Search All of the Math Forum:
Views expressed in these public forums are not endorsed by
Drexel University or The Math Forum.
|
|
|
|
Re: square roots and Lysenko - Oops
Posted:
Aug 9, 2000 10:15 AM
|
|
At 12:56 AM 8/9/00 -0400, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>Lysenko has much less to do with this than does B.F.
>Skinner. Behaviorism is a convenient shield to hide the lack of knowledge
>about the inner workings of the human mind, since such lack of knowledge
>is, in fact, the behaviorist creed. The fact that nearly 70 years of
>behaviorism have done unspeakable damage to psychology, in general, and
>education research, in particular, seems to escape the grasp of social
>engineers of your ilk.
To pretend an identification with Skinnerian psychology is cute red-herring but
nothing more. I was just as upset with calling someone with an advanced degree
in pigeon-feeding an expert in mathematics education as I currently am with
calling someone with an advanced degree in constructivist psychology an expert
in mathematics education. Off-beat religions have many forms so the negation*
of one is not its complement. In fact, the Lysenko analogy was equally
appropriate for Skinnerianism in education then as it is for constructivism in
education today. Both are different ways to avoid good, direct instruction by
knowledgeable teachers in an environment of academic competence with respect
for fellow students, teachers (not guides-on-the-side), and the disciplines
under consideration. That's what good schools meant then; that's what good
schools mean now.
Wayne.
* Pardon my sloppy logic. Negation *is* its complement, of course. Rejection
of one is not acceptance of some other.
|
|
|
|
