Comments on: “Traditional education is obsolete” At Philadelphia High-Tech School

By: John

John — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 06:15:49 +0000

It’s all about adopting the modern methods of learning to teach students with a bright and more techonological impartation of knowledge. I bet you, you can’t do this all usiung conventional methods of teaching.

By: Diane S

Diane S — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:14:16 +0000

To the poster from 9th grade.

Something about your school is working right if you can write such a well worded and coherant response!

By: Smith

Smith — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:22:03 +0000

Educating our young, at least through high school, doesn’t require computers. It really boils down to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Any high school graduate that can read at a 12th grade level, has good writing skills (handwriting and grammar), and understands mathematics (algebra and trig) can adapt to any situation he or she will find in the work force or in college. Throw in history, geography, and a bit of music/art and that graduate is ready to take on the world.

Computers? Kids pick that up through osmosis. What is a high school going to teach a freshman about computers that won’t be obsolete by the time he reaches college? What value is there in teaching someone how to input data into a canned program? I’ve seen too many of my cohorts conduct ANOVA calculations using Statistica without any understanding of the null hypothesis, whether their data satisfies the underlying assumptions for the test, or even what they are trying to show. When I question them on it, the typical response is, “Well the cookbook tells me I have to do this for the report.”

By: bilzebub

bilzebub — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:00:46 +0000

I’m a teacher in Ontario, and while I agree in principle with the comment about knee-jerk debates that ignore peer-reviewed research, there are two problems that remain even if you do look to the research first.
(1) perhaps I’m guilty of generalizing from insufficient data (not quite ‘n of one’ but…) I’m sorry, MEds and PHDs in education are largely bogus – sure, there are some good people doing good work, but there just isn’t a lot of intellectual rigor there, for the most part. Those of you in the academy know what I am talking about. When I went to teacher’s college (at the ‘best’ Canadian school) after grad school, I couldn’t believe that the profs there actually had BAs, let alone doctorates
(2) Administators and education ministry bureaucrats will ALWAYS take any relevant research and EFF it up. Their primary goal is their own career advancement, and if you think that ‘unionized teachers’ are a problem, just go and talk to any Board of Education administator. From principals on up nowadays, they are concerned with nothing but massaging public perception, and making sure that ‘objective outcomes based testing’ scores always go up, by making those tests easier and easier (just last year, principals in our board (who no longer have ANY personal lattitude but are merely yes-men conduits for top-down provincial government edicts) informed teachers that 90% of their students WILL pass all courses… OR ELSE – and that is but one example).

So, good luck to microsoft, I say, but don’t hold your breath awaiting a huge turnaround in education. The only thing that would help a little, as in most industries, is to encourage trust and initiative in front-line staff. Yup, try trusting teachers to care and respond to the needs of students in front of them for a change maybe (never gonna happen).

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:17:07 +0000

If My child wishes to learn programming, I DONT WANT,
MS to program THEM for MS….

I want someone that has INDEPTH knowledge, NOT something to foster the progress of MS….
I want them to know ALL the languages, ALL the programming…Machine, chip, and OS programming…..

I DONT WNAT A CLONE….

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:15:04 +0000

Can I make a point in here, probably not, BUT…

By 6th GRADE…
I wish my child to be Learning something 1/2 time… ANYTHING, and maybe ALL…
HOW things work, how things DONT WORK…Basic Understandings, that DONT DO TIS, and DONT DO THAT…

By 12th grade I want him In AT LEAST 3/4 tech schooling AT LEAST…. LEARNING WHY, ALGERBRA is needed, what geometry is needed, why you need to work….

I WANT, the idea that you can go to SUMMER school and GET AHEAD… not learn behind….

By: Nirendra

Nirendra — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:04:52 +0000

16: You are right about handwriting. My job requires me to use a computer for at least 7 hours a day, and it has resulted in atrophy of my writing capability. I actually found it hard to write one full page!! My hand ached!! I now make a point to write as much as I can out of work, so that I can at least regain my old level of skill (not that high a level, but…)

18: Good points. I also feel that people were brainier before computers. If computers are used to take over some tasks that are too burdensome for us, then we should naturally move on to other tasks to replace the ones taken over. We have not done that, content rather to do less work, and so reduce our brain activity. That’s my theory, anyway.

Music seems to slowly be on its way out these days. That’s a real shame, because it stimulates the creative parts of the brain and helps pupils relax and become more attentive.

By: NONAME

NONAME — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:38:08 +0000

This whole education debate really defies logic in my mind.

My impression is that people seem to be getting dumber as we become more computerized.

