J. Clarke wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
What did you personally learn in the public schools school other
than
to read and write and do sums that was of any real value in later
life?
I learned that language was important - that while a thing said one
way might get me a fat lip, if said another way it might open the
door to friendship. I learned that a really good idea that I
couldn't
get across to someone else when it seemed important to me wasn't any
better than no idea at all. I learned that language was an essential
part of problem statement and problem solving, and that it could be
variously used to produce tears, laughter, sympathy, animosity, or
cooperation.
And you learned these things from teachers? Or would you have learned
them anyway as part of growing up?
A lot of this was put into words for me by teachers before I'd have
worked it out for myself or gotten it from peers.
I learned that French and Arabic both have nuances and built-in
perspective twists that my native English does not, and that poetry
and precise thoughts do not always translate well from one language
to another.
In what public school in the United States are Arabic and French
taught?
Not in the US, although the school program was modeled after New York
State's curriculum. Don't kids in at least some NY and NJ public schools
have the opportunity to learn other languages? I'd be astonished if kids
in south FL, TX, AZ, and NM don't have the opportunity to take Spanish.
The teacher for both languages was Lebanese (and the only non-American
teacher in the school).
I learned that language is closely coupled to culture and I learned
that there are cultures different from my own, and that culture is
the lens through which we see the world - and that different
cultural
lenses
reveal different realities when viewing the same objects and events.
That's nice, but again I want to know where this incredible American
public school is located.
The US component of that particular experience was at Richwoods
Community High School in Peoria, IL. It's a good public school with good
teachers and probably had better than average course offerings. I took a
really interesting Projective Geometry and a (really difficult for me)
Qualitative Analysis chemistry course there. Hmm - as I recall, they
also offered French, German, and Spanish to fill in on your earlier
question on languages in public schools.
I read and discussed the statements of ideals and principles of my
own
culture, and somewhat of others. I learned a bit about how what
might
be good manners at home might not be so elsewhere.
You discussed? In an American public school?
You bet.
I learned that history was more than names and dates and places -
that
it's actually a compendium of cause and effect for different groups
of
people in different contexts - that it's a record of what has
already
been tried and under what circumstances and with what consequences
over the long haul. I learned that there are a lot more ways to get
things wrong than there are to get them right, and that it might be
really important to not repeat some of the mistakes.
In an American public school you learned this?
An exceptional history teacher, no? IMO, we could use more like him, and
I wish my kids could've taken /any/ course from him.
I learned in sixth grade algebra class that everything that had come
before was neander and that learning algebra amounted to a leap into
the world of power tools for the brain. I learned about 'knowns' and
'unknowns', and how to determine if/when I had enough knowns to
solve
a problem.
Algebra in the sixth grade?
I think so - but sixth grade might've been Plane Geometry with Algebra I
in seventh. It's been a long time.
I learned that matter consisted of atoms, and that different
elements
have different properties, and that those properties matter - that
lead isn't good for bridge beams, nor plutonium for eyeglass frames,
and that aluminum and copper are good conductors of heat. I learned
that 'more' isn't necessarily better, and not to throw scraps of
sodium metal into
the waste crock.
Always useful, not throwing sodium into the waste crock. In what
public school in the US did you learn strength of materials?
Didn't - at least not as such, but I do remember talking about "groups"
in the periodic table and discussions about general properties of
elements. I think I'd have enjoyed more specific coursework, but at that
point I probably didn't have enough math to handle it.
I learned that transparent materials have angles of refraction and
critical angles, and I learned that light goes really fast and that
nothing in our ken goes faster. I learned of the happiness of energy
and the sadness of entropy, and that time is, indeed, a dimension
that must
be accounted for in all actions and their equal and opposite
reactions.
I was introduced to the laws of thermodynamics and bid a sad
farewell
to fantasies of perpetual motion machines.
And how have you used that knowledge since?
Wow. It was the foundation for almost all that I learned later - and
gave me the confidence to tackle all kinds of problems about which I
started out knowing far too little. That's exactly what's been happening
with the solar stuff recently - and even randite Tim might get a kick
out of my weird engine that runs (limps actually, but it /will/ run) on
sunshine to do direct conversion of radiant energy to mechanical.
I've gone on past midnight and need to stop for sleep, but there's
more - a /lot/ more - and it's all been useful.
It sounds to me like you have had a far, far different education from
most Americans.
I don't know - I think I was just lucky enough to have had a succession
of really good, caring teachers who somehow managed to convince me that
there were real and important connections between what they were
teaching and real life. When the educational process breaks, it's seemed
to me that the lack of that connection has been the fault line.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/