I'll second that. Anyone who tries to solve Descartes's four-line locus problem with no ability to think creatively is screwed. Hell, all I had to do was follow his proof well enough to demonstrate it without notes and that took creativity, because when you are blanking out because you're standing in front of a room full of people and have social anxiety, the ability to look at all the lines and get your memory back by figuring out what the next step must be is crucial. And there are a bunch of lines, so it isn't obvious; it's kind of like a magic eye picture where you have to look at just the right parts the right way to see where you're going.
I also had a science class where, before teaching us how the theories developed over time, they would turn us loose in a woody area and tell us to invent classification systems for all the plants we saw, and try to figure out how to classify the mystery substances we were dealing with based on smell, taste, color when burned, etc. That way we could appreciate exactly what went into scientific discoveries, and hopefully learn to think a bit. This was a required college class, though; my high school classes had a lot more memorizing and not much designing. We did observations, but only after we'd been told how to set up the experiment. (For context, this was ten years ago at a fairly academically rigorous school in California.) This might be connected to the way the whole educational system is set up to make sure you can fill in the right bubble on tests, but I don't think that can take all the blame.
This might be connected to the way the whole educational system is set up to make sure you can fill in the right bubble on tests, but I don't think that can take all the blame.
Back in my day they weren't teaching to standardized tests, the teachers were just lazy. At least in my school system.
The attitude was "Put up and shut up"; any class that encouraged students to think, and therefore discuss, anything made the class more "difficult". Most of the teachers therefore just preferred to teach to the textbook, and test us on what was in the textbook, whether it was science, math, history, whatever.
Hell, in the spring of my sophomore year I was called into my guidance counselor's office shortly after I'd handed in my selections for classes for my junior year.
I'd taken something called "Personal Typing" in my freshman year. That hadn't gotten any questions because all students who were expected to go on to college were encouraged to take this class, which lasted only half a year.
And nothing had been said when I'd signed up for a full year of "Typing 1" in my sophomore year.
But now my guidance counselor was concerned that for my junior year, not only was I taking a full year of "Typing 2", but a full year of "Accounting 1" and a full year of "Shorthand 1".
Because, according to her, I was "too smart" to be taking business classes. Only less intelligent girls took business classes, because no one expected them to go to college, not even junior college or a business college. Those girls, "everyone" knew, would have to work for a living for the few years after high school graduation until their eventual marriage (another "given"), whereupon everyone knew they'd quit working outside the home to be a fulltime wife and mother.
I, OTOH, was "too smart", I should plan on going to college. I told her I agreed, and that I DID plan to go to college. She didn't seem to hear me, and instead dragged out my 4th grade IQ test to show me that I tested at genius level at the age of nine. Why was I therefore "wasting" my time taking business classes?
Because, I explained, I wanted to get a degree in accounting, and then perhaps go on for an MBA. I gave her the name of a very well-known college that specialized in business subjects, especially accounting, that I was looking at.
The look on her face was such that if she'd suddenly found out that I was half-Martian, I could not have been more alien to her.
So she started reiterating her spiel regarding me being too smart for business subjects (in those days if you were female and considered smart, you went to college, but only to major in teaching or liberal arts)...
Finally I asked her, "Are you saying only stupid people go into business?" She didn't have an answer.
Bottom line was, I needed a parents' signature to approve my selections, my mother had seen what I'd selected and was fine with it (she'd been a Head Bookkeeper herself before marriage), so the guidance counselor couldn't force me to change my selections.
I dropped out of Shorthand midterm, after getting a pink slip in it -- first pink slip I'd ever gotten in my life. I thought I'd get hollered at, but my mother just laughed when she saw it and said she'd flunked shorthand too, and she signed the form requesting my withdrawal from the class without hesitation.
But I got an A+ in accounting, and B's and C's in typing; the requirements for typing were quite strict and the only way to get an "A" by the end of "Typing 3" (yes, I took another year of typing in my senior year), was to be able to type 120+ words a minute -- fastest I ever got was 85-90 wpm. I laugh nowadays when people see me going at it typing on a computer keyboard and are amazed at how "fast" I am...and I know that if I'm doing 65 wpm I'm lucky, and that would have been a "D" grade in typing class.
And quite frankly, of all the classes I took in 4 years of high school, the only worthwhile subjects that have stuck with me, and were useful, were those typing and accounting classes! LOL
Either way, teaching to a test - just internal vs. externally imposed ones. Possibly some of your lazy teachers got promoted to positions where they could impose their methods on whole districts for my generation... Although frankly, the public school system idea in the 19th century was designed to make good little obedient citizens of us, so it probably just hasn't changed much ever since. (Hell, it's common for students to take a loyalty oath at the beginning of every day. That's the kind of thing we sneer at when other countries do it.)
My mother also took typing and did very well in it - and her teacher was so disappointed that she wanted to go to college, of all the useless ideas, when with her skills she could get a good job as a secretary right after graduation. Business classes definitely weren't seen as for the college bound at her school either. (And then she went to nursing school and then went back and got her master's degree, and her teacher would probably have a heart attack at how much more money she makes doing that then she would have as a secretary.) She made sure my sister and I did those Mavis Beacon typing programs growing up so we'd at least have that useful skill no matter what else we did or didn't learn :D I hit around 65 words a minute when I'm trying, which is still only 2/3 of what my mom can manage, but I get the same thing about how I can type "fast."
