11. EDUCATION - YEAR 2012
11.1 The end of shop class
11.2 Story telling, should it precede the three Rs?
11.3 Why common engg entrance bothors IITs
11.4 Learning calculus at the age of six
11.5 Divided House - IIT alumni
11.6 Harvard Business School Mumbo Jumbo
11.7 The problem of different boards
11.8 Messing up education
11.9 HRD's Plan to Launch Education Channels Hits Roadblock
11.10 Marketing principles / Engineering education
11.11 IIT-JEE format a boon for coaching schools
11.12 The IITs were formed to produce world-class engineers and scientists.
11.13 Education Is Too Vital to Be Left to Educators
11.14 Can this be true?
11.15 Anyone worried about what’s wrong with our education?
11.16 Do Romanian schools produce idiots :-)
11.17 Little knowledge is a dangerous thing
11.18 Issac Asimov's travails in academia (extracts from his autobiography)
11.19 Why Finland's Unorthodox Education System Is The Best In The World
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11.1 The end of shop class (9/2/2012)
THE END OF SHOP CLASS
The retirement of the Baby Boomers, aged 48 to 66, who started working in factories in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, is accelerating the problem. They grew up in a world where children amused themselves by building go-carts and tree houses, rather than by playing video games and texting friends.
As U.S. manufacturers cut their headcount by 40 percent over the past three decades to the industry's current 12 million workers, they created a supply of experienced yet unemployed or underemployed people who could step into vacant factory jobs. But those people are now reaching retirement age.
One reason the experienced Baby Boom manufacturing workers will be so hard to replace is that the high school shop classes where many of them learned their skills were phased out in the 1980s and 1990s, said Emily DeRocco, president of the Manufacturing Institute, the educational arm of the National Association of Manufacturers.
"We have very falsely silo-ed education and workforce training, resulting in ... an educational system that really doesn't care about the ability to get a good job," said DeRocco, who served as assistant secretary of labor and employment in the administration of President George W. Bush.
The shop classes where generations of Americans learned to make birdhouses and other simple projects were eliminated as educators focused more on learning to use computers than hand tools. Today, manufacturers are trying to swing the pendulum back part way -- teaching students to use computer-controlled motors to power a simple machine in a high school class offers some preparation for running a high-speed production line.
11.2 Story telling, should it precede the three Rs? (1/4/2012)
On weekends I make trips too and fro between Nagercoil and Trivandrum, a distance of 70 Km, by a lumbering passenger train. For the two hour trip (four hours up and down) I usually purchase two business magazines: wish I could find something better to read, something which tells us how our many looming problems will be solved; for the moment business magazines provide the best pointer to where the action is - alas! I also read novels (life would lose half the fun without novels :-)
What disturbs me is that, I seem to be the only person in the train reading anything; there are a lot of office goers in the train and on the return trip I find many youngsters, probably studying in the mushrooming engineering colleges, mostly fiddling with their cell phones. I do not wish that everyone should turn into bookworms, yet, would it not say much for our educational system if at least 10% of the passengers were reading something. Are we living in such a boring world that there is nothing new to wonder about?
Why is it that a child, who learns so much on his own by the age of three, find his education literally coming to a grinding halt when he joins school. The problem could be, we are trying to educate our children without providing a context in which learning can take place. And our modern day Gurus, telling us that we need to educate ourselves so that we can compete effectively in the market place enthuses neither the teacher nor the student.
My suggestion is that we introducing extensive story telling as the first step to formal education. Story telling should also form the medium through the three Rs are taught. Stories can be of the following kind: religious, cultural, the story of the world we live in - past, present and future - funny stories, biographies, etc.. Obviously, the stories should be different for children having different backgrounds.
To summarise:
- Language (which a child naturally learns)
- Story telling in this language.
- Learning of the three Rs based on stories.
Selvaraj
11.3 Why common engg entrance bothers IITs (26/5/2012)
A major problem with the educational system in India at present is the
competition between CBSE, ISC, and State Boards, to award higher marks
to their students. This converts education into a 'mugfest' with
students routinely scoring above 95% marks.
Solving this problem is very easy: does not involve spending 1000s of crores of rupees.
1.
Make the examinations sufficiently tough so that few score above 80% .
(Since there is great political pressure for children to perform well,
the exams may be made sufficiently easy so that most students are able
to score 50% marks).
2. Shift to grading system in all classes, do not disclose actual marks:
S ... above 90 ?
A+ ... 71 to 90 ?
A ... 60 to 70 ?
