parnass@ihuxf.UUCP (11/04/83)
X
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Recent discussion in the news media of "the crisis in our
schools" is interesting. While pondering this topic,
glimpses of my own educational experience come to mind1. I
graduated from high school in 1970.
Some positive memories:
o+ A short, elderly woman taught Analytic Geometry and
Calculus in 11th and 12th grades. Although she rarely
cracked a smile, this gray haired dynamo inspired her
students. Every class was something to look forward
to. I loved her quizzes, they were like solving
mysteries. My questions were always answered with
patience, and in sufficient detail. If she didn't know
the answer, she said so, but did it in a way that
showed her interest in finding out.
o+ My high school drafting teacher showed a personal
interest in the future of his students. Each week
found this fellow bringing in some marvelously crafted
mechanism that we could all explore together.
Some negative memories:
o+ A 4th grade teacher assigned the class a report on a
topic of our choosing. I spent hours reading about the
structure of flowers, then writing my report. After
reading my report, she walked up to my desk, smiling,
looking real friendly and understanding. She asked,
"Oh, Bob, are you interested in flowers?" I responsed,
"No, but I didn't know anything about flowers, and
there seemed to be a lot written about them." Her smile
became a frown. My report received a 'D'. She had
interpreted my response to mean that I selected the
topic because it was easy to write about. This left
one angry, confused 10 year old!
o+ A junior high school English teacher was convinced that
my paper on "The History of American Lexicography" was
just TOO good to be original. Her unfounded and
incorrect accusation of plagiarism was used as
justification for a low grade. What's a kid to do?
__________
1. The schools involved are part of the Westwood (N.J.)
Public School System.
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o+ A 7th grade science teacher insisted that sunspots were
ALWAYS detrimental to radio transmissions. That con-
tradicted my own observations. I had studied this sub-
ject, out of my own curiosity, and presented references
addressing this topic. Her response: "Oh, those are
JUST MAGAZINES"2 End of discussion. I stopped asking
questions in science class.
o+ In 1968, my 10th grade Algebra teacher actually devoted
over 33% of class time to discussions of the Vietnam
war. It wasn't as if the war concerned the students to
such a degree that they just had to get it off their
chests ... these discussions were ALWAYS initiated by
the teacher3. I wanted to learn Algebra.
o+ My high school Physics teacher, entrusted with educat-
ing college bound students, answered a question about
wave propagation with the snide retort:
"Like, man, why is the sky blue? Who knows?"
This same teacher would also respond to questions by
focusing class attention on some aspect of the
questioner's appearance ("Hey, what are you, a pumpkin?
I mean with that orange shirt and black pants...") I
received a 'C' in Physics that year as a reward my
curiosity4. I stopped asking questions in Physics
class.
By contrast, my undergraduate education, at a small private
college5, was a truly enjoyable, satisfying experience. The
competence of the professors and instructors was exceeded
only by their ability to stimulate students. The professors
spoke perfect English, and were quite eloquent6. Sure,
__________
2. Perhaps we computer scientist types are kidding
ourselves by reading "CACM", "Computer", etc. :-)
3. The teacher was a young man of draft age.
4. I was a good Physics and Math student, getting straight
A's in both subjects during college and graduate school.
5. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester,
Massachusetts.
6. Graduate school, at Purdue, was a different story.
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there were "screw" exams and some real bores, but nothing's
perfect.
One unpleasant experience does stand out in my mind:
I had just completed a large software package to plot
histograms (bar graphs) for my CS201 course and was
eager to use this neat 700 line FORTRAN program for
something practical.
A professor gave out a homework assignment in Statis-
tics class. The details escape me. To satisfy this
assignment, the other students analyzed baseball scores
and submitted a single page of numbers. Being very
inspired by the problem, I conducted a REAL experiment
and submitted a complete report, along with several
histograms produced my FORTRAN package.
To my amazement, my efforts earned a 'C'. When I asked
about this, the professor expressed doubt that I had
really performed the experiment. He thought the histo-
grams had been produced by some commercial package! He
couldn't believe, at first, that someone would be
interested in a simple homework assignment to the
extent of doing extra work! My assignment was kicked
up 2 grades after I showed him the source code listing
for the histogram package.