(Hell, it's common for students to take a loyalty oath at the beginning of every day. That's the kind of thing we sneer at when other countries do it.)
Do they still do that in schools? We stopped saying the Pledge in my sophomore year, and by mid-junior year were refusing to stand for the Anthem. But that was circa 1968-70, and it was our way to protest the Vietnam War.
But to this day I refuse to say the Pledge, at least as it's written. I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, NOT to a piece of cloth. If I feel I'm in a situation where I have to say the pledge, I just quickly say "the Constitution and Bill of Rights", instead of "flag".
My mother also took typing and did very well in it - and her teacher was so disappointed that she wanted to go to college, of all the useless ideas, when with her skills she could get a good job as a secretary right after graduation. Business classes definitely weren't seen as for the college bound at her school either.
I never understood the attitude that it was okay for a college-bound student to learn just enough typing so that they didn't have to "hunt-and-peck", but not learn it well enough that they could whip out termpapers in no time flat -- and perhaps make a little money by typing fellow students' papers.
And I'd like to know just what profession -- ANY profession -- that a college graduate would go onto where being able to type well wouldn't have been advantageous.
I hit around 65 words a minute when I'm trying, which is still only 2/3 of what my mom can manage, but I get the same thing about how I can type "fast."
It amazes me -- I really thought that with the advent of home computers, with their much more sensitive keyboards, that higher typing speeds would become the norm. Try achieving a WPM average of 90 on a MANUAL typewriter (the minimum requirement for an "A" in Typing 1 in my day), or a WPM average of 120+ on an electric typewriter (whose keys were more sensitive than a manual typewriter, but were still pretty clunky compared to today's computer keyboards).
The best I could achieve in Typing 1 on a well-tuned manual was around 50 wpm, which garnered me a C. At the end of Typing 2 (first year on electric typewriters), I was able to do around 75-80, which got me a B. At the end of Typing 3 I was averaging around 90-100 wpm, which got me a C+.
I didn't have to after about 8th grade, and I think sometimes they might have forgotten or not bothered in elementary school - but yes, my classes usually said the Pledge at least sometimes from kindergarten up through sixth grade, in the 1990s. I'm not a fan of swearing loyalty to cloth rather than principles either, and especially am not a fan of how it's used politically (like sticking the "under God" bit in in 1954 to prove we weren't "Godless communists").
I also don't understand why you wouldn't want college students to be expert typists, or at least good ones - maybe it was designed as a big racket to create a market for the non-college students to hire out to type up the term papers? Or to give the male students' young wives something to do?
We did learn typing in school, but only in elementary school; I think after that the teachers just assumed we knew what we were doing, and we didn't have to type in class so it's not like they'd know even if we were still hunting and pecking. I was just lucky (not that I thought so at the time, of course!) that my mother made me practice typing as summer homework. (Nothing like imaginary bugs splatting on your imaginary windshield every time you make a mistake to motivate you. Plus Mavis Beacon would be so disappointed in you.) My mom still had a manual typewriter that I played with sometimes, so I can imagine how much harder that would be.
I also had a science class where, before teaching us how the theories developed over time, they would turn us loose in a woody area and tell us to invent classification systems for all the plants we saw, and try to figure out how to classify the mystery substances we were dealing with based on smell, taste, color when burned, etc. That way we could appreciate exactly what went into scientific discoveries, and hopefully learn to think a bit. This was a required college class, though; my high school classes had a lot more memorizing and not much designing. We did observations, but only after we'd been told how to set up the experiment. (For context, this was ten years ago at a fairly academically rigorous school in California.) This might be connected to the way the whole educational system is set up to make sure you can fill in the right bubble on tests, but I don't think that can take all the blame.
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Back in my day they weren't teaching to standardized tests, the teachers were just lazy. At least in my school system.
The attitude was "Put up and shut up"; any class that encouraged students to think, and therefore discuss, anything made the class more "difficult". Most of the teachers therefore just preferred to teach to the textbook, and test us on what was in the textbook, whether it was science, math, history, whatever.
Hell, in the spring of my sophomore year I was called into my guidance counselor's office shortly after I'd handed in my selections for classes for my junior year.
I'd taken something called "Personal Typing" in my freshman year. That hadn't gotten any questions because all students who were expected to go on to college were encouraged to take this class, which lasted only half a year.
And nothing had been said when I'd signed up for a full year of "Typing 1" in my sophomore year.
But now my guidance counselor was concerned that for my junior year, not only was I taking a full year of "Typing 2", but a full year of "Accounting 1" and a full year of "Shorthand 1".
Because, according to her, I was "too smart" to be taking business classes. Only less intelligent girls took business classes, because no one expected them to go to college, not even junior college or a business college. Those girls, "everyone" knew, would have to work for a living for the few years after high school graduation until their eventual marriage (another "given"), whereupon everyone knew they'd quit working outside the home to be a fulltime wife and mother.
