<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 9:14 AM, Dave Sill <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sparge@gmail.com" target="_blank">sparge@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 9:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Bottom line: you cannot eliminate genetics.</blockquote></div><br></div></span><div class="gmail_extra">Of course you're right, but I think you're missing the real point of the blog post which is that directed apprenticeship may be more effective than conventional education. Passive classroom education is cheap (theoretically, at least) and easy, but active education--actually doing the thing rather than listening to someone telling you how to do the thing--can accomplish a lot more learning a lot faster.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br><br></font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div class="gmail_extra">-Dave<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div></font></span></div></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Dave, my only comment was on the genetics thing. I think, after having been in conventional education for nearly 40 years, is that just about anything will beat it, whether you are talking about sports or history or math or typing. If I had it to do over again I would not teach undergraduates. Not in the style they expect, anyway. (In my last year I taught 101 rather conventionally because I had to, but used essay tests! Aha! What I learned!) </div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">I could not find anything in Khan's book with which I disagreed, although he is wrong about some aspects of testing. The problem is with graduate schools of education - reactionary, while at the same time applauding any new theory that comes along. When I first started teaching at a college, I wondered why my colleagues had such a poor view of the education department. I found out. Yet, to legislatures, they are the gurus. I am in favor of whatever works, and it will take hard data and a lot of it to convince me.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Another problem: it's kind of a Darwinian situation out there. You have to plug your ideas. And your ideas have to be different. That is why psychology so often comes up with new theories that are just all talk and no data, or are just revamped ideas of Freud or Pavlov or some other, not given credit, of course. Psych is the worst at putting out pure unadulterated bullshit. "Neurolinguistic programming'. Remember that one? Pure BS. So as a psychologist looking at other psychologists or people of different stripes doing essentially psychology work, I have to be extra special skeptical. Because when I am, I am far more likely to be right.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">To give us our due, discarded theories should not count against us. In any fairly new field, the vast majority of new theories will be wrong. Look at alchemy.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">It is sad that real hard scientists see BS coming out of psychology when we really have such a lot to offer that isn't BS. </div> </div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Maybe now we are straight. Re your post above: I think this has been known for centuries. Apprenticeships, or mentoring, or call it what you will, reducing the ratio of students to teachers will be superior to large passive classes with one teacher.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w</div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div class="gmail_extra"></div></font></span></div>
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