There are some good points in this article (although the irony of Stanford inveighing against elitism is pretty broad). When the author writes, however, that students today "have no time to hang out or delve into deep problems or reflect on what they are learning," I suspect that she has strung together disparate aspects of her own mental life and theirs.
I only wish the problems I ran into were overworking students. Admittedly, York is not "elite" by any measure. I am still surprised (well, maybe just saddened) that in my stats class every year, some do not know what an exponent is, most do not know what a factorial is, and nearly all are unable to do (or even follow?) the three lines of algebra I "perform" each year to convert a simple power formula into one that gives the number of subjects required (I am so used to NOT losing them with the phrase "solve for n" that I can hardly say it anymore). Perhaps they have been too busy learning the finer points of soccer and piano. If so, I am content with that trade-off. Perhaps too many of them have full-time jobs on the side. If so, then it is one of the few problems that can be easily solved by the application of money (and we should do that). I fear, however, that too many have been too busy learning Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== Mike Palij wrote: > On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:31:53 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: > >> I wish I could send TIPS some of the blog entries written by a >> young cousin of mine who was teaching English in China at some >> private schools for the children of fairly wealthy families. The poor >> work ethic, sense of entitlement, & lack of respect for authority >> that she described (for the majority of her students) was appalling >> even by modern American standards. Of course she also describes >> some outstanding students but these were a decided minority. If you >> consider that only the cream of the Chinese crop get to come to >> the USA for study, the comparison made in the original article is >> not a fair one. >> >> I don't mean to defend the lack of work ethic in the bulk of our >> modern student body you can't compare what are likely elite Chinese >> students with run-of-the-mill American students. Another factor: the >> Chinese students are likely from the privileged classes and don't have >> to hold down part or full time jobs while studying here. Many of our >> students do. >> > > The issue of biased sampling in U.S. account of students should also > be kept in mind. Consider the following article which talks about > U.S. students who are likely to be "elite" as well though the point of > the article is that trying to be elite may take a significant toll; see: > > http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/faculty/displayFacultyNews.php?tablename=notify1&id=401 > > In NYC, the financial and social elite often reckon the trajectory of > their children's educational and social life course at an early age. > This is what make stories about not getting one's child into the > "right" pre-school program so hilarious and so sad. > > -Mike Palij > New York University > m...@nyu.edu > > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
