In article <35AE57CC.27DB at ln.nimh.nih.gov>,
Bharathi Jagadeesh <bjag at ln.nimh.nih.gov> wrote:
>>But, I learned a lot. I learned that I could do math just as well as
>anyone else, that I could do problem sets that looked too hard, that I
>could think creatively, and that I was good at it. When I look back, I
>remember the learning, and not the suffering. The suffering was, for me,
>relatively benign and short lived, and left knowledge in its place. And,
>the atmosphere of the class inspired me to rise to the challenges, so it
>would not have been possible to just remove the tension, and leave the
>rest of the good stuff. I like clean competition (and clean does matter
>to me -- it involves rules and fairness, and I don't know precisely how
>to define it).
>>I think that one thing that's very clear from this discussion is that
>people have very different teaching and learning styles. Undoubtedly
>some of the others with the same experience as me in math class remember
>the suffering and not the learning. How do we reach both kinds of
>learners (students who thrive on encouragement and students who thrive
>on competition), I wonder?
It may be significant that you succeeded in that math environment. That
can make all the difference. When you win the competition, or at least
see that you have a chance at winning the competition, then it can be fun.
But when you're seriously overmatched, and just lose, badly, over and over
again, it can be demoralizing. So I think one thing that is important is
to target the competition appropriately. There ought to be some segregation
by ability among classes, I think, so that the competition is fair.
The other thought I had, and it surprises me to be saying this, is that
this is a good argument for at least limited school choice. Scott Peck
(visible on this group in Julia Frugoli's sig line) wrote a book about
community building; I'm blanking on the name right now, but the word
"community" is in the title. The first chapter details his own personal
experience in two different high schools (both private). The first was
a very elite academic prep school, which he hated. The second was a small
Friends (Quaker) school in Pennsylvania, where his parents transferred him
after he was showing failure to thrive at the elite prep school. For him,
the difference in the two schools was that one was a functional community,
and one wasn't. The rest of the book goes on to detail what he means by
a functional community, and how to build one.
I think Peck's story is a good argument for any number of things, one of
which is the heads-up behavior of his parents which got him into the
better environment. But the large majority of students just don't have
the options. I can't count the number of times I wished that my parents
had had the money to take me out of that public school where I was not
thriving, but there really wasn't any other option for us.
I don't support these voucher initiatives, necessarily, because I think
that public vs. private is really beside the point and I'm very sympathetic
to the arguments that these programs just skim the good students off the
top and further degrade the quality of public education. My point is,
instead, that because students have these different learning styles, no
school, public or private, can expect to be all things to all students,
and there should be a way for students, parents, and teachers, to choose
the kind of environment that is right for them.
Karen