Advantages with grading system:
1. Parents will not be after their child asking why
he scored 81 while Ashok down the road scored 81.5. In short, it will
prevent mayhem in families.
2. Parents will be more relaxed, they may even encourage their wards to engage in extracurricular activities.
3. Parents will feel less pressure to send their wards for tuition, starting from class 1.
4. Teachers will begin to relax and make their teaching more interesting.
Selvaraj.
......
Why common engg entrance bothers IITs
The
HRD Ministry’s ambitious proposal to replace multiple engineering entrance
examinations including IIT-JEE with a single, common entrance in 2013, with
weightage given to school board scores, has become a subject of debate not only
between the IITs and the government but also within the IITs.
The
directors of the 15 IITs are largely in agreement with the idea of the common
entrance exam and percentile-based normalisation of scores across school boards.
Faculty federations and senates in most IITs, however, are against it. Only one
IIT — Guwahati — has unanimously endorsed the proposal. And the senates have
near-vetoed the introduction of the common entrance test in 2013.
Ahead
of an IIT Council meeting next week, here are the proposal’s varied aspects and
the areas of conflict.
The
test
Initially
called the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test, the Common Entrance Test
has been proposed from 2013, replacing the AIEEE and the JEE. Under the
proposal, the exam would be of two parts, Main and Advance, each of three hours.
Main, which would be objective type, would test students for comprehension,
critical thinking and logical reasoning, while Advance would test their
problem-solving abilities in the basic science subjects.
A
minimum of 40 per cent weightage to Class XII board exam scores has been
proposed to determine admission; each state government or institute would be
able to decide the specific weight it gives to board, Main and Advance scores. A
committee headed by Dr T Ramasami, secretary in the Department of Science &
Technology, has demonstrated with the help of the Indian Statistical Institute
that school scores across various boards can be normalised through a statistical
process.
For
The
HRD Ministry and supporters of this proposal including IIT directors point out
that students coming into the IIT system through JEE are now no longer as
exceptional and talented as before. Pointing fingers at the coaching lobby, they
say students clearing JEE are doing so on the basis of rote learning and with
little “raw intelligence”.
This,
they argue, is also because students are so focused on their coaching classes
that they neglect their school lessons. With a new common entrance exam, they
argue, not only will the stress of appearing in multiple entrance exam disappear
but school-level teaching and learning will also get back its due attention and,
consequently, bring in students with a well-rounded intellect into the IIT
system.
Against
The
IIT senates across institutes are not convinced that scores across several state
boards can be normalised effectively by the statistical methods cited. They
refuse to accept the 40 per cent weightage given to school boards.
The
senates have instead proposed that the JEE/common entrance exam be converted to
a two-stage exam: Main should be used to screen applicants for those who should
appear for the JEE test to seek admission into IITs. This JEE test and its
nature, they say, must be the sole prerogative of the Joint Admission Board,
provided the number of students screened to appear for JEE is small enough. A
subjective format should be followed for it, they have insisted.
IITs’
take
Normalisation
of board scores: Normalisation using percentile approach should be researched
further with data available for other boards and 2012 results of all boards.
On
40% weightage: Percentile marks should be used as an eligibility criterion or
admission to IITs should be strictly based on JEE. JEE, in turn, should be as
decided by JAB. Board marks in percentile form may be used as an eligibility
criteria along with the Main paper marks of a common national test.
Main:
IITs would like to use the Main results as a screening criterion. However, this
process may begin from 2014 and not 2013.
Advance:
No, IITs should have their own JEE paper. This paper may be subjective in
nature. Eligibility for JEE should be restricted based on Board marks in
percentile form and Main marks.
11.4 Learning calculus at the age of six (27/5/2012)
Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance,
The (London) Sunday Times reported.
The Indian-born teen said he solved the problem that had stumped mathematicians for centuries while working on a school project.
.. Mr Ray's family moved to Germany when he was 12 after his engineer
father got a job at a technical college. He said his father instilled in
him a "hunger for mathematics" and taught him calculus at the age of
six.
Read more:
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/german-teen-shouryya-ray-solves-300-year-old-mathematical-riddle-posed-by-sir-isaac-newton/story-e6frfkui-1226368490521#ixzz1w3wzZEMH
11.5 Divided House - IIT alumni (7/6/2012)
Divided House
THE IIT alumni are quite offended at
the idea of changing the entrance exams for the IITs. A few alumni associations
have decided to petition the courts against the move to introduce a common
entrance examination for all the engineering colleges. However, they are
finding themselves up against another set of IIT alumni, serving within the
government, who happen to be pushing for the introduction of the new system.
