This and that and the other thing...
Mar. 5th, 2008 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, I continue to watch American Idol slaughter my favorite 1980's tunes. Didn't realize how much I liked the 1980's pop songs until now. And Paula Abdul babble incoherently. I can't tell, but I think she might be on something.
Anyhow...am brain dead, hence the American Idol watching. Work is frying my brain and sapping my energy. Good thing it's only eight hours, not including the hour commute, which makes it ten. I get home and just want to veg in front of the telly - although I did do thirty minutes of piliates and made dinner. So...not too bad. Last night read more of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama - this chapter was on Opportunity, the one before on the Constitution. Got all riled up by the last two chapters - I agree with Obama, but am frustrated with our current administration's policies. And he was talking about education - which I have a chip on my shoulder regarding.
I had a couple of amazing teachers, I can count them on my fingers, all ten of them. But also quite a few horrendous ones - unfortunately they were all in the math and science field. I should take a step back and inform you, that I was an odd student - I loved to learn. One teacher informed me that she'd never met a student that wanted to learn more than I did or loved it more. She was one of the better teachers - she taught poetry, but did it by interaction - we went on a retreat in the mountains and were instructed to write about what we saw. The good teachers were in English, Drama (briefly) and Social Studies. Why math and science instructors think it is a good idea to teach by lecture or writing on the board, not by interaction is beyond me. If there was any field aching for hands on learning it was those two. The best math teacher I ever had - was a substitute teacher in elementary school, for two weeks. He took out a bunch of coins and basically had us all play a game with them - the game was how much would we tip a waiter after a meal. The best science teacher was in psychology - he had us do research projects and conduct experiments using equipment in the building - my team did experiments with lie detection (it doesn't work by the way - I don't care what you've seen on Moment of Truth.) The worste? A calculus teacher who wrote formulas on the board but never explained them, we just copied them down and read stuff in our books. I remember coming in after class each day attempting to understand what she was talking about.
She wasn't alone - my Algrebra I teacher used to sit like a toad at his desk and read the answers to problems in our textbooks. He never explained them. Geometry was better - that guy at least would show us how the formula worked.
I can understand teaching by lecture in social sciences or history, that makes sense - although the teachers I had were more creative and did other things - such as a debate on pro-choice and pro-life - with teams of five each. A presidential debate on the issues - during an election year - with each group researching a separate candidate. We also were assigned complex research projects. As well as sitting in and reporting on local council meetings. I don't remember going to sleep or being bored in Social Studies - but then I seldom had to sit and listen to the teacher drone on, while writing stuff on the black board. He didn't lecture that often and when he did it was interactive and amusing, filled with topical jokes. That happened in law school as well. The best courses in law school were the ones that were either clinics, or research oriented. The worst courses were sitting in a lecture hall, watching my notes run downhill while someone spoke in a monotone. Torts was entertaining - and I did very well in Torts - the teacher was an excellent lecturer - he had a class of 160 in the palm of his hand and would wander about the room, often acting out the cases with a big booming voice. Criminal Procedure - also entertaining. Property? Boring as all get out - and it did not have to be. As one fellow law student put it - the first year should be lecture, the next two apprenticeships - we should be paired up with law firms or law clerkships and learn on the job like Abraham Lincoln. That's the biggest problem with education - not enough "hands on" learning, too much reliance on people sitting like statutes taking notes and listening to someone talk.
I chose not to become a teacher, because I knew I didn't have the apititude for it. Teaching is hard. If all it involved was research, writing a bunch of papers, grading/evaluating papers and giving presentations - I'd have done it - that's easy, or rather it is easy for me. But in my opinion that isn't teaching. Actually, I do that to some degree now - or at least, I use those skills. I also did it in law school and at different stages in my career. It's not teaching though. If that's all you do and you are a professor - than I'm sorry to break this to you, you are a lousey teacher and part of what is wrong with our educational system. Teaching requires direct interaction with one's students and the facilitation of the students interaction with each other. A teacher also acts as a facilitator or mediator - they make it possible for students to learn from one another. The environment they create in the classroom makes this possible. If it is not a healthy environment - then the students will not interact and will not learn. That's probably the hardest part of teaching - getting students to interact with one another in a positive manner - inspiring people.