One example: How many clerks do you know who can give you change back with out a digital register/computer telling them? This used to be a no brainier for any cashier not too many years ago.

Before steam engines, people where brawnier. Now society has all kinds of mechanical aids, people have to pay for GYM memberships to stay in shape.

I contend before computers, people where brainier. Now that society has all kinds of computational aids and TV, schools should require a rigorous understanding using pensile and paper to solve problems before they use computers to think for them.

It seems to me there is a strong correlation between the number of Masters and PHD in education teaching elementary up to high school, (more then ever in history) the more failing students we have (more then ever in history) Yet, in college in beyond there are virtually no education PHD or Masters teaching glasses, all professors are PHDs in their respective fields and have no clue about proper teaching, yet our universities are highly respected around the world. Why is that?

I contend if we had more math, music, English, science PHD teaching elementary and high school we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in.

By: rofl

rofl — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:47:44 +0000

does the “enviromnetally friendly” buuilding still have metal detectors and police on-staff?

By: John S

John S — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:38:39 +0000

““How do I solve this problem without a computer?” is a realistic question, but not one M$ wants you to know the answer to.”. Once again an excellent point from Mr. Hill. The calculator has already caused many of us to defer to technology when we need to figure something out. I am embarrassed by the math that I feel I need to use a calculator to do. I have to force myself to trust that I can figure out simple math equations in my head. There are still times when you a)do not have a calc/computer at hand b)can simply do the math faster than entering it into a calc/computer.

This leads to my next question. Sure you can argue that solving math with a calc/computer is sensible, but what about writing skills. Handwriting was not something that was focused on when I went to school. How well will those who grow up using computers to write be able to write. I am aware that many people communicate almost entirely with computer created texts, yet I also know that there are many areas where good handwriting skills are still essential. If you have scene enough job postings you will see many that require a sample of your handwriting. Many of these are high paying professional positions.

I am all for technology, I am using a computer to communicate right now after all. I do not, however, think that technology is a magic pill that will take the place of time and patience.

John

By: Mr. H. Fusion

Mr. H. Fusion — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:47:35 +0000

#8, I’m going with gq (#7) on this. While you ask a good question, I would teach any student of mine how to solve it quite differently from what you think. In fact, you would probably mark my answer as incorrect while I would mark your answer as wrong.

There is this thing called relevancy, and in this case the relevancy is the number of significant digits. Seldom is more then three significant digits necessary and more then four would require strong evidence of the relevancy. If the student understands how to solve to three significant digits, then they would also know how to solve it to nine.

By: Shane L.

Shane L. — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:40:03 +0000

I am in 9th grade. We have a small school (40-45 kids per grade). Our school has been cutting teachers and classes all to much. We have only a fraction of the electives of a school with more kids would have. Some of the big cuts have gone to computer courses and other advanced classes. Our school in an attempt to be more “technological” keeps adding useless things like tvs all over the schools displaying pointless announcements that we here on the intercome daily anyway. And installing new grading software that none of the teachers know how to use so they can’t even tell us our grades… They should be using this money for classes not crap…

We need tech in our schools to prepare for the future but the way teachers teach now needs to stay too. You need to have a diverse array of skills. But computer sci. and shop classes are always the first to go because of lack of funding, they just cost alot more to keep going with all of the supplies needed.

So this new “School of the Future” is never going to be the future. There is just no way to fund all of that stuff. When Schools like mine can bairly keep the sports programs running the kids just ditch to little christian schools and bigger cities to get an ed. worth talking about.

-Shane

By: pseudolus

pseudolus — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:02:28 +0000

I see zero chance of this expanding to any appreciable fraction of school districts. The government and business DO NOT WANT critical thinkers in any quantity. A steady stream of consumers and worker/service drones is what they need to maintain society as we know it. Easily manipulated civilians are the bedrock of both of these factions of the coming theofascist empire.

By: Mike Novick

Mike Novick — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:07:51 +0000

We always hear about these novel teaching methods, but then the schools end up worse. The only reason this school will do well is becauser they have the money to afford good teachers and administrators who can overwhelm the bad teaching methods they use. This is not something that scales to all schools. Who catres if the methods are tired and boring? What matters is if they work well. By the logic of the article, this Microsoft school needs to be torn down in 20-40 years and a new one needsd to built with brand new teaching methods because the MS way will have become tired and boring.

By: Mike Drips

Mike Drips — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:58:47 +0000

Just as an aside, Bill Gates never attended public school one day of his life. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Bill’s formative years were spent entirely in private schools.