Actually, math is too mechanical. It does not truly involve the evaluation of ideas.
I see a lot of value in working through those problems about two trains going in opposite directions at different speeds, etc., particularly the ones that provide extraneous information. No, it's not the whole enchilada, but it's a piece, one that is too frequently missing. Case studies are good, too.
Yes, I get your point. I think my expectations are less than yours, which makes my disappointment all the sadder. It bothers me that so few people can evaluate the risk from smallpox or differentiate between therapeutic and reproductive cloning, for example, or homosexuality and pedophilia. None of those things requires much of a knowledge base.
As you were responding, I was reading this from the Tucson paper. Serendipity.
Public universities play crucial role in U.S.
By Kenneth R. Smith and Mark Walker
SPECIAL TO THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A recent article in this newspaper described a study by the Arizona Association of Scholars that seemed to demonstrate that seniors graduating from Arizona's universities have learned appallingly little from their college experience.
The study's principal author is our colleague, Michael Block.
The study pushes all the usual buttons - students aren't learning, universities aren't doing their job, and the taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth - but it also sends all the wrong messages.
We believe the people of Arizona deserve to get the right messages.
First, students at such "elite" universities as Dartmouth, Stanford and Princeton performed just about the same as Arizona's students.
Perhaps the message in the association study should have been that students everywhere aren't learning enough. But even that message is wrong.
The study assumes that the primary purpose of a university education is to learn facts - that knowledge is the ability to identify people, dates and phrases - as if the nation's colleges and universities ought to be training our young people to compete in some grand game of Trivial Pursuit.
The University of Arizona's president, Peter Likins, recently presented a very different message: We want our graduates to be able to think critically, to be creative problem solvers, to communicate effectively, to engage in life-long learning.
These outcomes of a liberal education are the core values of educators, and equally important, they're the values of the people who hire our graduates.
The Block report, however, takes issue with the idea that the goal of the state's universities should be to prepare young people who will perform effectively in their jobs.
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