I've had a couple of excellent teachers - usually they had small classes, but not all of them did. My litigation teacher was quite good - we did trials all the time, civil, criminal, you name it. It was part law class, part drama class, part research, part writing. The final was a trial. And I had an excellent high school English teacher - we had to read a certain number of pages of fictional works a semester - and meet with the teacher, one on one - to give oral reports on those works. We also had to write essays on every main work that we read as a class - these included four Shakespearen plays - he'd grade the papers, and often meet with us individually to go over them, explaining his critiques and more importantly how we could improve. We also critiqued each other. A plus next to a sentence was something I fought for. This man taught me how to write. He also had us interact portions of the plays, or books we read, explain the meaning aloud, and even brought into class the Richard Burton radio presentation of Hamlet. He made class fun. Another great teacher I had was in social studies, American Government - this teacher had us research a topic and debate it in class. We also were told to research the political issues of the current presidential election (Regan vs. Mondale), write papers supporting our candidates, and report on their backgrounds. The course was highly interactive.
I still remember those classes vividly - even though they took place more than twenty years ago. That's good teaching. I do not remember the teachers that just wrote on chalk boards or expected me to take good notes, they've blurred together over time, becoming in my mind one big grey blob. I've had the same experience with college, law school, and continuing education courses. My Social Psychology Course, which I audited - was at its best when we engaged in class discussion, watched a video then discussed it afterwards, or did impromptu experiments - such as the one the teacher bravely started the class with - she posed as a student (something she could get away with - since none of us knew her and she looked like a student). To give her credit - her lectures were short, usually involved class participation and a heavy reliance on reading materials and a lot of interesting and topical antedotes. The law school classes I'd had where the teacher merely lectured - I learned almost nothing from and retained even less. I did not learn copyright law from law school, even though I took a class on it, and took notes (mostly illegible - they looked like I'd gone to sleep or lost the thread), I learned it from a job. Hand's on experience. I've never gained any knowledge from a class that involved a lecture and a test or "note-taking". If I wanted to rely on my note-taking skills I'd have taken a correspondence course. These courses were a waste of my time and the teacher's. My Marketing Class was like that - I learned more from the other students and the book. Did great on the test, and got an A in the class. But what I remember is from the book. There were quite a few students who gave up on it. I remember in law school a lot of students would skip class and just borrow someone's notes. The fact that they aced the class - shows how inconsequential the teacher really was. Honestly, if someone can learn as much if not more from reading a book or listening to taped recording of a teacher's lecture, what's the point of even attending class? Class is supposed to interactive. School is supposed to be interactive. We learn from each other. The students who make up the class can teach us as much as the person who is leading the class or in charge of it. Seminar trainers know this. Why don't school teacher's? Are we paying people huge amounts of money to write books and give presentations few people actually read or listen to? Or are we paying them to teach us and the next generation what they've learned? So we can all gain from their knowledge? It's worth thinking about.
Enuf.
In case you haven't noticed, I've become a tad obsessed with the American Presidential Race - maybe because for the first time in ten years, possibly more, I actually am rooting for someone. I'm actually pleased with two of the people running. I may not be a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, but I wouldn't mind if she became president. And I genuinely like Barack Obama and what he stands for. The American public appears to be as indecisive as my own family, in regards to Hillary and Barack - we can't make up our damn minds. One day it's Barack, the next it is Hillary. Now if John McClain would just jump out of the way...;-)
I'm currently rooting for Barack. But I honestly don't know which one would make a better president. I know they'd both be better than McCain, who only seems to care about fighting a hopeless war in Iraq. Which, I guess, if that's your main concern - I'd see why you'd vote for him. Me? I think Iraq was a stupid mistake from the get-go, and it's doing to us what the Soviet Union's little wars and invasions did to them - bankrupting us. I'm not sure how we should resolve, I'm not sure it can be neatly resolved. I do know that it has not made us more secure, or safer. If anything it's given Al-Quaida more power than before. Since McCain disagrees with me - I honestly don't want him as President. Plus, he seems to be a bit hypocritical on the whole torture thing and that worries me. And there's that little problem with wanting to give the affluent tax cuts and the middle-incom/low income no breaks at all.
