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Speaking as a former TA who ran college classrooms for a while... Classroom management rides the line between order and chaos. You don't want students constant
by pnathan 15y ago
Speaking as a former TA who ran college classrooms for a while...
Classroom management rides the line between order and chaos. You don't want students constantly interrupting, but you don't want them to be silent. Assignment grading is rife with judgement calls - what qualifies as 'correct' work? Some students feel incredibly entitled and challenge any slighting (ie., getting downgraded for being wrong). In these conditions, it's easy to see how rolling out a pigeon hole system becomes the solution to the challenge.
So Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students is a bit of an unsubtle title, full of false dichotomies and ignorant of nuance.
- Maro 15y agoI attended German, Hungarian and US schools in K-12. In my experience, the US system is the weakest form of education and all the touchy-feely liberalism just results in a crappy education. I knew guys who were taking some idiot version of algebra in 11th grade, homework was doing multiplication on a calculator? but you don't want them to be silent Yes you do, most of the time. what qualifies as 'correct' work? Most of the time it's pretty obvious. Btw. I agree with the OP.
- mahyarm 15y agoIn non hard subjects, the 'correct' answer often crosses into opinion.
- absconditus 15y agoOpinions can be well-supported or completely unfounded.
- ahoyhere 15y agoAlso in "hard" subjects, it's a matter of interpretation. Such as, real science. Such as interpreting the results of a finding. There are very few things in life where there is a true, platonic right answer and everything else is wrong. "For large values of 2."
- lazerwalker 15y agoThis is true. However, it's still not that difficult to grade for "well-done" work in subjective areas. Whether the thesis of a literary analysis paper is "correct" may be opinion, for example, but it's definitely possible to grade fairly based on a rubric of "did the student defend their thesis in a clear, organized manner, properly using appropriate citations from the text" (after filtering out theses that are completely inane or insane).
- _delirium 15y agoI guess I tend to have the opposite view, that the European systems tend to focus on drilling facts and highly regimented exam- and track-based advancement structures, while the U.S. system produces more creative students and more flexibility (and more entrepreneurs and inventions). But then neither of us are citing data. =] edit: Though I suppose "European" probably needs to be further qualified, because my understanding is that the Scandinavian systems are in many ways even more liberal than the American one, with a strong emphasis on students' autonomy to co-direct their own education.
- pnathan 15y agoNo, I do want my students to talk. Please do not tell me what I think. I want my students to move from being bumps on a log to engaging in the subject, ie, becoming fluent in it. Also, I hold the expectation that mere facts are dealt with out of the classroom - class is about moving into interpretation and analysis, which does not always have obvious solutions.
- scott_s 15y agoI was a TA for several years as a grad student, and was the sole instructor for an introductory programming class. I constantly asked my class questions - I did not want them to be silent. If your just march on through material without getting feedback from the class, you have no idea if anything is sticking.
- TechNewb 15y agoTTT, Teacher Talking Time, something that should be minimized in most classrooms. I taught English to non-native speakers for a year, and did my best to minimize talking time, and to increase creative opportunities through games, strategies, team work, and entertainment. Of course in a conversational English class, minimizing TTT is extremely important. But I would say even in most other classes, teachers just talk too much, and don't focus nearly enough on properly engaging the students.