[ExI] dead weight

[William Flynn Wallace]

I have no way of discussing a math program with you, but what Khan has
seems great to me as you describe it.  But do you think, say, philosophy
can be taught without teachers?

The ideal teaching of that and many other courses is face to face with the
teacher - one on one.  That way the teacher can assess the student's level
and start there, bringing in just the right philosopher for support of the
ideas or contrast.  This is the way I taught Personality.  If all I wanted
to do was for the students to regurgitate each theory's ideas, a teacher
would not have been necessary.  This is far from my idea of quality
teaching and learning.

Please know that in no way am I arguing with what Khan is doing or trying
to do.  I am in full support. I just want to add that there are some things
that for the nonce, cannot be taught that way.  Through high school for
many subjects?  Good.  But maybe not in assessing the importance of Darwin
or Shelley.

I suppose in a way I am reacting against the loss of the profession of
teachers.  Well, not loss per se, but changes that take the live teacher
out of the equation.  I have picked cotton and know that there are much
better ways.  But ways of teaching some things that leave out live teachers
is abhorrent to me even if it doesn't affect me at all.

bill w

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 11:31 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] dead weight
>
>
>
> >>…I am astonished it took so long to get good educational curricula
> online, but here it is.
>
>  spike
>
>
>
> >…Who doesn't require a teacher?  Someone who is learning facts.  …
>
>
>
>
>
> Hmmm, well really what Khan Academy does best is to teach skills and
> techniques.
>
>
>
> Let’s take math, since that tends to be objectively measurable.  Khan
> started making videos explaining how to do certain techniques.  Eventually
> experts in the field began recognizing the value of what he was doing, and
> helped round out the curriculum, some contributing videos on some
> particular skill or technique they thought Sal didn’t explain adequately.
>
>
>
> Eventually a complete math curriculum evolved in which all the
> identifiable discrete skills in a typical primary mathematics education up
> through calculus and including elementary differential equations (typical
> sophomore-level engineering math curriculum) was presented in a collection
> of discrete skills, which has a definite finite number.  The number of
> discrete skills from addition to differential equations is…
>
>
>
> 1497
>
>
>
> OK, Sal Khan claims there are 1497 discrete mathematical skills that
> should take a prole from addition thru differential equations.
>
>
>
> Each of those discrete skills has four levels of mastery, so to get all
> that, a prole would need to achieve a total of 5988 level-up assessments.
> This becomes a clear and distinct goal for the highly-motivated student.
>
>
>
> My unapologetic claim is this: any student who does all that will be a
> student who can hurl back anything any high school math class will throw at
> her, rip through it like a hot chainsaw through butter.  She will scarcely
> break a sweat.  She will soar with the eagles on the math SAT.
>
>
>
> The fun part: those 1497 discrete skills are grouped as a “mission” called
> World of Math.  But… there are other math classes offered in Khan Academy
> beyond the World of Math, and they too are excellent.  Sal Khan doesn’t
> teach those generally.  He gets guys who really really know their stuff,
> such as the excellent engaging Grant Sanderson.  Any sufficiently
> Grant-like mathematician is indistinguishable from god.  You gotta check
> out this guy’s work, oh my.
>
>
>
> BillW, what you are pointing out is that we don’t know how to measure
> subjective areas of knowledge.  All we know how to measure are objective
> fields of study.
>
>
>
> I don’t know the answer to that one.  I am no closer now than I was
> several years ago.  Suggestions welcome, but in the meantime, check out
> Grant Sanderson.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
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