Educated
I took this course when I was a freshman, not with him but that is no big deal. We had a Jungian psychologist, a particle physicist and a married English professor couple.
I'll tell you that it was one of the most fun classes I've ever taken. We argued over whether the number 3 or 4 was a "better" number. We went on a field trip to see fossils embedded in the sides of bbuildings, and discussed varous books at length. The students were eager and excited. Generally it was a great class.
Exceot when it was the physicists' turn to lead: virtually all the students didn't have the science background to really grasp what was going on, and it showed. He really just stayed with fairly basic stuff.
We were talking about cellular mass and he threw up a slide with the masses of different cells and one was almost but not quite half of all the others and asked us what they might be. I correctly answered that those must be eggs or sperm cells since they were only half the mass. Other students started argueing that since they weren't exactly half they couldn't be since they were slightly more then half the mass.
When we got to relativity things got really interesting. The standard explaination of relativity and how gravity bends space -time is to imagine a rubber sheet and place a heavy ball on it then roll a ping-pong ball around and see how it changed direction as it passes near the heavy ball. Well, a student complained, "Don't use gravity to explain gravity!" "Do you know calculus?" "No," with a look of revulsion. "Then you won't understand the answer." Which is quite true as I found out when I got to that physics class much later after taking quite a bit of advanced calculus. A lot of the class were not all that happy with the scientist as a teacher, but I thought he was great.
I can't say that I've ever met someone with a liberal arts degree that said something along the lines of, "I need a better understanding of math and science in my life."
A modern liberal arts degree seems to completely ignore the sciences, even though it has it roots from the educational system founded by the Greeks who layed the foundation of science as we know it today.
My school had a general education requirement that, if you were not in a science major, you needed one science class. I helped a few people that were taking that class and they simplified things to the point of incorrectness.
A lot of people pound the pulpit saying that math and science are important, but math and science education doesn't seem to be improving to any great degree.
Hardly anyone knows how a radio works much less a computer, even though the same principles still apply. But then few people know much about the pencil.
Becoming Generally Educated
A phone call a few years into my BYU career changed all that. The call was from Thomas F. Rogers, then a professor in Germanic and Slavic languages. “We need a scientist,” he said. He explained that he was leading a faculty team of three who would conduct a year long honors colloquium on Western civilization.
“What will I need to do?”
“You’ll provide the scientific perspective as we go along. The texts are already ordered. I’ll send you the reading list. Will you join us?”
I agreed to. After all, I was a PhD scientist.
I took this course when I was a freshman, not with him but that is no big deal. We had a Jungian psychologist, a particle physicist and a married English professor couple.
I'll tell you that it was one of the most fun classes I've ever taken. We argued over whether the number 3 or 4 was a "better" number. We went on a field trip to see fossils embedded in the sides of bbuildings, and discussed varous books at length. The students were eager and excited. Generally it was a great class.
Exceot when it was the physicists' turn to lead: virtually all the students didn't have the science background to really grasp what was going on, and it showed. He really just stayed with fairly basic stuff.
We were talking about cellular mass and he threw up a slide with the masses of different cells and one was almost but not quite half of all the others and asked us what they might be. I correctly answered that those must be eggs or sperm cells since they were only half the mass. Other students started argueing that since they weren't exactly half they couldn't be since they were slightly more then half the mass.
When we got to relativity things got really interesting. The standard explaination of relativity and how gravity bends space -time is to imagine a rubber sheet and place a heavy ball on it then roll a ping-pong ball around and see how it changed direction as it passes near the heavy ball. Well, a student complained, "Don't use gravity to explain gravity!" "Do you know calculus?" "No," with a look of revulsion. "Then you won't understand the answer." Which is quite true as I found out when I got to that physics class much later after taking quite a bit of advanced calculus. A lot of the class were not all that happy with the scientist as a teacher, but I thought he was great.
I can't say that I've ever met someone with a liberal arts degree that said something along the lines of, "I need a better understanding of math and science in my life."
