From: Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net>
>So we are trying to teach too much, eh? I can understand the repetition of
>familiar topics. I remember that most math teachers would spend the entire
first
>quarter of the year reviewing what the kids were supposed to learn the
previous
>year.
>
>The problem as I see it is that teachers are to reticent to hold poor
students
>back, and far far too reticent to advance smart students forward ahead of
>schedule. As are parents. We are far too concerned about developing the
social
>skills of students than about what they are actually learning in classes.
Kids
>have no real need to know the people they are in primary and secondary
school
>with that well. Most of the kids I went to school with at that age I have
not
>seen in ten years, nor would I care to see most of them.
As far as I can see, the whole education system is brought down by the
ridiculous notion that people of the same age all share the same level of
education. Splitting down the whole education system into small chunks,
each of which could be taken repeatedly until they were learnt (and the next
in any paricular web/chain could not be taken until you had finished the
previus ones) would seem like a far more useful and efficient method of
teaching. People would be in the same classes as their peers. I remember
seeing a study from here in the UK where the biggest classroom problem was
that almost every member of the class was at a slightly different level of
learning. You can't give classes to a group like that.
Samael