I, OTOH, was "too smart", I should plan on going to college. I told her I agreed, and that I DID plan to go to college. She didn't seem to hear me, and instead dragged out my 4th grade IQ test to show me that I tested at genius level at the age of nine. Why was I therefore "wasting" my time taking business classes?
Because, I explained, I wanted to get a degree in accounting, and then perhaps go on for an MBA. I gave her the name of a very well-known college that specialized in business subjects, especially accounting, that I was looking at.
The look on her face was such that if she'd suddenly found out that I was half-Martian, I could not have been more alien to her.
So she started reiterating her spiel regarding me being too smart for business subjects (in those days if you were female and considered smart, you went to college, but only to major in teaching or liberal arts)...
Finally I asked her, "Are you saying only stupid people go into business?" She didn't have an answer.
Bottom line was, I needed a parents' signature to approve my selections, my mother had seen what I'd selected and was fine with it (she'd been a Head Bookkeeper herself before marriage), so the guidance counselor couldn't force me to change my selections.
I dropped out of Shorthand midterm, after getting a pink slip in it -- first pink slip I'd ever gotten in my life. I thought I'd get hollered at, but my mother just laughed when she saw it and said she'd flunked shorthand too, and she signed the form requesting my withdrawal from the class without hesitation.
But I got an A+ in accounting, and B's and C's in typing; the requirements for typing were quite strict and the only way to get an "A" by the end of "Typing 3" (yes, I took another year of typing in my senior year), was to be able to type 120+ words a minute -- fastest I ever got was 85-90 wpm. I laugh nowadays when people see me going at it typing on a computer keyboard and are amazed at how "fast" I am...and I know that if I'm doing 65 wpm I'm lucky, and that would have been a "D" grade in typing class.
And quite frankly, of all the classes I took in 4 years of high school, the only worthwhile subjects that have stuck with me, and were useful, were those typing and accounting classes! LOL
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My mother also took typing and did very well in it - and her teacher was so disappointed that she wanted to go to college, of all the useless ideas, when with her skills she could get a good job as a secretary right after graduation. Business classes definitely weren't seen as for the college bound at her school either. (And then she went to nursing school and then went back and got her master's degree, and her teacher would probably have a heart attack at how much more money she makes doing that then she would have as a secretary.) She made sure my sister and I did those Mavis Beacon typing programs growing up so we'd at least have that useful skill no matter what else we did or didn't learn :D I hit around 65 words a minute when I'm trying, which is still only 2/3 of what my mom can manage, but I get the same thing about how I can type "fast."
Reply
Do they still do that in schools? We stopped saying the Pledge in my sophomore year, and by mid-junior year were refusing to stand for the Anthem. But that was circa 1968-70, and it was our way to protest the Vietnam War.
But to this day I refuse to say the Pledge, at least as it's written. I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, NOT to a piece of cloth. If I feel I'm in a situation where I have to say the pledge, I just quickly say "the Constitution and Bill of Rights", instead of "flag".
My mother also took typing and did very well in it - and her teacher was so disappointed that she wanted to go to college, of all the useless ideas, when with her skills she could get a good job as a secretary right after graduation. Business classes definitely weren't seen as for the college bound at her school either.
I never understood the attitude that it was okay for a college-bound student to learn just enough typing so that they didn't have to "hunt-and-peck", but not learn it well enough that they could whip out termpapers in no time flat -- and perhaps make a little money by typing fellow students' papers.
And I'd like to know just what profession -- ANY profession -- that a college graduate would go onto where being able to type well wouldn't have been advantageous.
I hit around 65 words a minute when I'm trying, which is still only 2/3 of what my mom can manage, but I get the same thing about how I can type "fast."
It amazes me -- I really thought that with the advent of home computers, with their much more sensitive keyboards, that higher typing speeds would become the norm. Try achieving a WPM average of 90 on a MANUAL typewriter (the minimum requirement for an "A" in Typing 1 in my day), or a WPM average of 120+ on an electric typewriter (whose keys were more sensitive than a manual typewriter, but were still pretty clunky compared to today's computer keyboards).
The best I could achieve in Typing 1 on a well-tuned manual was around 50 wpm, which garnered me a C. At the end of Typing 2 (first year on electric typewriters), I was able to do around 75-80, which got me a B. At the end of Typing 3 I was averaging around 90-100 wpm, which got me a C+.
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I also don't understand why you wouldn't want college students to be expert typists, or at least good ones - maybe it was designed as a big racket to create a market for the non-college students to hire out to type up the term papers? Or to give the male students' young wives something to do?
We did learn typing in school, but only in elementary school; I think after that the teachers just assumed we knew what we were doing, and we didn't have to type in class so it's not like they'd know even if we were still hunting and pecking. I was just lucky (not that I thought so at the time, of course!) that my mother made me practice typing as summer homework. (Nothing like imaginary bugs splatting on your imaginary windshield every time you make a mistake to motivate you. Plus Mavis Beacon would be so disappointed in you.) My mom still had a manual typewriter that I played with sometimes, so I can imagine how much harder that would be.
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