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I 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 r
by Maro 15y ago
I 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.