History of Memory

Amazing article in the New York Times about memorizing vast amounts of material. In particular, I was fascinated to know that the Romans wrote a book about memorizing, back in the day when memorizing was an important skill since books were rare and labor-intensive.

Turn teaching up to 11

I read an article at the BBC about some twit who pointed out that it's useful to have a bad teacher at some point because it builds character. While true, not something that the chairman of the Office for Standards in Education (something British) should say out loud.

But far more important than the quality of children's education is what happens when you adjust the volume on the accompanying video. The sound range on this video is from 0 to 11. Yes, 11.

You can turn it up to 11. I suspect this is a basic feature, and any video on the BBC website can be turned up to 11. On half a dozen different clips, I found this to be the case.

Nerd v. Geek

The question of Nerds vs. Geeks continues, with a twist!

Sure, people have clever distinctions between nerds, dorks and geeks. But David Anderegg argues that these labels should become dirty words.

I don't think these terms are necessarily offensive, but I fit into the stereotype. Anderegg's point is that these labels perpetuate the stereotype of geek culture that keeps it a white male bastion, and excludes women and minorities. And he's right.

I was very glad in high school to have a computer room to hang out in and belong to. But we need to find ways to cultivate a wider array of people to develop computers. Because the contributions we're missing would make them better.

What do we learn from practicing?

Does constant texting and googling really make us dumber? Or is the moral panic about new technologies just another in a long line of unfounded fears, going all the way back to Plato's comments about how "writing" ruined kids' ability to remember stuff?

Stephen Pinker thinks we're going to be fine, that it's just a generational divide and that new tech isn't making us dumber. Amongst his evidence is that we keep making more cool new discoveries and inventions. And we keep training new scientists and inventors.

In fact, in this discussion of different opinions on the topic, someone points out that reading is unnatural. We evolved into our current state long before the Book was invented. Reading printed words is a very unnatural act, and if doing something regularly changes your brain, then reading little black squiggles on a white page utterly alters your brain from its natural hunter-gatherer preference.

I really like how Pinker slams on quick-fix "brain training" games and things. Like diet and exercise to lose weight, the way to become skilled in a field isn't complicated:

Accomplished people don’t bulk up their brains with intellectual calisthenics; they immerse themselves in their fields. Novelists read lots of novels, scientists read lots of science.

It isn't easy to devote years to learning a field, but it's not complicated.

If you want to be a teacher in New York, you now can get your teaching license from an alternative facility, and not have to go to a formal university for a full Master's degree.

Those who favor this change, including Obama's Secretary of Education as well as me, observe that many education schools are too heavy on theory and don't provide practical skills. Critics of the change argue that hegemonic mandates fail to account for cultural practices in communities of learners that facilitate individual constructions of knowledge.

Teachers selling out - or in?

The New York Times has an article about teachers selling lesson plans online and making some extra money doing it. One of the people they quote is shocked - SHOCKED! - that the great and noble art of education would be sullied by such dirty, dirty commerce.

I'm not nearly as offended. Teachers spend a lot of time at home, on evenings and weekends, coming up with lesson plans. They spend their own money taking continuing education classes and buying supplies. If new teachers are willing to pay for lesson plans instead of making their own, that seems a fine way to transfer generational wisdom to me.

If teachers are posting lesson plans during their contractual hours at school, or posting lesson plans they developed during their copious amounts of planning time on the clock, then that's not cool. But I doubt that's much of a problem.

College fail

I was surprised to find out that at a great many of our colleges and universities, about half the students fail to graduate. That's amazing.

At that rate, I think you can't just say that all those students earned those failures. While grade inflation is real, and we do need accountability for failure in our society, if half the students aren't graduating, something's wrong. You shouldn't be admitting those students in the first place.

But universities don't necessarily care about students' success - they care about their tuition checks. So admitting more students means more revenue. And, as the article I linked to points out, freshman lectures with hundreds of students are cheaper than upper level classes.

I knew our education system had problems. But I didn't know it was this bad in places.

Technology and Teaching

Southern Methodist University is removing computers from classrooms and telling professors to stop using Powerpoint.

The thing is, while I appreciate the effort of trying to make teaching more effective, a broad-based mandate like this doesn't address the true problem. The real solution is: don't be boring. You can use powerpoint to enhance a great presentation, and you can be boring as hell with no slides at all.

Yes, people often get sucked into the powerpoint template and giving bad presentations. But good teaching really comes down to charisma and enthusiasm, not any particular tool.

Manual Labor

There's an essay about working with your hands in the New York Times. It's awesome. Not only does he extol the virtues of manual work, but he also makes a strong case about how our educational system is biased towards itself. All the educators went to university, and were taught by people who went to extra bonus university, and so the entire system is built around assuming that university is the best option for everyone all the time.

The fact is, there are a lot of people who don't need what college provides. They do need job training and skills. And our nation does need people who can read and write and do math well enough to not get cheated by credit card companies and car salesmen. But you don't need 4 years studying anthropology to do that.

I think that it's great that people who find studying anthropology inspiring can do that. But I think future plumbers are best served by a high school that equips them to be great plumbers, not prepares them well for the SAT.