Teaching Science Badly – and Well

#94 hamidm2

Sir, you have an exaggerated opinion of the altruistic instincts of your neighbors across the borders. Why, pray why, would the eminently qualified of the land of Jai Jawan - Jai Kisaan would risk their necks to go the path of the Perl when they can make good money right inside India and stay physically safe at the same time?

Just imagine - (1) getting a visa from the Pakistani government agents who have perfected the art of beating up even the Indian diplomats to pulp form, (2) crossing the border, looking back and wondering if you are seening the motherland for the last time, (3) walking past those jihadi donation boxes on the way to the classroom, on a day in and day out basis, (4) looking over your shoulder every minute - wondering which of your students is planning to blow himself/herself in the classromm on that day!

No sir-ree Baab!

Re: # 96

anil,

........ i do not have any delusions about the `altruistic` instincts of the bania, but i have faith in his instinct for making a buck .......... a number of paki institutions are willing to pay top dollar to qualified faculty (not masadi) and someone said there is a surplus of phd`s in india - so it thought it is a win/win situation ......... and regardless of the odd suicide bombing, lahore and islamabad are much better places to live than delhi and kolkata

Arjun dont forget ther eal statics of Indin education

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Muslims constitute about nine hundred thousand individuals, or 20 per cent of the total population of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation area, 80 per cent of whom are Urdu speaking. The total number of boys and girls of school going age in this population is estimated to be 140,000.

The total enrolment figure of boys and girls of this linguistic group in all the 27 recognised school which cater to their educational needs did not exceed 14,663. If all the other kinds of institutions are taken into account we find 5,090 children enrolled in madrasas and approximately 15,000 in maktabs. The total number of enrolment does not exceed 35,000. This means that only 11 per cent of the Urdu speaking boys and girls go to school and if enrolment figures in institutions of all kinds are taken into account, not more than 25 per cent of Urdu speaking boys and girls attend some sort of educational institution. In terms of absolute numbers, 105,000 students belonging to the linguistic group do not attend any school, largely due to extreme dearth of educational institutions.

Out of an approximately total number of 600 to 700 schools in Kolkata Municipal Corporation area there are 43 Urdu medium schools (Junior 16, High 21 & Higher Secondary 6). Only 27 of these schools are recognized and the remaining are unrecognized, while one H.S. and two junior schools are run by the state government. These two junior government schools are over a century old but have not been upgraded till now, nor do we know of any such plan for future.

Incidentally intensive survey of a slum in 1997 showed that percentage of illiteracy was higher than what it had been on the eve of independence in 1947. This is an index of the downward mobility of the community in the field of literacy and much more in the field of education.

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a miracle by defiinition is something which cannot be explained by the rational mind.

hamidm,

do you always have to blaspheme to make a point?

you can be a funny chap at times but not like this. science cannot PROVE that any of the things you mock (virgin birth, ascension, quickening the dead) did not happen at the hands of the Prophets (or saints). Even Dawkins admits that in his God Delusion. He merely says it is highly unlikely. Not the same thing at all...

Re: # 91

naqshbandi,

..... you are an okay chap but for god`s sake why does science have to prove that all this nonsense is nonsense ?.......... why doesn`t religion prove that all this stuff is true ?.......... why does science have to bear the burden of disproving lies and tall tales by charlatans and con artists ?.............. it is really quite silly but simple - you raise my dead grandmother and i will accept god ........... and please don`t tell me that my neighbor`s cow has my grandma`s eyes - i am not a happy hindoo ............

Re: # 93

you miss the point: even if science wanted to it cannot disprove any of these spiritual things because its entire gambit is only to do with the world of matter. what cannot be measured cannot be tested by science. science and religion occupy two very different spheres of human existence.

Re: # 105

naqsh,

......... the burden of proof lies with people who believe in virgin births and the tooth fairy ..... even though i believe in using the common sense approach and do not like to quote god or man, i agree with dawkins in that the concept of noma (non-overlapping magesteria ) is poppycock ...... all this stuff about `` science and religion occupy two very different spheres of human existence`` is utter nonsense and at best a cop out by people who are afraid of maggots to take on the relgious lunatics ...... you don`t have step into horseshit, much less eat it, to realize that is is horseshit - you can smell it a mile off ..........

Re: # 93

Hamidm Sahib:

Science`s foundation to only proves and accept the presence and not the absence. The absence is always through deduction. So far presence of virgin birth has not proven. If this makes your life easier, and not be angry with the doctor sahib.

so the chosen government of allah`s chosen people fired masadi....

back to lulu.com I guess..

Meanwhile...what`s this we read?

UNESCO`s wake-up call

Ikramullah
According to UNESCO`s ``Education for All`` Monitoring Report 2007 ``Pakistan has experienced a rise in its illiterate population and ranked second among the countries with the highest number of out-of-school children``. The report examining the drop-out rate before grade 5, primary enrollment and female literacy rate in the South Asian countries places Pakistan in a rather poor state of development and progress compared to not only India but even Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Let me translate the highlighted part from paki-speak to real workspeak..

Racially superior Pakistan is doing worse than not only India, something even the most deluded amongst us recognize, we`re doing worse than even the racially inferior bingos and sri lankans...

