The future of education

A colleague of mine was leading a computer lab session for a statistics class. A student was asking for clarification on one of the concepts, and wasn't understanding it based on his lecture notes.

''Well, did you understand how the textbook explained it?'', asked my colleague.

''I didn't buy the book, because it's pretty expensive -- $120 [US$90] -- for a book I'm only going to use for one class.''

''Ah. Well, you might want to go to a used bookstore and see if you can pick up a used statistics textbook for, hopefully, around twenty bucks. It's o.k. if it's from the sixties or seventies -- Intro to Statistics hasn't really changed much since then.''

''Well, the other thing is that I don't have time to do any extra studying for this course.''

Blink, blink. ''Um -- **extra** studying? You mean, reading the REQUIRED textbook?''

''Yeah.''


The frightening thing is that this student is an education major.


Apparently, this guy's area is social studies and English, so he doesn't see the point of the education program requiring him to take statistics, when he'll never use it. And I agree that it seems like overkill for the education program to require this for high school level teaching. Kind of like making the future chemistry teachers take German, because ''that's the language of science''.

But, still! Seems like a poor attitude towards education for a future teacher to have.


Oh! Two additional bits:

1) The student also said that he only needed a ''C'' to get program credit, so he wasn't worrying about getting a high grade. My colleague pointed out that aiming for a ''C'' is a dangerous game, because what happens if you mis-judge (e.g. by bombing the final)? And besides, if you aim high, that means that you can get one grade lower in **another** course, and your g.p.a. would stay the same. The student's response was, ''I guess.''

2) Another student, sitting nearby, apparently kept glancing over, making faces, and rollllling her eyes during this entire exchange.


--GG