Plus no universial health care. In short - McCain will only create a bigger divide between the rich and the poor in the US, continue to escalate the war and deficit, and break the economy in the process. He hasn't said anything to alevate those fears. Heck, if he had, George W. Bush wouldn't be endorsing him. I don't understand why people want that. I'm smart enough not to ask the people at work - politics and religion are not topics one discusses at work. I might ask my friend, CW, who is a McCain fan and a Republican on Friday. Assuming I see her on Friday, she's in Boston at the moment.
Anyhow...am brain dead, hence the American Idol watching. Work is frying my brain and sapping my energy. Good thing it's only eight hours, not including the hour commute, which makes it ten. I get home and just want to veg in front of the telly - although I did do thirty minutes of piliates and made dinner. So...not too bad. Last night read more of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama - this chapter was on Opportunity, the one before on the Constitution. Got all riled up by the last two chapters - I agree with Obama, but am frustrated with our current administration's policies. And he was talking about education - which I have a chip on my shoulder regarding.
I had a couple of amazing teachers, I can count them on my fingers, all ten of them. But also quite a few horrendous ones - unfortunately they were all in the math and science field. I should take a step back and inform you, that I was an odd student - I loved to learn. One teacher informed me that she'd never met a student that wanted to learn more than I did or loved it more. She was one of the better teachers - she taught poetry, but did it by interaction - we went on a retreat in the mountains and were instructed to write about what we saw. The good teachers were in English, Drama (briefly) and Social Studies. Why math and science instructors think it is a good idea to teach by lecture or writing on the board, not by interaction is beyond me. If there was any field aching for hands on learning it was those two. The best math teacher I ever had - was a substitute teacher in elementary school, for two weeks. He took out a bunch of coins and basically had us all play a game with them - the game was how much would we tip a waiter after a meal. The best science teacher was in psychology - he had us do research projects and conduct experiments using equipment in the building - my team did experiments with lie detection (it doesn't work by the way - I don't care what you've seen on Moment of Truth.) The worste? A calculus teacher who wrote formulas on the board but never explained them, we just copied them down and read stuff in our books. I remember coming in after class each day attempting to understand what she was talking about.
She wasn't alone - my Algrebra I teacher used to sit like a toad at his desk and read the answers to problems in our textbooks. He never explained them. Geometry was better - that guy at least would show us how the formula worked.
I can understand teaching by lecture in social sciences or history, that makes sense - although the teachers I had were more creative and did other things - such as a debate on pro-choice and pro-life - with teams of five each. A presidential debate on the issues - during an election year - with each group researching a separate candidate. We also were assigned complex research projects. As well as sitting in and reporting on local council meetings. I don't remember going to sleep or being bored in Social Studies - but then I seldom had to sit and listen to the teacher drone on, while writing stuff on the black board. He didn't lecture that often and when he did it was interactive and amusing, filled with topical jokes. That happened in law school as well. The best courses in law school were the ones that were either clinics, or research oriented. The worst courses were sitting in a lecture hall, watching my notes run downhill while someone spoke in a monotone. Torts was entertaining - and I did very well in Torts - the teacher was an excellent lecturer - he had a class of 160 in the palm of his hand and would wander about the room, often acting out the cases with a big booming voice. Criminal Procedure - also entertaining. Property? Boring as all get out - and it did not have to be. As one fellow law student put it - the first year should be lecture, the next two apprenticeships - we should be paired up with law firms or law clerkships and learn on the job like Abraham Lincoln. That's the biggest problem with education - not enough "hands on" learning, too much reliance on people sitting like statutes taking notes and listening to someone talk.
