> Schools are ineffective due to a short-circuit: Simple presence in
> class is taken as evidence of learning.
Try to rein in those amazing generalizations, there, Eliezer.
Some schools, perhaps many schools, take this attitude. Far too many
schools, particularly at the lower levels, take this attitude for my
personal comfort and I've railed about the public school systems of
Chicago more than you can possibly imagine.
But not all schools are like this.
My high school, a private school, was not like this. They failed and
expelled people when their standards were not met. It was for this
reason that I chose to go to that high school, and saddled my parents
with the expense.
And my university experience was not like that either. Toward the end
of my graduate career, when I was invovled in teaching people, myself,
I personally acted as the left hand of Father Darwin, and removed a
number of people from the academic gene pool, when they proved incapable
or unwilling to learn the required material for the course.
So please stop making unqualified generalizations.
-- John S. Novak, III jsn@cris.com The Humblest Man on the Net