Comments on: Pick a Vendor: Apple/P21 Leader to Dept of Education http://blog.commoncore.org/2009/11/03/pick-a-vendor-applep21-leader-to-dept-of-education/ Promoting a full core curriculum. Sat, 31 Dec 2011 04:01:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Peter Ford http://blog.commoncore.org/2009/11/03/pick-a-vendor-applep21-leader-to-dept-of-education/#comment-9899 Peter Ford Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:35:25 +0000 http://blog.commoncore.org/?p=138#comment-9899 As an engineering-degreed, ex-soldier now mathematics instructor, I often share with my students that my true pursuit of an aero engineering degree was to satisfy my curiosity about flying machines. As a teacher my goal is not my students 'getting a good job,' but learning and growing through the knowledge, skills, and reasoning of mathematics. When students can read, write, compute, and reason, they can do anything. The same way I'm wary of educators who don't understand mathematics I'm worried about policy makers who think they know what's more important for citizens in the 21st century. Even as a Macolyte :-) I'm still worried about Cator. 'Health Literacy?' If you paid attention in Biology, Chemistry, and PE class you'd have all the 'health-literacy' you need. As an engineering-degreed, ex-soldier now mathematics instructor, I often share with my students that my true pursuit of an aero engineering degree was to satisfy my curiosity about flying machines. As a teacher my goal is not my students ‘getting a good job,’ but learning and growing through the knowledge, skills, and reasoning of mathematics. When students can read, write, compute, and reason, they can do anything. The same way I’m wary of educators who don’t understand mathematics I’m worried about policy makers who think they know what’s more important for citizens in the 21st century. Even as a Macolyte :-) I’m still worried about Cator. ‘Health Literacy?’ If you paid attention in Biology, Chemistry, and PE class you’d have all the ‘health-literacy’ you need.

]]> By: Scott Harding http://blog.commoncore.org/2009/11/03/pick-a-vendor-applep21-leader-to-dept-of-education/#comment-9875 Scott Harding Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:43:22 +0000 http://blog.commoncore.org/?p=138#comment-9875 I think there's a real danger in displacing liberal arts courses with a technical education. I'm speaking more directly about college courses, and in particular engineering, but I think it applies equally to high school. As one example of the effects of a lack of liberal arts education can be found with low female participation in the field of engineering. I've been an electrical engineer for twenty years and I've found the data showing female underrepresentation to be a constant source of frustration. The engineering field has only about a 12% female representation. This should not be tolerated, but the data consistently show no signs of improvement. To try to find out the causes of this, one place to look is at the college curricula. The institution which governs college curricula this is the ABET, which is voluntary, but it appears to not govern a liberal arts content. The liberal arts content is apperently left to the discretion of the individual school. Therefore the cirricula are subject to the immediate needs of industry rather than the overall needs of society. Since colleges are funded in part by corporations, who have a vested interest in displacing liberal arts courses in favor of science classes. I have personally witnessed what I believe is a deficiency of social and historical understanding in engineers throughout my career. I think political historians might describe it as a "personal exceptionalism", similar to the U.S. exceptionalism, meaning engineers have a hubris, a grandiosity that permiates their being. This, in my opinion, indicates a lack of understanding of history, as described, for example, in Shelley's poem "Ozimandais". It leaves one open to despotism. This phenomenon was predicted by Herbert Weisinger in his 1943 paper titled "The Role of the Liberal-Arts College". I think there’s a real danger in displacing liberal arts courses with a technical education. I’m speaking more directly about college courses, and in particular engineering, but I think it applies equally to high school.

As one example of the effects of a lack of liberal arts education can be found with low female participation in the field of engineering. I’ve been an electrical engineer for twenty years and I’ve found the data showing female underrepresentation to be a constant source of frustration. The engineering field has only about a 12% female representation. This should not be tolerated, but the data consistently show no signs of improvement.

To try to find out the causes of this, one place to look is at the college curricula. The institution which governs college curricula this is the ABET, which is voluntary, but it appears to not govern a liberal arts content. The liberal arts content is apperently left to the discretion of the individual school. Therefore the cirricula are subject to the immediate needs of industry rather than the overall needs of society. Since colleges are funded in part by corporations, who have a vested interest in displacing liberal arts courses in favor of science classes.

I have personally witnessed what I believe is a deficiency of social and historical understanding in engineers throughout my career. I think political historians might describe it as a “personal exceptionalism”, similar to the U.S. exceptionalism, meaning engineers have a hubris, a grandiosity that permiates their being. This, in my opinion, indicates a lack of understanding of history, as described, for example, in Shelley’s poem “Ozimandais”. It leaves one open to despotism. This phenomenon was predicted by Herbert Weisinger in his 1943 paper titled “The Role of the Liberal-Arts College”.

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