[geeks] Education

[wa2egp at att.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
> Thu, 29 Sep 2005 @ 23:56 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:
> 
> > What you may call busywork, I call practice.  
> 
> Bad assumption.
> 

Did I read it wrong or did you equate homework with busywork in a previous
post?

> What I call busywork is exactly that: zero value as practice, or
> anything else.
> 
> There *is* such a thing as overkill, even in practice.
> 
> Also, not everyone practices in the same way.
> 
> Repeating something after I've learned it only makes me hate it,
> especially if I'm missing out on practice for things I really need.
> 

That's part of the "feel-good" education.  Does the student REALLY
know what they need or are we working with the 20-20 vision that
hind sight provides?  I wish I knew exactly what each student needs so
I could tailor their education toward that.

> > Busywork is just filling in the blanks 
> > without any feedback and that's worthless. 
> 
> I'm amazed that you can say this while disagreeing with me above... :)
> 
Notice, I said feedback.  I've known teachers who assign homework and 
never go over it, just collect it.  That's busywork.  (If you want to 
see the epitome of busywork, go rent the movie "Teachers" and watch 
the character "Ditto".)  I find it interesting to see students
cheer themselves on when we go over homework.  Even the ones that 
miss a problem or two are satified to find their mistake and are even
happy they knew as much as they did.  I don't call that busywork.
I don't call that feel-good education.  I call that building self
esteem.

It's funny, but parents want their kids in my school because we give
a "good education" (whatever that is) and some fools gave us a good
rating with bogus measurements (Newsweek), and yet, if their kids are
not doing well, they are the first on the horn to the principal to
get us to change what we do.  (Most of our students fail not due to
inability but due to laziness.)

Bob   
-  "Invertabrates either evolved or fell down a lot." - Fire Sign Theater