Re: [school-discuss] Quote From Neil Postman

[Michael Shigorin <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 11:56:25PM +0000, Yishay Mor wrote:
> Each and every one of us can recall an experience of learning a
> subject from a teacher who hated it, didn't grasp it, or both.
> Its a disaster.

+1

It's the ability to actually love both the subject and children,
not even remotely the knowledge, which makes a person a teacher.
Knowledge does help but isn't nearly as critical, as fun an
observation as might seem.

> The greatest treasure a teacher can bestow his students is the
> ability to see the beauty of a subject, to fall in love with
> it. be it art, mathematics or history. The rest most students
> can do on their own.

Yishay, be my friend -- you told *exactly* the same words 
I tell sometimes in train talks, or wherever!

> But here's an idea: instead of giving kids a few tons of books
> to chew through, give them a laptop, make it inexpensive,
> simple and robust, and make sure its connected. That way, they
> have access to all the knowledge on the web. They can even

...just drown. :-(

Information stream and the ability to prioritize, structurize, 
and factor out the most probable and meaningful things are very
different.  I know not that much people with decent capabilities
on self-education, even given ~99.7% education level in Ukraine.

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/