One of them is V Umashankar — private secretary to HRD Minister Kapil
Sibal — a Haryana cadre IAS officer who has an IIT background. CBSE
chairman Vineet Joshi is another. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Joshi is a
supporter of the move to give weightage to school marks in IIT entrance.
However, there is one whose heart lies on the other side of the fence. Apurva
Chandra, a joint secretary in the HRD Ministry, is BTech and MTech from IIT
Delhi and is no fan of the new entrance format. At a recent meeting of school
boards, Chandra is learnt to have expressed his doubts over the move to give
weightage to school marks but apparently has been won over by Joshi’s
arguments.
-------------
The main question is one of autonomy. Are the IITs autonomous or are they not autonomous?
The
best way to ruin an institution is to take away its decision making
powers; people who do not take decisions for themselves will pass on the
buck for nonperformance to others. This applies to all institutions,
let alone the IITs which we are given to understand already have a high
degree of autonomy build into their management structure.
Selvaraj
11.6 Harvard Business School Mumbo Jumbo (23/6/2012)
Come on, guys! This isn’t what your parents thought you’d do with your expensive education. Find something real.
Solve the euro crisis. Eliminate insider trading. Do a study on whether recycling plastic bottles is worth the effort.
Anything but conventional wisdom fraudulently misrepresented as new and profound knowledge.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/06/20/harvard-b-school-mumbo-jumbo/?ss=strategies-solutions
11.7 The problem of different boards (29/6/2012)
In
deciding on a common all India engineering exam it is worth keeping in
mind that the syllabi, the structure of text books and teaching and
learning methodology vary greatly from board to board. If you wish to
get through AIEEE, it is advantageous to have studied in CBSE, because
CBSE teachers probably set the AIEEE exams. If you have studied in ISC,
or studied in a state board, AIEEE may not be straight sailing for you.
You may think that an ISC or CBSE student could easily write the
Tamil Nadu state exam. Not so. You would need to know the Tamil Nadu
approved text books practically verbatim (a feat for students who are
not used to rote learning). In fact an ISC or CBSE student attempting
this adventure would not score that high in the Tamil Nadu exam.
Now, with the common All India Exam, to be set by CBSE, we are
simply handing over the advantage to the CBSE board and the CBSE
students.
As the matter presently stands:
* AIEEE is biased towards CBSE.
* IIT - JEE may not be biased towards any particular syllabi.
* The state boards have their own individual biases that cannot be easily cracked by CBSE and ISC students.
Unless
an attempt is made to make all the systems uniform, which is not easy
to do, considering that ISC provides good English Language and English
comprehension skills, CBSE where English Language skills are less honed,
and the state boards that have their own agenda, it is pointless to
have a common all India exam.
So far as IITs are concerned, my feeling is, if two exams are
required, both should be controlled by the IIT system. Handing over one
exam to the CBSE system impinges on the autonomy of the IITs.
With
the entry of private players and overseas institutions; and the plain
jealousy of all, there is a move to cut IITs down to size :-)
Selvaraj
P.S. It is irritating to use the word syllabi (why not use syllabus as both singular as well as plural forms?)
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/51809-syllabus-vs-syllabi.html
11.8 Messing up education (30/6/2012)
Rather than looking into the fundamentals of schooling the ministry is
trying to use an entrance examination as a means of improving the
standard of schools.
http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article554532.ece
11.9 HRD's Plan to Launch Education Channels Hits Roadblock (1/7/2012)
An ambitious plan of the HRD Ministry to launch 1,000 educational
television channels has hit a roadblock after it failed to get the
required permission from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
The
HRD Ministry had first initiated steps to launch 50 round-the-clock
channels and had approached the I&B Ministry for permission for
uplinking and downlinking the channels.
11.10 Marketing principles / Engineering education (8/7/2012)
IGNOU offers distance learning courses in management that are structured to meet the needs of various aspirants
http://www.ignou.ac.in/upload/management-2011-12.pdf.
If you study and pass exams in 32 subjects you obtain a MBA. Studying
five subjects you obtain a Diploma; with eleven, you obtain a Post
Graduate Diploma in Management.
When I took this course in the later half of the 90s, I was
particularly interested in the mysteries of Marketing; at that time this
course was offered at the PGDM level, so I signed up for this course. (
I ended up passing in seven subjects and obtained a Diploma, five
subjects short of PGDM; by which time I had lost interest )
My main objective of probing the mysteries of Marketing was however met. Marketing is organised around the 4P principle.