I chose not to become a teacher, because I knew I didn't have the apititude for it. Teaching is hard. If all it involved was research, writing a bunch of papers, grading/evaluating papers and giving presentations - I'd have done it - that's easy, or rather it is easy for me. But in my opinion that isn't teaching. Actually, I do that to some degree now - or at least, I use those skills. I also did it in law school and at different stages in my career. It's not teaching though. If that's all you do and you are a professor - than I'm sorry to break this to you, you are a lousey teacher and part of what is wrong with our educational system. Teaching requires direct interaction with one's students and the facilitation of the students interaction with each other. A teacher also acts as a facilitator or mediator - they make it possible for students to learn from one another. The environment they create in the classroom makes this possible. If it is not a healthy environment - then the students will not interact and will not learn. That's probably the hardest part of teaching - getting students to interact with one another in a positive manner - inspiring people.
I've had a couple of excellent teachers - usually they had small classes, but not all of them did. My litigation teacher was quite good - we did trials all the time, civil, criminal, you name it. It was part law class, part drama class, part research, part writing. The final was a trial. And I had an excellent high school English teacher - we had to read a certain number of pages of fictional works a semester - and meet with the teacher, one on one - to give oral reports on those works. We also had to write essays on every main work that we read as a class - these included four Shakespearen plays - he'd grade the papers, and often meet with us individually to go over them, explaining his critiques and more importantly how we could improve. We also critiqued each other. A plus next to a sentence was something I fought for. This man taught me how to write. He also had us interact portions of the plays, or books we read, explain the meaning aloud, and even brought into class the Richard Burton radio presentation of Hamlet. He made class fun. Another great teacher I had was in social studies, American Government - this teacher had us research a topic and debate it in class. We also were told to research the political issues of the current presidential election (Regan vs. Mondale), write papers supporting our candidates, and report on their backgrounds. The course was highly interactive.
I still remember those classes vividly - even though they took place more than twenty years ago. That's good teaching. I do not remember the teachers that just wrote on chalk boards or expected me to take good notes, they've blurred together over time, becoming in my mind one big grey blob. I've had the same experience with college, law school, and continuing education courses. My Social Psychology Course, which I audited - was at its best when we engaged in class discussion, watched a video then discussed it afterwards, or did impromptu experiments - such as the one the teacher bravely started the class with - she posed as a student (something she could get away with - since none of us knew her and she looked like a student). To give her credit - her lectures were short, usually involved class participation and a heavy reliance on reading materials and a lot of interesting and topical antedotes. The law school classes I'd had where the teacher merely lectured - I learned almost nothing from and retained even less. I did not learn copyright law from law school, even though I took a class on it, and took notes (mostly illegible - they looked like I'd gone to sleep or lost the thread), I learned it from a job. Hand's on experience. I've never gained any knowledge from a class that involved a lecture and a test or "note-taking". If I wanted to rely on my note-taking skills I'd have taken a correspondence course. These courses were a waste of my time and the teacher's. My Marketing Class was like that - I learned more from the other students and the book. Did great on the test, and got an A in the class. But what I remember is from the book. There were quite a few students who gave up on it. I remember in law school a lot of students would skip class and just borrow someone's notes. The fact that they aced the class - shows how inconsequential the teacher really was. Honestly, if someone can learn as much if not more from reading a book or listening to taped recording of a teacher's lecture, what's the point of even attending class? Class is supposed to interactive. School is supposed to be interactive. We learn from each other. The students who make up the class can teach us as much as the person who is leading the class or in charge of it. Seminar trainers know this. Why don't school teacher's? Are we paying people huge amounts of money to write books and give presentations few people actually read or listen to? Or are we paying them to teach us and the next generation what they've learned? So we can all gain from their knowledge? It's worth thinking about.
Enuf.
