I am grateful for the opportunity to listen in to this impassioned
discussion on public schooling -- but from my perspective from a smaller
country that shares many of the ideals but not the history of the US -- it
appears quintessentially American -- the passionate ideals, intermingled
with anxieties and panic -- freedom and guns -- the desire to change it
quickly all but not coerce anyone -- is it a kind of spring fever?
Why would you imagine that schools can be changed independently of the
larger social/cultural context? That you can create schools as caring,
stimulating, freeing institutions within communiities that are the opposite?
And a response directly to Ken. I dropped out of high school math after
some beginning Algebra - but no calculus. I scored at the 98% on the math
section of the Graduate Record Exam. Took advanced courses in regression
analysis in graduate school. Have since taught statistics to social science
majors and graduates. Mostly my approach has been to keep trying to relate
the numbers to the behaviours/experiences/ etc. they were being used to
represent. Why, for example, is "variance" the key underlying concept in
almost all of the multivariate statistics we use. What does "variance' say
about human nature? Not knowing calculus has kept me focused on the
underlying logic and meanings involved in statistics. For which I am
grateful. One day I might take a course in calculus to see what I missed.
Cheers, and thanks
Graham
Graham Nuthall
Professor of Education
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
Phone 64 3 3642255 Fax 64 3 3642418
http://www.educ.canterbury.ac.nz/learning.html