watertank | Entries tagged with education

Max Dehn. The Mentality of the Mathematician. January 18, 1928. via

sowa

Mathematics is the only instructional material that can be presented in an entirely undogmatic way. That is why instruction in mathematics has played a prominent role in institutions of higher learning since antiquity. Taught properly, mathematics enables the student to think clearly and independently within the limits of his aptitude. He can certainly take complete responsibility for his mathematical work.

Well, this is not how math is being taught in the vast majority of schools. Opposite to Dehn's recommendation, it is imposed on students in brutally dogmatic ways. By far, the dominant approach is training first, education second. The "properliness" of math education heavily depends on the teacher. Math itself, unless picked up voluntarily or presented by an inspiring individual, will not teach somebody to think clearly or independently.

Government statistics show that at birth there are 104 black boys for every 100 girls. Between ages 25 and 45, six more men than women are dead, leaving 98 men for every 100 women. Of these 98 men, nine are in jail, eight are missing and 21 are employed less than half-time. That leaves 60 "promising" black men - men who are alive, employed and not convicted felons. Also consider that promising black men living with a non-black partner outnumber white men with a black partner by three. That leaves only 57 black men for every 100 women in a position to be a permanent partner.
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Удивительная штука - русский ЖЖ. В нем можно "в живую" заниматься информационной геологией - смотреть, как сталкиваются и наползают друг на друга культурные пласты.

ректор МГУ Садовничий говорит о том, что бизнес-школы и экономические факультеты МГУ не уступают лучшим лондонским и европейским. Вот что он имеет в виду? Все мыслимые способы измерить научную производительность ученых, работающих в этих школах - публикации, цитируемость, конференции, семинары и т.п. - показывают, что МГУ в целом в области экономики уступает и отдельным факультетам ВШЭ, СПбГУ и даже отдельным людям в РЭШ и ВШЭ (и Гуриев, и Полтерович, и Журавская, и Анатольев, и Гимпельсон, и Рощин, и Алескеров и не они одни пишут, публикуют и цитируются больше, чем все экономисты из МГУ вместе взятые). То есть находятся за пределами - внимание! - первой тысячи европейских факультетов. Мне, выпускнику и патриоту Москвского университета, это обидно. (И это при том, что денег, по словам Садовничего, в пересчете на студента, примерно столько же, сколько во ВШЭ и РЭШ.) Речь про уровень студентов не идет - он в МГУ, конечно, один из самых высоких в стране.

http://ksonin.livejournal.com/157848.html
http://ksonin.livejournal.com/160358.html

В России и на "Западе" (US, UK) университетом называются совершенно разные общественные институты. В России университет занимается в первую очередь образованием ( начальным высшим ), а, например, в Америке университет, в основном, занимается научными исследованиями.

Perhaps the most important ideas of all are meta-ideas. These are ideas about how to support the production and transmission of other ideas. The British invented patents and copyrights in the seventeenth century. North Americans invented the modern research university and the agricultural extension service in the nineteenth century, and peer-reviewed competitive grants for basic research in the twentieth
century. The challenge now facing all of the industrialized countries is to invent new institutions that encourage a higher level of applied, commercially relevant research and development in the private sector. Paul Romer. http://www.stanford.edu/~promer/EconomicGrowth.pdf

Over the past 30 years, undergraduate computer science enrollments at universities in the United States have followed a roller-coaster-like trajectory. After peaking during the PC revolution of the early 1980s and the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, the number of students pursuing a computer science major has fallen significantly. At Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, for example, the number of undergrads declaring a computer science major dropped from 171 in 2000-2001 to 86 in 2006-2007. Women, always a small minority in the field, have become even scarcer than before. The Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports that in 2004 fewer than 0.5% of female college freshmen were interested in computer science as a major--a low not seen since the early 1970s.