A modern liberal arts degree seems to completely ignore the sciences, even though it has it roots from the educational system founded by the Greeks who layed the foundation of science as we know it today.
My school had a general education requirement that, if you were not in a science major, you needed one science class. I helped a few people that were taking that class and they simplified things to the point of incorrectness.
A lot of people pound the pulpit saying that math and science are important, but math and science education doesn't seem to be improving to any great degree.
Hardly anyone knows how a radio works much less a computer, even though the same principles still apply. But then few people know much about the pencil.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Moving from the concrete to the abstract for small children
Learning their numbers is just one step in coming to an understanding of mathematics.
Young children can comprehend concrete concepts more easily then something abstract. Numbers are an abstraction. They relate a set of objects to glyph. But it is really no great difference from what words we use.
I am sure there are children that once they learn the concept of chair and table look at a stool that has four legs and no back and call it a table. Are they confused when you sit on it? I doubt it. A stool is just a special case of chair that looks a lot like a table.
So for teaching numbers to children we have to make sure we allow for things like that. When we are counting objects we should make sure that they are separated enough so it is visually obvious that they are separate objects.
For example, if we are using index cards we shouldn't allow them to overlap in any way. If we are using blocks we shouldn't stack them until after they have been counted.
All of mathematics is just layers of abstractions and shortcuts. Multiplication is nothing more then a fast way to add a bunch of the same sized sets.
Some people panic when they see something like: 4y = 6y - 4 but it is only because they aren't used to seeing it for what it is. But if you change it slightly then it because something more familiar: 4 times _ = 6 times _ - 4. Then it often becomes obvious what needs to happen. Subtract 6y from both sides: 4y-6y =6y-4-6y reducing to -2y=-4. Then divide both sides by -2: -2y/-2 = -4/-2 and reduce y=2. There is your answer.
Easy, sneezy.
Young children can comprehend concrete concepts more easily then something abstract. Numbers are an abstraction. They relate a set of objects to glyph. But it is really no great difference from what words we use.
I am sure there are children that once they learn the concept of chair and table look at a stool that has four legs and no back and call it a table. Are they confused when you sit on it? I doubt it. A stool is just a special case of chair that looks a lot like a table.
So for teaching numbers to children we have to make sure we allow for things like that. When we are counting objects we should make sure that they are separated enough so it is visually obvious that they are separate objects.
For example, if we are using index cards we shouldn't allow them to overlap in any way. If we are using blocks we shouldn't stack them until after they have been counted.
All of mathematics is just layers of abstractions and shortcuts. Multiplication is nothing more then a fast way to add a bunch of the same sized sets.
Some people panic when they see something like: 4y = 6y - 4 but it is only because they aren't used to seeing it for what it is. But if you change it slightly then it because something more familiar: 4 times _ = 6 times _ - 4. Then it often becomes obvious what needs to happen. Subtract 6y from both sides: 4y-6y =6y-4-6y reducing to -2y=-4. Then divide both sides by -2: -2y/-2 = -4/-2 and reduce y=2. There is your answer.
Easy, sneezy.
Fun Science Gallery - Index_en
Fun Science Gallery - Index_en
This site has a solid collection of great projects including several microscope designs and making paper. Very nice.
This site has a solid collection of great projects including several microscope designs and making paper. Very nice.
Cancer cells slaughtered, Researcher Annoyed
Lab disaster may lead to new cancer drug - Cancer - MSNBC.com: "Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed, but just a few minutes later, the researcher realized she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment."
There is an old quote that truly quantifies this situation, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny ..."
Some of the greatest discoveries come not from finding what we were looking for but from investigating what we didn't expect.
Teflon was a mistake but he looked into it to see what had heppened. But in anycase it took a French fisherman to put it on cookware.
I've played any number of games in my life and the ones that I learned the most from were the ones I lost but analyzed afterward. Don't dismiss the value of "failure."
There is an old quote that truly quantifies this situation, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny ..."
Some of the greatest discoveries come not from finding what we were looking for but from investigating what we didn't expect.
