Sunday, June 26, 2011
Waiting for Superman :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
Waiting for Superman :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews: "Consider this: Those lotteries are truly random, as by law they must be. Yet most of the winners will succeed, and half the losers (from the same human pool) will fail. This is an indictment: Our schools do not work."
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3 comments:
I enjoyed that documentary a lot. Probably because I agree that teacher unions are a large part of the problem and they were vilified in the film.
I've been hearing/thinking about education in china a lot lately. Apparently many in china are concerned about their educational system's focus on rote learning. Particularly at the university level, they find that the students have a hard time with complexity and creativity and they are concerned that their growing economy will stagnate without having a system of education that supports innovation.
I find this fascinating because in the US we're worried about our lower math and science test scores compared to asian nations. These tests certainly favor rote learning, yet we use this as one of the primary benchmarks to show that our system of education is failing. The momentum of educational reform in the us (at least at the legislative level) is definitely in the direction of an asian-type system. The chinese on the other hand are doing the opposite, wanting to move in the direction of a western education.
There are certainly many serious problems with our current system, but maybe the problems aren't what we think they are (low standardized test scores) and maybe the solution isn't asian style rote learning.
Maybe i'm wrong, but it seems like there's a certain amount of creativity in math and science. Similarly, I view law as a creative field in some respect.
Most of these fields teach a principle, then give a new factual situation that's never been seen and expect the student to apply the principle. Seeing the patterns in the problem and also seeing different ways of applying the principle can be very create.
I agree, though, that teaching multiplication tables is just memorization and in no way creative.
I completely agree that math, science, and just about any discipline has aspects of creativity. I'm just saying that the standardized testing used to measure ability in these areas tends to focus on rote learning of content rather than creative application of principles.
The "successful" schools highlighted in the film help kids get to college who otherwise would have little chance by giving them the extra time needed to "learn" the requisite material. But is this focus on passing the needed tests something to strive for in education? I suspect these schools focus on what will give them the biggest bang for their buck which is rote learning. Is this the best way of producing well educated people?
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