Factory schools teach science, math, and computers to students with the justification that “this stuff will help you, somehow, someday, maybe by getting you into the right college.” Some students are happy with this amount of motivation and some students love these subjects for their very purity, their disconnection from the concrete world. These are the students that we see at MIT and Harvard so in theory this approach is successful.
As evidenced by terrible average scores on standardized tests covering very basic material, the average high school student is not learning science, math, or computer programming to any perceptible degree. And realistically why would we expect a kid to be motivated to learn these things? They read newspaper articles about CEOs giving themselves $50 million/year salaries but flunking exams in basic accounting at their Stanford Business School refresher course. They watch television broadcasts of politicians’ speeches and there is never any reference to principles or ideas taught in their science, math, or computer programming classes.
The combination of a high degree of an abstraction and the apparent ability of people to reach the highest echelons of society in perfect ignorance of these subjects makes it tough for a lot of kids to hit the books.
Why not make it all concrete? Suppose that starting in 8th grade the kids were told “Each of you is going to design and build your own bicycle over the next 4 years. To help you do a better job, you’re going to learn some math, some physics, and how to use computers to simulate and model.”
At least 50 percent of what is taught in high school math and science can be motivated by the engineering challenge of making a bike that functions properly and weighs less than 100 kg. In particular one can dream that this project-based approach would rescue computer instruction from its current abyss. Instead of teaching the kids how to use Microsoft Office and write lame little graphics programs in VB or Java, we’d show them how computers can become analytical tools.
For the hands-on oriented kids we can let them machine their own parts and maybe do some welding, thus combining math and shop in one period! To keep the klutzes from killing themselves, though, you’d probably want a design option that included only pre-cut tubes bolted together (you could never make a commercially viable bike this way; it would be too heavy and expensive to manufacture but it would be fine to ride around flat areas and for teaching).
The actual change in the curriculum would be minimal. It is more a question of spirit and always having a concrete answer if a kid asks “Why do I need to know this?”
In principal it is a good idea. But practically – it’s another matter. In these days of budget cuts and reduced school programs it would be rather difficult for schools to build machine shops and other such “concrete” stuff.
Cheers,
Sreenivas
“Each of you is going to design and build your own bicycle over the next 4 years.”
Uh . . . its only a goddam bicycle, Doc. From my experience with my own kids , they’re gonna be – and I MEAN – hating that bicycle in less than a week . They will have run away from home before the four years.
However , in light of your immediate previous post , ‘economic growth’ etc. , at least with the bicycle project you have a clear vision of their probable future employment.
Making your own bike is a common activity in the third world –see http://www.saffron-ventures.com/personal/woodbikes/homepage.php
How is this supposed to fuel a belief among kids in the value of their western education?
Could kids be permitted to buy-off the work of other kids, or organize into bike-factory collectives (in other words, organize like some Japanese trade schools)? Those lessons may prove to be more useful in the long run.
Either way, there would end up being a lot of associated teenaged bicycle injuries and broken-up bike parts in the local landfills.
Not a bad idea, but the kids would probably be more motivated if the project involved making a complex bong, or maybe some kind of very advanced sex toy.
building a bike sounds like fun but would take about 1 year to go from no knowledge of anything to a complete bike, not four. at the crappy public high school i went to, the shop class guys actually did learn a lot of cool shit, like how to design model airplanes , machine parts to hot-rod out their cars, etc.
I am a mathematician at heart and an engineer by trade, thus I would also like to believe that it is important for people to learn math and science. Most people i know who suck at calculus are actually doing quite well, usually much better than I am. Once they get to the proper age, my daughters will be allowed to do their calculus homework only after they have put in their five hours a day on the tennis court. One venus william’s worth of endorsements in the family is all I need.
The build (but not design) part of your comment is being taken care of by Bikes not Bombs (Jamaica Plain, MA), which as you might expect can really use some donations right now.
I like the idea. In general I am in favor of ways of integrated coursework and work/study from high school through college. Another approach would be to build several different things as individuals and teams over four year.
PSssshhhh…’buzzard suit’
From the High School teachers I have met, none of them could teach any part of that project. They wouldn’t understand it. Its about time we got Physicists to teach Physics, Mathmaticians to teach Math, and Engineers to teach Engineering.
Dana
Project- oriented teaching is proven effective, but seems to be difficult from an adminstrative point of view. As with so many good ideas, the stumbling block is managerial.
I think the the first year of a CS degree should be to design and build a bridge across a bottomless gorge and then have the students walk their own construction. I would imagine the students that graduated such a program would be less likely to suggest multi-tier clusters of trendy products as enterprise solutions, and just solve the problem. (probably with Lisp or Perl)
I guess having the engineering inept fall to their deaths instead of nursing them though their degree is a little extreme. Possibly another discipline/faculty would set up some safety nets, or maybe McDonald’s or Burger King would just catch them before they hit the ground.
100kg? 100kg? Did anybody notice he said 100 kg?
Curriculum design seems to be one of the major challenges. It’s a strong idea- incorporating many disciplines in the way that, for example, creating a computer game does. In either case, who teaches this at the university level?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=bicycle+science