Steve Sailer has a new blog entry, “The inanity of teacher training,” consisting largely of a lengthy quote from Heather MacDonald, that nicely illustrates part of the problem with the current “educational system” in the USA. It is also worth reading MacDonald’s essay in its entirety.
To pursue this in greater historical detail, see Kliebard's classic The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958, which manages to be both scholarly and remarkably readable.
However, I think that Sailer and MacDonald have only identified part of the problem: a century ago, many American parents did oppose the content-free curriculum.
But, today, this is actually what a large number of American parents want for their children. A "content-full" curriculum leads to kids who are "nerds," and many parents would rather have their children grow up to be illiterates than nerds.
Advocating knowledge for its own sake is a subversive stance in contemporary America.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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hi dave
ReplyDeleteyou should check out motls.blogspot.com as an antidote to peter woit, lee smolin et al.
sn,
ReplyDeleteI've jsut started listing sites on the blogroll - it is far from completion.
I know of Lubos and have commented several times on his blog. I suppose I should add him to my blogroll too -- though, there might be a danger of spontaneous combustion with both Peter and Lubos listed on the same blogroll!
I'm a non-combatant in the great Motl-Woit wars -- though, I do actually think such debates are good for physics, even when the temperature gets kind of high.
As I said in my initial post, my listing some site on the blogroll does not imply that I agree with everything on that site.
And thanks for dropping by.
Dave