[geeks] Education

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 @ 14:40 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:

>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
> > Thu, 29 Sep 2005 @ 23:56 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:
> > 
> > > What you may call busywork, I call practice.  
> > 
> > Bad assumption.
> > 
> 
> Did I read it wrong or did you equate homework with busywork in a previous
> post?

Evidently, because I said the homework I had to do was busywork.

I didn't say all of it was, and even suggested that removing most of it
would allow the student to come up with their own.

> > What I call busywork is exactly that: zero value as practice, or
> > anything else.
> > 
> > There *is* such a thing as overkill, even in practice.
> > 
> > Also, not everyone practices in the same way.
> > 
> > Repeating something after I've learned it only makes me hate it,
> > especially if I'm missing out on practice for things I really need.
> 
> That's part of the "feel-good" education.  Does the student REALLY
> know what they need or are we working with the 20-20 vision that
> hind sight provides?  I wish I knew exactly what each student needs so
> I could tailor their education toward that.

No, it isn't feel good, it's called learning properly.

Also, I didn't say anything about knowing what I needed.

But even a student knows when they have mastered a particular excersize,
and repeating it doesn't help.

For some people, maybe it does, but not everyone learns best by rote
memorization and repetition.

> Notice, I said feedback.  I've known teachers who assign homework and 
> never go over it, just collect it.  That's busywork.  

You have a wierd notion of busywork.

It's busywork if it serves no useful purpose.

Wether or not the teacher looks at it has nothing to do with that.

> I don't call that busywork.
> I don't call that feel-good education.  I call that building self
> esteem.

It is busywork if the student is gaining nothing from it.

You were just complaining about "feel good" education, most of which
came out of a misplaced desire to build self esteem.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["People should have access to the data which
you have about them.  There should be a process for them to challenge any
inaccuracies." -- Arthur Miller]