Re: Geekery, education and high-powered brains ...

Guy Barry wrote:
On Jan 27, 6:10 pm, Paul Wallich <p...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Guy Barry wrote:

On Jan 26, 10:54 pm, "Dr. Brat" <epc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


There's a world of difference between a freshman in college and a first
year graduate student, don't you think?

No, only three years (in the UK anyway). Why should someone be so
much more capable of making their own mind up at the age of twenty-one
than at eighteen?

Because they've had 3-4 years of intensive education in a bunch of
subjects fairly closely related to the one they think they might like to
specialize in?


So your argument appears to be "yes, we should let students decide
what they're interested in, but not until we've instructed them in a
whole load of stuff they're not interested in". To spend three years
requiring someone to learn about something just so that they can
decide they don't like it seems like an awful lot of wasted effort to
me.

How about "yes, we should let students decide what they're interested in, but not until they've been exposed to a variety of things in which they might be interested as well as a variety of things which the average citizen should know, especially since we'd like educated people to have a broad base before they start specializing."

Elizabeth
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~living well is the best revenge~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate and expand her sense of actual possibilities. --Adrienne Rich
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

.

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