Product
Price
Promotion
Place
In designing a product there is also an important concept of product differentiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_differentiation
In
economics and
marketing,
product differentiation (also known simply as "
differentiation") is the process of distinguishing a
product or offering from others, to make it more attractive to a particular
target market. This involves differentiating it from
competitors' products as well as a firm's own product offerings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_differentiation
How smart GOI is in understanding such issues is highlighted in the study material sent to me by IGNOU:
Birth Control; criticism levelled by Nathaniel Martin:
"Selling
birth control is as much a marketing job as selling any other consumer
product. And where no manufacturer would contemplate developing and
introducing a new product without a thorough understanding of the
variables of the market, planners in the highest circles of Indian
Government have blindly gone ahead without understanding that marketing
principles must determine the character of any campaign of voluntary
control. The Indians have done only the poorest research. They have
mismanaged the distribution of contraceptive devices. They have ignored
the importance of 'customer service'. they have proceeded with grossly
inadequate undertrained staff, they have been blind to the importance of
promotion and advertising."
Now, on the issue of the future of the IITs, we see a similar
lack of thought and analysis. Is there no product differentiation
between the IITs, NITs and the state run engineering colleges? Are the
NITs funded to the same level as the IITs are? If the IITs are so low in
standard as many claim, why start so many new IITs?
As I see it there is considerable product differentiation between
the IITs, NITs and the state run colleges. Had the central government
understood this product differentiation, they would not have rushed to
start more IITs, probably they would have invested money in starting
additional NITs. I don't know how GOI visualises the role of IITs, other
than being milch cows for their political ambitions :-) My views would
be as follows:
IITs - more heavily funded, to provide leadership in engineering
education. Students should have wider knowledge of the engineering
discipline as a whole. More mathematical orientation required etc.
NITs - focus more on turning out practical engineers.
State run engineering colleges - No one stops them from aiming for
the above objectives, but of late we find the state governments diluting
standards to focus on social inclusion, which is a commendable
objective in itself.
It is undesirable and uneconomical however to attempt to make
Einsteins out of everyone. We need a few Einsteins, who from their high
pedestals can pull the others up. Trying to cut all the grass to the
same height however is a self-defeating policy.
(The IITs and the NITs may not be meeting the above stated
objectives. Then we should focus on solving the shortcomings; cutting
all the grass to the same height is not the solution to the problem).
.....
I would strongly recommend PGDM from IGNOU for all government functionaries!
Incidentally,
you need fairly good grasp of English to understand the study material
sent by IGNOU. Since our educational system trashes any attempt to learn
a language properly, I wonder about the future of education in India.
I had a quick glance at 'The Chennai Declaration'
http://www.samacheerkalvi.in/pdf/Chennai_Declaration_Pre-final_01July2012.pdf, posted by Dr. V.N.Shrma. The emphasis put on education in the mother tongue is commendable. We may however keep in mind that:
1. A language is incomplete without its literature.
2. It is
important for an educated individual to have good command of at least
one language (increasingly, I am given to understand, students have poor
command of their mother tongue, as well as English)
3. It is important, if we are encouraging local languages, to translate be best of world literature into these languages.
4. To be truely inclusive at least some institutions of higher learning should impart instruction in the local languages.
5. Is it so difficult to make everyone proficient in a local language
and in English. In pre-independent India, educated people seem to have
had good command of two languages.
Selvaraj
11.11 IIT-JEE format a boon for coaching schools (8/7/2012)
The idea of the Ministry of Human
Resource Development (MHRD) to tweak the joint entrance examination (JEE) to
discourage the coaching culture has done exactly the opposite so far.
Coaching institutes Business Standard spoke to
said, with the MHRD insisting on inclusion of board marks as an eligibility
criterion for admission to the IITs, admission to their programmes has gone up,
and, in some cases, more than doubled. “After Board examinations have been made
a part of the admission procedure at IITs, enrolments for this year have more
than doubled. There are about 1,200 students enrolled (for the 2014 exams),
compared to 575 students last year. Further, the level of examination will get
difficult now as CBSE will set the JEE Main paper. Students and parents have understood that it will be difficult to get
into the premier institutes without formal coaching," said Chandan
Dikshit, planning and strategy head at Rao IIT Academy, an IIT-JEE
coaching institute. JEE is the qualifying examination for admission to
the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
http://business-standard.com/india/news/iit-jee-formatboon-for-coaching-schools/479398/
11.12 The IITs were formed to produce world-class engineers and scientists (15/7/2012)
Engineering seems to be one of the few fields where
there is no compulsory internship like in medicine, law and CA. This is
one of the reasons why students may not be fully aware of the beauty and
possibilities of engineering.