Re: # 90

now here is a cure ...... inspite of the fact that i am totally against letting people like vereesh and the indian cricket team across the border, i am all for hiring indian professors to fill the shortage of qualified science and engineering faculty in pakistan ............ why don`t pakistani universities hire all those phd taxi drivers in kolkata and bangalore instead of rejects like masadi ............ so what if all that head wagging makes the students a little dizzy and the smell of heeng overpowers the stench of the open sewers, at least they will learn how to write j2ee code ...........

masadi,

........... i am sorry to hear that you have failed to make the grade in pakistan and might be returning to tuskegee state college........ i hope you are beginning to realize that pushing the theory of ``how the american elite is responsible for all the ills in the world`` is not a legitimate academic pursuit - at the best, it is one chapter in a freshman class on rhetoric .........

..... however, i think you should apply for a position at the jamia hafsa or at the akora khattak institute of terrorism - they are accepting applications from social scientists and experts in islamic education (ied) ............

dr hoodbhoy,

...... what kind of nonsense is this ! : `` Science refuses to offer an opinion on things that are unobservable, or whose existence is impossible to verify even in principle. What you cannot see may still actually be there, but science is going to be mum about it.``

........... so you are saying that science have no opinion on the matter of virgin births, raising people from the dead or travelling to the heaven on a winged horse ? !!! ........... sounds like you belong to what dawkins calls the neville chamberlain school of appeasement ... shame on you ! ..............

......... so, let me tell you categorically that it is not possible to have a baby without having sex - and don`t give me this crap that god showed up at a fertility clinic in bethlehem to donate his sperm about 2000 years ago ............ it did not happen ! ............ also let me tell you that once a person is dead he cannot be brought back to life - i offer you the millions of graves as evidence of this fact, even though the horrible hindoos try to burn the evidence and then claim their neighbor`s cow as their grandmother ......... it is just plain old bania trickery ............ and finally, let me assure you that there is no evidence that a winged horse ever existed even if some prophet claimes that he rode one to heaven ......because, let`s not forget that the same man claimed to have talked to a winged creature in a dark cave - there is a clear pattern of deceit and telling tales .........

I learned alphabets, and counting at the same time, and then tables (we of course called it pahade) up to 25. We are made to use fingers to calculate like abacus - with being told - abacus was in your hand, then we are made to graduate to mental math. To take exam in mental math we had to stand on the chair read the paper on the desktop from at least four feet high. We were allowed to come down only to write the answer. I know my daughters could not understand the abacus on your fingers, tables beyond 10 were tough, mental calculation is impossible. Calculating square roots they have never heard. These girls did go to Ivy leagues, which only show why Indian and Chinese students can outperform. Chinese students have even more task; they must in addition learn at least 1,500 Chinese characters by the time they reach middle school.

Such approach gives quick thinking and fast reasoning. I would still say that this approach should be followed in teach math at primary school level. It lays very strong foundation.
Science teaching was more theoretical and less experimental and verification. I suppose due to funding of science. I really liked the project oriented approach to science teaching in the private school my daughters studied. They will do a project bring back results, which would then be discussed and laws of physics, chemistry that were used in the project explained and discussed. This approach in middle and high school level, and in such private schools with two student doing it with the teacher who is responsible for no more than 10 students indeed made learning fun and absorption of concept very high. These methodologies that students learn are with them for the rest of their lives.

I got involved with my daughters Calculus teacher for a short time, and with my daughter. I explained and showed her that algebra is about abstraction and representation, geometry is logic that is proven through lines, triangles, squares and circles, and trigonometry is about right angle triangle, statistics is mathematics of large group of numbers, and finally differential calculus is about change and motion. She started excelling in math. This was a four year process. I found out what each of these is after the learning process through deduction, but when I explained it to her first, and then worked with her. I found this induction approach very helpful, especially teaching math to girls, they take longer to figure out a pattern out of details, but if they are explained the pattern they can apply it to many details faster than boys. I have observed it among my nieces and nephews trained here or in India.

My daughters attended Japanese Kumon classes. These classes to teach math are even stricter. Until a student gets it right 100%, she does not move to the next level. I was amazed that some high school kids, struggling to get primary school math concepts and their application correct 100% of the time.
Again these are basics of science and mathematics, and must be taught like ``tere baap or ammi ki tarah.”

Correct me if I am wrong, I think another challenge Pakistan faces, is the closeness of Islamic mind, if there is something like it. This mind is repeatedly told to reject many things as being non-Muslim (musalman ka bachcha ban), and fear (khuda ka khauf). I know these two being repeated countless time each day to the very bright son in the Pakistani family. They shared the house with me when I was student in England. It was such a surprise to me and my other friend who also lived in the house, as neither his nor my family ever using such ``reject`` and ``fear`` approach.

tehsin, you ignorant slut !

here is the difference between `reading` history and studying something useful ...... note that i don`t use the term `studying history` because `study` means `application of the mind to the acquisition of knowledge, as by reading, investigation, or reflection` and things like historyand sociology do not require a mind, period ................. as a matter of fact, it is a mindless pastime for lazy rich kids in new england and an indoctrination tool for suicidal madrassa students in the muslim lands .............

anyway, here is the difference :

the guy who ran his great-grandpa`s business into the ground :Bill attended The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and went on to graduate from Princeton University in 1979, having majored in history and served as president of The Ivy Club. In 1984 he received an S.M. in Management (equivalent to an M.B.A.) as a Sloan Fellow from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

the guy who he hired to try and save the company: Mulally graduated from the University of Kansas in 1969 with Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. He also received a Master`s degree in Management (S.M.) as a Sloan Fellow from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1982.

................ see the difference ?............ i have highlighted it for your convenience ......

Those humanities
Management
And Lawyers are calling the shots
while the scientist are like coolies working for either ministers
or at ther mercy of secretaries of Bush (non scientist)