Teflon was a mistake but he looked into it to see what had heppened. But in anycase it took a French fisherman to put it on cookware.
I've played any number of games in my life and the ones that I learned the most from were the ones I lost but analyzed afterward. Don't dismiss the value of "failure."
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Is It Worth Being Wise?
Is It Worth Being Wise?: "Human knowledge seems to grow fractally. Time after time, something
that seemed a small and uninteresting area experimental error,
even turns out, when examined up close, to have as much in
it as all knowledge up to that point. Several of the fractal buds
that have exploded since ancient times involve inventing and
discovering new things. Math, for example, used to be something a
handful of people did part-time. Now it's the career of thousands.
And in work that involves making new things, some old rules don't
apply."
I like that his opening story is about Gauss and how he messed with his teacher's head when she gave him a time waster exercise. He got to go to the playground early.
There is certainly a divergence between being wise and being intelligent. There are untold numbers of nerds who can figure out any computer problem but can barely talk to someone about the weather.
Intelligence is usually measured against the logical-mathematical component of our souls and not is only a part of who we really are. Wisdom, to me, is a more balanced thing, with major components of not just logical-mathematical, but the inter- & intra-personal and also spiritual, components.
We all have inside of us one or more Talents that we can and should excel in, but wisdom is to not let the rest of ourselves atrophy. There have been a great many great athletes that have not been wise, squandering what they were able to do, but then they sustained a career ending injury and were left with nothing. But those that were wise saw beyond their sports career and got more education in something they could do afterwards.
Einstein did not just sit in a chair and think all the time, he went for walks, played the violin and other seemingly mundane things that everyone can do.
Is it worth being wise? Yes, it surely is. For me it means not just being good at what I do but also learning new things al the time and doing new things that involve my body.
How am I relating this to the education of my children: They should learn a musical instrument, play on a team, and create art. Through those things she will learn wisdom.
that seemed a small and uninteresting area experimental error,
even turns out, when examined up close, to have as much in
it as all knowledge up to that point. Several of the fractal buds
that have exploded since ancient times involve inventing and
discovering new things. Math, for example, used to be something a
handful of people did part-time. Now it's the career of thousands.
And in work that involves making new things, some old rules don't
apply."
I like that his opening story is about Gauss and how he messed with his teacher's head when she gave him a time waster exercise. He got to go to the playground early.
There is certainly a divergence between being wise and being intelligent. There are untold numbers of nerds who can figure out any computer problem but can barely talk to someone about the weather.
Intelligence is usually measured against the logical-mathematical component of our souls and not is only a part of who we really are. Wisdom, to me, is a more balanced thing, with major components of not just logical-mathematical, but the inter- & intra-personal and also spiritual, components.
We all have inside of us one or more Talents that we can and should excel in, but wisdom is to not let the rest of ourselves atrophy. There have been a great many great athletes that have not been wise, squandering what they were able to do, but then they sustained a career ending injury and were left with nothing. But those that were wise saw beyond their sports career and got more education in something they could do afterwards.
Einstein did not just sit in a chair and think all the time, he went for walks, played the violin and other seemingly mundane things that everyone can do.
Is it worth being wise? Yes, it surely is. For me it means not just being good at what I do but also learning new things al the time and doing new things that involve my body.
How am I relating this to the education of my children: They should learn a musical instrument, play on a team, and create art. Through those things she will learn wisdom.
The first step to numeracy
Our daughter is 4 years old and we've been starting to teacher her but now we are going to become more serious about it.
The first thing to know about mathematics is that it is a method to express concepts in a simple and direct manner. In other words, a language.
It's alphabet consists of only ten letters which we call numerals: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
They have names just like letters do:
0 = zero
1 = one
2 = two
3 = three
4 = four
5 = five
6 = six
7 = seven
8 = eight
9 = nine
10 = ten and so on.
We can combine these numerals into numbers: 3, 12, 42, 394.
Numbers are a representation of physical items. 4 is the same as "four" is the same as ••••.
