From techdirt.com

What If We Gave Toddlers An ‘F’ In Walking?

from the rethinking-education dept

theodp writes “To improve math and science education, Physics prof Dr. Yung Tae Kim thinks professors and teachers should take a page from skateboarding. ‘The persistence and the dedication needed in skateboarding — that’s what we need to be teaching,’ explains Kim. ‘No one says to a toddler, ‘You have ten weeks to walk, and if you can’t, you get an F and you’re not allowed to try to walk anymore.’ It’s absurd, right? But the same thing is true with math and science education. If you want to learn trig or calculus, it’s set at such a pace in schools that it guarantees that only the absolutely best students will learn it.’ Kim says it’s possible to ‘polish the turd’ of high school and college education, and lays out his plan for doing so in Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning (YouTube: parts 1–2–3), a video drawn from a farewell talk he gave to his Northwestern students. There’s more on The Way of Dr. Tae at DrTae.org and PhysicsOfSkateboarding.com.”

I was just discussing the same point with my father in law this past week. Our education system needs to change in fundamental ways if we want students to truly learn at their own pace. We do a bit of a disservice to students who need to take the material a little slower. There’s nothing wrong with taking things slowly. Likewise, we do disservice to students who could complete the coursework in half the time.

[Hat tip: Tim Chase, as usual :-)]