Sunday, September 21, 2008
12:35 PM
Apologies to my readers again, my absences have been long. Well, this last one had to do with job finding. That is now done (I accepted a position at Genentech in San Francisco, wooohooo!), and I thought it would be good to get back to the blog. That and prodding from Corie who mentioned that they might as well shut the blog down for inactivity.
I have been keeping an eye out for bits of information that have to do with one of the central themes of the blog – education. I read an interesting article in the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com), which talked about the ability of individuals to grasp college-level concepts in literature (in introductory courses). For the longest time, I had assumed that given the right resources, encouragement and time, most students would be able to complete task p, whether p had to do with sculpture, calculus or fitting square pegs in square holes. The atlantic article argues that this might not be always true, and in fact, some people might not be able to grasp some concepts at all, at least over a period of one academic semester.
Writes Professor X, “The bursting of our collective bubble comes quickly. A few weeks into the semester, the students must start actually writing papers, and I must start grading them. Despite my enthusiasm, despite their thoughtful nods of agreement and what I have interpreted as moments of clarity, it turns out that in many cases it has all come to naught. Remarkably few of my students can do well in these classes. Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence”.
The article talks about teaching English literature, but do some of the conclusions hold true in the area of science education as well? Is the apathy of some people towards science indicative of their experiences in school? Are teachers partly to blame? I know people are wired differently, and some connections predispose them to convergent or divergent thinking. Should such predispositions be taken into account when students are assigned tasks?
The answers are not obvious. Your thoughts are welcome.
Read the full atlantic article here: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower
-Shailesh