While teaching a child to learn to count is easy enough, we were able to teach our daughter to recite the numbers from 1-10 in a couple of days, that is not the point of this exercise.
The point is to get her to relate any group of 6 objects as being the same amount. This means counting lots of things when we are with her. Counting groups of blocks, and then rearranging them and then counting something totally unrelated to blocks is important. This is taking more time but we know the effort is highly worth it.
The first thing to know about mathematics is that it is a method to express concepts in a simple and direct manner. In other words, a language.
It's alphabet consists of only ten letters which we call numerals: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
They have names just like letters do:
0 = zero
1 = one
2 = two
3 = three
4 = four
5 = five
6 = six
7 = seven
8 = eight
9 = nine
10 = ten and so on.
We can combine these numerals into numbers: 3, 12, 42, 394.
Numbers are a representation of physical items. 4 is the same as "four" is the same as ••••.
While teaching a child to learn to count is easy enough, we were able to teach our daughter to recite the numbers from 1-10 in a couple of days, that is not the point of this exercise.
The point is to get her to relate any group of 6 objects as being the same amount. This means counting lots of things when we are with her. Counting groups of blocks, and then rearranging them and then counting something totally unrelated to blocks is important. This is taking more time but we know the effort is highly worth it.
Starting something new
This is the start of something new. My wife and I had a wonderful discussion over lunch today as our date for Valentine's Day. We were discussing how we are going to educate our daughter who is four years old.
It boils down to this: We must teach her to be literate and numerate. All else is commentary. Once she has those things she can learn virtually everything else.
Literacy and numeracy are shortcuts. Someone can spend an 5, 10, 20 year or an entire lifetime studying how something or other works. They write a book telling all about what they learned. We can then read that book in a matter of hours and we have just saved ourselves 5, 10, 20 year or an entire lifetime and we can springboard off of that to something greater.
Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Most of them are dead but their work survives recorded in books. We can leverage that.
Reading comes from putting letters together into words, into sentences.
Math is the same; in a simpler, more precise language and the first step into pure math is to create within her the understanding that 7 blocks and 7 chips and 7 ducks and 7 days are all the same thing. Just like al the chairs are all chairs whether they are made up of wood, or metal & plastic or are overstuffed.
I've been wanting to do this for sometime and even had another blog on the subject of teaching math to children but I am closing that one down and going with this one as it is going to be a far different style, inspired by this post at Creating Passionate Users
I don't care if you homeschool your children or send them to public or private school. My competition is Ignorance itself. Besides unless you never intent to ever help your children with homework, you will be homeschooling your children at some point.
My general focus will be on mathematics but since math didn't spring forth complete and finished there will be quite a bit of history and color and all kinds of bits and pieces thrown in for good measure.
It boils down to this: We must teach her to be literate and numerate. All else is commentary. Once she has those things she can learn virtually everything else.
Literacy and numeracy are shortcuts. Someone can spend an 5, 10, 20 year or an entire lifetime studying how something or other works. They write a book telling all about what they learned. We can then read that book in a matter of hours and we have just saved ourselves 5, 10, 20 year or an entire lifetime and we can springboard off of that to something greater.
Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Most of them are dead but their work survives recorded in books. We can leverage that.
Reading comes from putting letters together into words, into sentences.
Math is the same; in a simpler, more precise language and the first step into pure math is to create within her the understanding that 7 blocks and 7 chips and 7 ducks and 7 days are all the same thing. Just like al the chairs are all chairs whether they are made up of wood, or metal & plastic or are overstuffed.
I've been wanting to do this for sometime and even had another blog on the subject of teaching math to children but I am closing that one down and going with this one as it is going to be a far different style, inspired by this post at Creating Passionate Users
I don't care if you homeschool your children or send them to public or private school. My competition is Ignorance itself. Besides unless you never intent to ever help your children with homework, you will be homeschooling your children at some point.
My general focus will be on mathematics but since math didn't spring forth complete and finished there will be quite a bit of history and color and all kinds of bits and pieces thrown in for good measure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)