Experts trace the drop in numbers to students' concerns about job prospects in the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, increased offshoring, and the influx of cheap skilled labor from abroad. Many, however, think students are unduly pessimistic about their opportunities. And some, including Owen Astrachan, a computer scientist at Duke University in North Carolina, say the lack of interest has another key component: The classes are boring.
Benjamin Lester. Science 16 November 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5853, pp. 1086 - 1087

amazing numbers. outsourcing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF0k6dEm0zQ

Interview with Don Tapscott, the author of "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything".

I am becoming addicted to Authors@Google lectures.

Today's talk is by Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University. He discusses, among other things, why students learn very little in introductory economics courses, why male sea lions are so much bigger than females, and why brides spend so much money their dresses while grooms are often satisfied with much cheaper rental suits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QalNVxeIKEE

Правда заключается в том, что МЫ ЛУЧШЕ ДРУГИХ. Этому и надо учить в школе. Все другие тоже, конечно, ничего. Но немно-о-ожечко лузеры. Потому что не имеют отношения к великой истории великой страны. Вот, собственно, как учат в нормальных странах. Это нормально. Считать Россию страной, хоть в чем-то виновной - а не пошли бы Вы к такой-то матери вместе со всей нашей либеральной интеллигенцией и содержащими ее грантодержателями?

Классическое, с соц.психологической точки зрения, высказывание. Большинство людей считает, что они заслуживают жизнь лучше чем у других. Причем, такое отношение ведет к положительной самооценке и позитивному взгляду на происходящее. Очевидно, что для школьников такое мировосприятие очень полезно.

С другой стороны, если школьникам постоянно говорить, что они, исключительно благодаря своему месту жительства, лучше всех других народов, то вырастут они ксенофобами, не способными понимать ошибки прошлого. Это, как правило, приводит к их повторению в будущем.

Получается очень интересная дилемма: учить тому, что "мы" лучше всех одновременно необходимо и нельзя.

Здорово!

Don't have time to write an extended comment on

sowa's post about selection as the main function of education. Just wanted to note that any organized environment comprising multiple types of destinations and multiple objects of different properties moving, in space and time, toward these destinations has to incorporate various selection procedures. This is true for all kinds of systems and processes, from evolution to parts manufacturing to presidential elections.
However, when we talk about education, it is important to understand that selection has to be transformative, and not degrade into a simple sorting routine performed by a disinterested bureaucratic machine. The issue here is not so much the existence of the selection process itself, but rather the balance of responsibility for individual's development that has to be shared between different players within the system. Obviously, an individual stands to lose the most if he or she does not devote sufficient efforts to self-transformation. Given that, the education system's service to the individual would be to provide adequate guidance and resources. Positioning selection as its main function tends to absolve teachers and administrators of their direct responsibility to educate. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that best university faculty is often recruited among best scientists, who are not necessarily best teaches.

Intelligence has more to do with when and how the brain grows rather than its overall size, suggests a new study.

The brain's cortex thickens in childhood, reaches a peak, and then thins again in adolescence.

On the basis of IQ tests, the children were categorised as having average, high or superior intelligence.

In the brightest children, the thickness of the prefrontal cortex - a brain region thought to be responsible for many facets of intelligence - increased rapidly through their pre-teen years before thinning out again after the age of 11.

In all three groups, the children’s IQs correlated with their parents’ job and education. “The ultimate determinants of intelligence will likely prove to be a very complex mix of nature and nurture,” notes Shaw.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8914-when-it-comes-to-intelligence-size-isnt-everything.html

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Clearly, what we call intelligence is a very small part of the overall brainwork. The prefrontal cortex is responsible, among other things, for applied learning, so parents would be well advised to help their children excersise this particular brain "muscle".
Clever networked-virtual-world games could help, but they are not there yet.

Our school and the school district in the news.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05325/610279.stm

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/education/13828066.htm

Украл из комментария в журнале

cema любимый анекдот

vadim_i_z. Наслаждайтесь:

Профессор встречает своего выпускника пятилетней давности и с надеждой спрашивает: "Ну что, пригодилась вам математика?"
"Конечно!- отвечает тот.- Вот вчера ветер задул мою шляпу в середину лужи, так я проволочку подобрал, изогнул в виде интеграла, зацепил и вытащил!"

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Entries tagged with education

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