🚀 go-pugleaf

Excerpts from Donald Simanek's very interesting message:

> Subject:        Synthesis and transference of ideas.

> A private message got me thinking about two of the goals of learning: To
> develop the ability to synthesize ideas, and to transfer ideas from
> one subject to another, and use them effectively.
>
> One change I've noticed in college students in the last thirty years (it
> does date me!) is that student achievement in these areas has declined
> catastrophically.
>
> It seems that anymore *nothing has transference*. Students finish a
> topic or an experiment and mentally close the book on it, thinking it
> will never come up again.....

> A related concern: Students have been so used to labs where they followed
> "cook-book" instructions, and filled in "pre-formated data sheets" that
> they have no ability to *make an experiment* from scratch.

As a teacher of what our administration claims are members of the top
ten percent of the nation's high school students I couldn't agree
more.  While I can't claim to have a definitve answer I suspect that
there have been a combination of factors, TV and the gradual
decline of parenthood not the least of which, that have added up to a
loss of the most basic skills:  namely, memory, a certain general
sense of rigor,  and most importantly attention and confidence.
Our responses to the problem seem to me to miss the point.  For
example, the widely trumpeted solution to students' difficulty with
transference,  "make things interdisciplinary" doesn't address the
root of the problem at all.  Similarly, increased use of educational
technology, also heralded as a solution, misses the point, and even
can exacerbate things as it often tends to weaken memory and
attention.

Perhaps others can add to this - in any event it seems to me that we
are faced with a terrible conundrum:  we are materially better off
than ever (just about), our schools often have fine facilities, our
teachers are as good or better than they've ever been, new
educational ideas and techniques abound, and yet our average students
get weaker year by year.

Gary Hemminger
The Dwight-Englewood School
315 E. Palisade Ave.
Englewood, NJ 07631

e-mail:  HEMMIG@D-E.PVT.K12.NJ.US