hawthorn@wam.umd.edu (Ian James Hawthorn) (04/10/90)
This is the second call for discussion on this group. The discussion period has approximately one week left to run, after which there will be a call for votes. Response so far - has been mild but generally favourable. It was suggested by two people that the group be moderated, however someone (me actually) pointed out that this would make the stated purpose of the group, namely the discussion of education issues, very difficult. Other replies have favoured the establishment of the group as proposed. So far no-one has opposed creation of the group. The text of the original call for discussion follows. Those who have seen it before should skip to the next article. Original call for discussion ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I would like to start a group - talk.education - with the following mandate. - an unmoderated group devoted to a discussion of exactly what, if anything, is wrong with the education system, and how it might be fixed. It is actually surprising that there is not a group devoted to this topic already. Many members of the net are directly involved in the education system. Even those who are not, are very concerned about educational standards - especially in mathematics and the sciences. There are many intelligent and original perspectives on both the problem, and the possible solutions, that I would like to be able to read. It seems to me that, with so many net members influential in education circles, a talk.education group might actually generate a little light along with the heat more usual for a talk.group . While there seems to be a broad consensus that something is seriously amiss in the education system, there is no consensus at all as to the direction that should be taken to find solutions. I think this is an issue where the kind of freeranging and innovative ideas that arise in a newsgroup discussion could prove to be very valuable. By proving a forum in which these ideas could be aired, and a consensus forged, the group talk.education could actually prove to be an immensely useful undertaking. At present there is no single group which carries a discussion of this nature. I have seen sporadic articles scattered amongst the various talk.politics groups, however it is hard to extract the signal from the noise (as it were). The group sci.edu seems to be barely alive, and certainly does not carry any discussion of this kind. I suspect that the `sci' prefix leads to a perception that the group is for `education specialists', something that very few people consider themselves to be. Ian Hawthorn hawthorn@wam.umd.edu