What is my point? This submission is not intended to
express one. Future discussions in this area are likely to
foment some suggestions.
Does anyone else have interesting anecdotes about the "edu-
cational experience?"
--
============================================================================
Robert S. Parnass, AT&T Bell Laboratories, ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass (312)979-5760 rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/07/83)
I think everyone has unpleasant memories of High School (and Junior
High, etc) (except for my friend who had the luck to attend an open
classroom high school). My worst memory is of an Elementary Analysis
teacher. At the time I had a choice between taking Advanced Placement
History and Triganalysis (trigonometry and elementary analysis) or
Elementary Analysis (a more advance math class - I'd already had
trigonmetry) and regular history. I was put in AP history, but I
decided that the advanced math was more important, so (against all
precedent) I managed to change classes (and I'd been getting an easy
"A" in history, too). However, on the first day I was there, the
teacher, Mrs. Burns, (she deserves to have her name mentioned!) gave
us a few new theorems, proved one by deduction and asked us to prove
the rest by induction (these methods had been fleetingly mentioned in
the same class). She then left for most of the class. The next class
when I asked a question, she replied "I'm not going to come down to
your level, you have to come up to mine!" I don't remember what I
asked, but I don't think it deserved that answer. Anyway, I stormed to
the back of the class (I always sit in front), and about 15 min. later
left (I NEVER left class early, or cut class). And again, despite all
precedence, I kicked and screamed and got switched BACK into
triganalysis. (and also to AP history, with a teacher bigoted against
everyone, and who had the class so cowed that when we switched
teachers the next semester, it took her half the semester to get
people to volunteer to speak in class.)
--
Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay
Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!renefmc@pyuxqq.UUCP (11/07/83)
My own favorite "horror" story of public school occurred in 8 th grade: In a science class, I always got 100% on the tests, I knew the material. (Whether it was simple or I am smart I won't speculate at this late date). Anyway, even tho I fully knew the material, as demonstrated by test scores, the teach insisted that I do the homework assignments. I stubbornly refused, feeling it was a waste of time. As an analogy, whats the point of writing the multiplication tables 50 times if you have already memorized them? Anyway, the upshot was that the teach insisted that the office call my parent(s) into school for a "talk".
ksh@cbosgd.UUCP (11/08/83)
I had two particularly trying classes in high school. The first was a Physics class. I learned absolutely nothing after sitting for a whole year in this class. Women were not permitted to do ANY of the experiments. All tests were 'group' tests - meaning you could walk around the room and ask anyone if they knew the answer. Needless to say, everyone got the same grade on every test. Also, every Friday was 'Donut Day' - several guys would go out and bring back donuts, and we would spend the whole class eating them. All women in the class got an "A". The other class was my half-year computer science class. We had our own keypunch, and twice a week our instructor would take our decks of cards over to the university to be run on their computer. This class supposedly taught us FORTRAN - and was taught by a general math teacher who knew absolutely nothing about computer science. The biggest joke was the final exam. He brought us each a deck of about 200 punched cards - he never told us what the program was supposed to do - he shuffled the cards, and then gave us 30 minutes to put them in the right order. I can't remember the exact grading, but it was something like - 10 cards or more out of order and you got an F, 7-9 a D, 5 or 6 a C, 3 or 4 a B, and only 1 or 2 an A. NOONE PASSED. But for the most part, my high school education was pretty good, mostly thanks to the patience and persistence of a very talented Math teacher.
mcg@aat.UUCP (11/08/83)
As counterpoint to the previous high-schools stories, I must point out that I once got revenge on a physics teacher in a quite effective way. The end of the term had arrived, and the term final was going to be administered, and the teacher let slip that myself and a friend of mine had enough credits that we didn'tneed to pass the final in order to preserve our A's in the class, but when we protested and threatened to miss the final, he insisted that we take it. He was rather annoyed then, when he graded our test and discovered that we had attributed every known physical phenomenon (Gravitation, Electromagnetism, etc) to Maxwell's Demon!