Engineering is also a
field which is like a joker in a pack of cards. The graduates fit into
any career! Naturally, the student will graduate into a more
lucrative/easier career. Would a barrier to this help in getting
committed students?
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article3640215.ece
11.13 Education Is Too Vital to Be Left to Educators (19/7/2012)
Time Magazine in May ran an article entitled, “Learning that Works.”
Basically it speaks about how a vibrant vocational education program can
be an “alternative way to teach math, science and reading.” Vocational
education basically went away 40 years ago because it became a civil
rights issue. The education community’s theology was “That every child
should go to college.” We have found out the establishment didn’t know
what it was talking about. They conned students into taking courses
which produced no real education and cost thousands of dollars.
Today Vo-Tech and community colleges are teaching subjects students
enjoy and can earn a living from. Examples would be a dental hygienist
at $68,300, radiology technician at $54,300 and registered nurse at
$64,700, according to the Time story. Reforms are coming because they
must. We have left perhaps the most important task in America to people
who haven’t delivered.
http://www.tulsabeacon.com/?p=6110
11.14 Can this be true? (3/8//2012)
Experts estimate that an
Indian Class VIII student is at the same level as a South Korean Class
III student in math abilities or a Class II student from Shanghai when
it comes to reading skills. Elementary education is a fundamental right
in India, but clearly that says nothing about what our children are
studying in school every day.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/India-backs-out-of-global-education-test-for-15-year-olds/articleshow/15332715.cms
.....................
I think our nation needs to know more. How
were these students selected? From which schools? Were children from
village schools in India pitted against students from elite schools in
other countries? Our media needs to report in a more comprehensive way.
Selvaraj
11.15 Anyone worried about what's wrong with our education? (5/8/2012)
11.16 Do Romanian schools produce idiots :-) (7/8/2012)
While the state-funded system is facing financial problems, some private
universities in Romania are making a huge profit. Also known as
“diploma factories”, these institutions are enrolling a large number of
students each year. The quality of education in these private
establishments is usually even lower than in the state system. Many of
their graduates end up unemployed.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/08/education-romania
11.17 Little knowledge is a dangerous thing (22/8/2012)
I have just started to read the famous science fiction
writer, Issac Asimov’s autobiography. This is what Asimov has to say on
Literacy: “The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters were
forced to be literate. True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation
is steadily ‘dumbing down.’”
Asimov on his school experience: “Once I could read, and
as my ability to read improved rapidly, there turned out to be a serious
problem. I had nothing to read. My schoolbooks lasted me only a few days, I
finished every one of them in the course of the first week of the term and
thereafter was educated for that half year. The teacher had very little to tell
me.”
……………
Issac Asimov’s life experience has got me wondering. Do
modern humans know enough to safely drive forward a complex civilisation
without going over the cliff? What kind of intelligence and knowledge does our
society need? How should we educate our children to meet this need? This is
what I visualise for our nation of more than a billion people:
1000 – The number of persons we need of the caliber who
could win Nobel Prizes. It is quite possible we may already have 100 such
people (they may not however be getting the required opportunity to shine).
Since they will probably be super specialists, we cannot however hand over the reins
of the Nation to them (sigh)!?
10000 – The number
of people we need with very wide ranging knowledge. We would expect these
people to be widely read, well informed and capable of true interdisciplinary
thinking. We would expect such individuals to naturally (not by passing competitive
exams), take over the reins of leadership.
My fear is that our present educational system may be creating only a
handful of such people. It will be impossible for the regular school curriculum
to create such individuals because of the inherent inefficiency build into the
system, where teaching is more – of the teachers, by the teachers and for the
teachers :-)
Let us focus our interest in the second categorie of
individuals. Can we set up special schools where children are not taught in the
regular sense, but allowed to acquire knowledge (of diverse kind) at the speed
at which they are capable of acquiring it???
Selvaraj
11.18 Issac Asimov's travails in academia (extract from his autobiography) (7/9/2012)
1. WRITING PHD THESIS
... I was sitting at my desk, preparing the
materials for the day's experiments, and brooding over the approaching
necessity of writing a doctoral dissertation. A doctoral dissertation is
a highly stylized document, and ironclad rules necessitate that it be
written in a stiff and abnormal (even stupid) way. I did not want to
write in a stiff, abnormal, and stupid way.