In case you haven't noticed, I've become a tad obsessed with the American Presidential Race - maybe because for the first time in ten years, possibly more, I actually am rooting for someone. I'm actually pleased with two of the people running. I may not be a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, but I wouldn't mind if she became president. And I genuinely like Barack Obama and what he stands for. The American public appears to be as indecisive as my own family, in regards to Hillary and Barack - we can't make up our damn minds. One day it's Barack, the next it is Hillary. Now if John McClain would just jump out of the way...;-)
I'm currently rooting for Barack. But I honestly don't know which one would make a better president. I know they'd both be better than McCain, who only seems to care about fighting a hopeless war in Iraq. Which, I guess, if that's your main concern - I'd see why you'd vote for him. Me? I think Iraq was a stupid mistake from the get-go, and it's doing to us what the Soviet Union's little wars and invasions did to them - bankrupting us. I'm not sure how we should resolve, I'm not sure it can be neatly resolved. I do know that it has not made us more secure, or safer. If anything it's given Al-Quaida more power than before. Since McCain disagrees with me - I honestly don't want him as President. Plus, he seems to be a bit hypocritical on the whole torture thing and that worries me. And there's that little problem with wanting to give the affluent tax cuts and the middle-incom/low income no breaks at all.
Plus no universial health care. In short - McCain will only create a bigger divide between the rich and the poor in the US, continue to escalate the war and deficit, and break the economy in the process. He hasn't said anything to alevate those fears. Heck, if he had, George W. Bush wouldn't be endorsing him. I don't understand why people want that. I'm smart enough not to ask the people at work - politics and religion are not topics one discusses at work. I might ask my friend, CW, who is a McCain fan and a Republican on Friday. Assuming I see her on Friday, she's in Boston at the moment.
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You might know quite a bit of this, but just in case...
Date: 2008-03-06 04:35 am (UTC)In fact, McCain has a looooong record as an old-school Goldwater type conservative, which means the "Bushies" actually hate his guts for many reasons, and he hates theirs. Did you see the unbelievable awkwardness of the endorsement press-conferance?
I lived in Arizona for a decade, and McCain (used to be, anyway) a fiscal conservative. He opposed any discussion of tax cuts during the invasion of Iraq. He was socially conservative, but not in favor of butting into peoples' lives with amendments to the Constitution and such. He's had a long career of working well with Democrats; he's actually quite friendly with Hillary...such traits have earned the undying enmity of most establishment Republicans, which is why Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and their vile ilk are now threatening to campaign for Hillary rather than encourage their rabid NeoCon base to vote for the "traitor" McCain.
As for me, I agree with almost none of McCain's policies, but I used to have a ton of respect for the guy as a straight-talking, philosophically consistent, non-religion-crazed conservative. However, I was disgusted when he just stood there and took some dirty character-assassinating hits from Bush during the 2000 election campaign without really fighting back, and then sucked up to the religious right (whom everyone knows he actually hates), and THEN proceeded to kiss Bush's ass in order to get in the position he's in today. Which makes him a pathetic sell-out, IMO.
Anyway, the point of my ramble is I totally understand why he appeals to the non-fundie old-school conservatives, and why the neocon right despises him. He and Bush happen to share an opinion on the surge strategy in Iraq, but they have a history of disagreeing on a lot of things near and dear to the party faithful (think Campaign Finance Reform). And McCaine is now (in a COMPLETE reversal of his earlier position) endorsing making Bush's tax cuts permanent, but I suspect that is total election-road hype; given McCain's history, I would be SHOCKED if he actually did that in office...it goes against his senatorial record and his Barry Goldwater roots.
To sum up: used to respect him, if not agree. Lost the respect, but still prefer him to any other prominent Republican. Wouldn't kill myself in despair if he became president but certainly am NOT voting for him anytime soon.
Re: You might know quite a bit of this, but just in case...
Date: 2008-03-06 04:40 am (UTC)Re: You might know quite a bit of this, but just in case...
Date: 2008-03-08 01:10 am (UTC)You are right - he is more of a Barry Goldwater Republican - which is interesting. Because Clinton and Obama are reminding me a great deal of LBJ and Robert Kennedy, as are their campaign strategies. And the news media keeps alluding to the Democratic Convention of 1968 - something we do not want to repeat. (I was living in Chicago in 1968 with my parents, have 0 memory of it - since I was only 2 years of age, but I've heard stories from my parents - who campaigned for McGovern and Bobby Kennedy at the time. In some ways, Obama reminds me of Bobby Kennedy while Hillary reminds me a bit of Nixon and LBG. With McCain in the role of Goldwater.)