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Re: Why More Students Rely on Tutors
Posted:
Sep 28, 2010 11:24 PM
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At 07:05 AM 9/28/2010, GS Chandy wrote:
>Further my initial posting (dt. Sep 28, 2010 11:22 AM) on the
>subject, I already know, I believe, what some of us are going to say
>after glancing through a fair bit of the ongoing discussions at the
>New York Times:
>
>1) "It's all the fault of the Educational Mafia...PUT THEM IN JAIL!"
>2) "BLOW UP THE TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGES!"
>(or the equivalent, probably in more sophisticated words).
Not necessarily more sophisticated words but by someone with a bit
more influence. Reid Lyon is a well-known researcher in reading
education and was second (I believe) in command of the US Department
of Education at the time:
Rigorous Evidence:
The Key to Progress in Education?
Lessons from Medicine, Welfare and Other Fields
November 18, 2002, P, 84 of the forum transcript:
"You know, if there was any piece of legislation that I could
pass, it would be to blow up colleges of education."
>Obviously, there will be other responses, but I wish to observe that
>the above 'solutions' will not help resolve the problem at all, as
>they are just too simplistic a way of dealing with a complex issue:
>they are the equivalent, in US terms, of what the Taliban in
>Pakistan have just done: stoned a young woman to death for being
>seen in public with some male who was not her husband.
>
>May I suggest that a practical way out would be to
>- -- seek the inputs of ALL stakeholders in the issue (students;
>teachers; parents; school administrators; politicians; and even the
>'Educational Mafia' if there actually exists such a category of
>stakeholders in education);
>- -- record those inputs;
>- -- then, from those inputs, to develop effective Action Planning
>to help improve the educational systems (particularly in math and
>science where I believe the situation of 'after-school tutoring' is
>most severe.
>
>I observe that I've at this forum told the story of a freshman
>college student who came to me with the problem of never having
>gotten above 45% in math right through his school career and he was
>repeating the same woeful performance in college. He worked, using
>a process I call the 'One Page Management System' (OPMS) on the
>following Mission he chose (with some very little guidance from me):
>"To understand thoroughly all the topics of my math syllabus and
>THEREBY to do significantly better in my math exams, tests and
>quizzes". I particularly observe that I gave him NO math tuition at
>all - I just showed him how to develop the needed representations of
>his own 'mental models' about his math and his situation vis-a-vis
>his math, and suggested what he should do at each stage of
>development of his OPMS.
>
>In just about 8 months' time (after I had initially spent about 1
>hour a day with him for about 30 days), he wrote to me to inform me
>that he was now consistently getting well over 75% in all his math
>exams etc. It is useful to note that he took NO after-school math
>tuition at all from any teachers or tuition courses such as KUMON,
>etc - he got whatever help he needed from his peers and from his
>school teachers (no tuition).
>
>To those of us who believe 1) or 2) provides the right solution,
>may I suggest that the ingestion of some of the shrimp so
>assiduously been purchased may help - but only in the VERY long
>term? As short-term solutions, those ideas will simply not work.
>
>GSC
>("Why Am I Not Surprised?")
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