It struck me, therefore, in a Puckish moment, to write a spoof of a
doctoral dissertation that would relieve my soul and enable me to
approach the real thing with more spirit.
As it happened, I was
working with tiny feathery crystals of a compound called catechol, which
was extremely soluble in water. As I dumped some of it into the water,
it dissolved the moment it hit the surface. I said to myself, "What if
it dissolves just a split second before it hits the surface. What then?"
The result was that I wrote a pseudo-dissertation written as
stodgily as I could manage about a compound which dissolved 1.12 seconds
before you added the water. I called it The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline.
I submitted it to Campbell, who enjoyed it and who had no
objection to running an occasional spoof article. I realized that it
would appear in the magazine at just about the time I would be taking my
make-or-break doctor's orals, and I was cautious enough to instruct
Campbell to run it under a pseudonym.
It appeared in the March 1948 ASF and Campbell forgot about the
pseudonym. There it was, Isaac Asimov plastered all over it, and, of
course, the entire Columbia University chemical faculty got wind of it
and passed it from hand to hand.
I turned really sick. I knew what would happen. Whatever I did at
the doctor's orals, they were going to turn me down on the grounds of
personality deficiency. All those years, all those years, and I was
going to lose out for the old, old crime of irreverence to my superiors.
But it did not work out that way. After the professors had put me
through the hell of a doctor's orals, Professor Ralph Halford asked the
last question: "Mr. Asimov, can you tell us something about the
thermodynamic properties of resublimated thiotimoline?"
I burst into hysterical laughter, because I knew they wouldn't play
games with me if they intended to flunk me, and they didn't. I passed,
and one by one they emerge from the testing room, shook my hand, and
said, "Congratulations, Dr. Asimov."
2. ISAAC ASIMOV WAS A POOR RESEARCHER BUT A SUPERLATIVE LECTURER.
As
my research continued to decline, my lectures continued to improve. By
the time my active period at the medical school was drawing to its end, I
was generally recognized as the best lecturer in the school. The
account reached me, in fact, of two faculty members talking in one of
the corridors. The distant sound of laughter and applause reached them,
and one said, "What's that?"
The other replied, "It's probably Asimov lecturing."
My utter
failure at research didn't bother me in the least, considering my
excellence in lecturing. I reasoned it out this way. The prime function
of a medical school is to teach medical students to be doctors and one
important way of doing this is through lectures. Not only was I capable
of informing and educating the class with my lectures but I roused
their enthusiasm as well.
The proof of that was their reaction to my lectures. It was
customary to applaud each professor at the conclusion of his final
lecture of the course. It was, of course, applause that was halfhearted
and perfunctory, the product of custom rather than of conviction. I
alone would get applause in mid-course lectures, and real applause too.
And while that took place, I felt invulnerable.
How wrong I was! I had left one factor out of my calculations.
Lecturing helps only the students. Research, on the other hand, means
government grants, and a portion of the grants is invariably marked for
"overhead," which goes to the school. What it amounts to is that the
school chooses research over lecturing every time - money for itself
over education for its students. That meant I was not invulnerable at
all, but rather a sitting duck once my research vanished altogether,
which it did.
You might argue that the school was correct in choosing itself over
the students, since if the school were forced to curtail its facilities
through lack of funds, the students would suffer. On the other hand,
surely one could strike a balance. A superior teacher might be forgiven
failure at research. That, however, as I shall explain later, was not to
be.
3. FIRED!
... One postscript - In the spring of 1989, I
traveled to Boston in order to participate in the sesquicentennial
celebration of Boston university. I gave one of my talks on the future
to a large audience of BU students, speaking with my customary elan, and
in the question-and-answer period, one of the students said, "We've
been hearing some very good speeches, Dr. Asimov, and since you are on
the BU faculty, why aren't you lecturing to us regularly?"
And I said, "Forty years ago I was placed on the faculty and I gave
lectures for nine years, about a hundred of them altogether, and they
were the best lectures the students ever had, but" - a short pause of
about two seconds to make sure they were listening - "I was fired."
(Since Asimov had tenure, he could not be fired from the faculty ...
but he stopped receiving his salary .. which did not bother him since
he had income from his books).
....................
If you
have read one of Isaac Asimov's non-fiction books you will realize what
is wrong with not only science education, but with education in
general.
Selvaraj
11.19 Why Finland's Unorthodox Education System Is The Best In The World (3/12/2012)
