Karl and all,
One major (in America, at least) is that the colleges of education  
which "train" teachers, are very "distant" from the rest of the  
university. The teachers-to-be have very little interaction/study  
with the Liberal Arts and Sciences (or anyone else, for that matter),  
and don't much teach "toward" us, the Professoriate. Since the  
Colleges of Education are remote, their students (the teachers in the  
schools, don't have much sense for educating/training their students  
to deal with "us," leaving them in the situation which you desribe so  
well here as "naive."

i suggest that we attempt to connect with the teachers-of-teachers,  
and the teachers of these students who don't know, don't seem to  
care, etc., and to join the rethinking of the universities and what  
they do, toward...

The take-over of formal training and pre-set syllabi, has much to do  
(again, in america, for sure) with the university coming "under law"  
as our consumers (formerly students) might just sue us if we deviate  
from what we said we would do - so much formality, much covering (up).

I set out as little defined a syllabus as i can get away with (not  
really difficult), and then work from and around a dialogue about and  
concerning several issues or topics each day - filling-in the  
background as it is necessary and useful - working with and from the  
students' interests, trying to fill-in history, the why of why this  
might be interesting, etc.
It often seems to work. For tests (I use papers and projects), I ask  
them to suggest what they want to do - and we go from there. Just  
spent the weekend reading mid-semester papers (exhausted with ample  
evening wine, so...), but quite pleased with the results, and getting  
close to the substance of the courses, I think. More, after I return  
their papers.
Harvey

On Oct 24, 2006, at 8:41 PM, Karl Rogers wrote:

> Roger,
> I remember giving my very first formal lecture at the University of  
> Western England, while I was a phd student at Bath University. I  
> had taught seminars before, but this was my first lecture for a  
> course on the basic concepts of sixteenth and seventeenth century  
> physics for 1st year science & media studies students.
>
> I was naive, to say the least.
>
> My formal brief for it was give an introduction to the background  
> for the Copernican system -- which was the subject of the next  
> lecture -- so, I thought about what to do and then spent over  
> eighteen hours preparing slides for a lecture on Ptolemaic  
> astronomy -- as a complete technical description of how to take the  
> measurements and perform the calculations -- with photographs of  
> stars, geometrical diagrams, diagrams of an astrolabe and how it  
> works, etc. -- in order to introduce the idea of the historical  
> background for the scientific relations between mathematics,  
> calculation,
> measurement, and prediction, as well as to show the students just  
> how complicated the system was in relation to Copernicus' system,  
> so in the next lecture I could show them that even though it was  
> actually less predictively accurate than the Ptolemaic system, its  
> simplicity was an crucial factor in its subsequence acceptance.
>
> When I thought that I had got the pitch just right and was  
> confident that the students would consider this to be the best  
> lecture in science that they had ever had I proudly went off the  
> UWE with my notes and slides under my arm.
>
> I gave the lecture. At the end of which, the only question was
>
> "Are we going to be examined on that?"
>
> When I said "no" and explained that it was background to help  
> students appreciate Copernicus' system the students breathed a sigh  
> of relief and there were no more questions. They sat in silence.  
> When the time was up they all left.
>
> I was a very puzzled and a little depressed by this response, but I  
> thought that there would be some questions in the follow up  
> seminar. So off I went. Only about half of the group turned up.  
> Okay, I thought, maybe I shouldn't have told them that they weren't  
> going to be examined on this. But, the situation was made worse  
> when I discovered that this was their first lecture in science  
> EVER. Not one of them knew anything about science at all, none of  
> them had never heard of Copernicus, some of them had not heard of  
> Galileo, and one student didn't even know what an equilateral  
> triangle was nor that the sum of the internal angles of a triangle  
> were 180 degrees! Not only had they not understood a single word of  
> the whole lecture, but they did not see its relevance to anything.  
> One of the students said that she thought that my lecture was silly  
> because the earth went around the sun so I had got it all wrong!
>
> I couldn't believe it. So I went to see to course coordinator. She  
> patiently explained to me that I had pitched it a little high. The  
> previous lecturer -- who was on sabbatical -- usually gave his why  
> Aristotle was so wrong lecture and showed a video.
> What was even more depressing was when she explained that basic  
> school maths was not a criterion for the course and so I should  
> keep the mathematical content to a minimum. I protested that I had!  
> I had only used basic geometry. She patiently explained to me that  
> my idea of minimum was not quite minimum. Really all I needed to do  
> was write F=ma on the board once and explain it. No more maths than  
> that.
>
> I was so depressed. Anyway, despite the students' protests, I  
> taught them basic geometry by forcing them to come outside and use  
> string and rulers to measure the height of trees, using  
> trigonometry, and then I climbed the trees with the string to show  
> them that it worked. I couldn't believe that they didn't know this.  
> I went to a badly funded local council run junior school and they  
> taught this stuff to us when we were seven years old!!!!!!! Then I  
> taught them the basic theorems of Euclid's geometry before I would  
> even begin to discuss Copernicus' system. Boy, did they complain.
>
> Now I know that some people on the FOW list will think that I did a  
> terrible and evil act by teaching these kids geometry, given that  
> it is the root of all evil, but how on earth can anyone learn the  
> basics concepts of physics without knowing geometry? -- whether or  
> not you agree with its validity, the use of geometry to describe  
> natural movement is the basic novelty of c16th physics!
>
> After that I decided that the best way forward was to teach them  
> Galileo's experiments. Thankfully, I lived in Bath so I was able to  
> find a metal and a stone c16th canonball of the same diameter and  
> the lab technicians were really kind in letting me take over the  
> lab to build these experiments, using chains and guttering, etc.  
> All the while, the technicians were teasing me incessantly, shaking  
> their heads, and saying things like "Have you met your students,  
> yet?" and "You haven't been here long, have you?"
>
> I thought that the technicans were being mean. All the while, they  
> were right. At every stage, no matter what I did, the students  
> would protest about having to learn things that they didn't know  
> about, while angsting incessantly about whether they were going to  
> be examined on the stuff I was trying to teach them. The more that  
> I involved them the more resentment they would express about it.  
> They only liked it when I showed them videos from the OU (about the  
> relationship between physics, war, and commerce during the C17th)  
> because the OU presenters dressed funny, but the students  
> complained that their voices were boring. To show them the idea of  
> an inertial frame of reference, I showed them the film 2001. They  
> liked the actors dressed like monkeys at the beginning, but thought  
> the ending was weird.
>
> Weird, apparently, is bad.
>
> Every day, during that course, the walk to the train station became  
> longer and more depressing.
>
> Finally, I set them an essay question for the exam. It was  
> something like "Do you think that the natural world can be  
> described using mathematics?" or something like that. Two out of 60  
> students were able to answer the question intelligently. The others  
> wrote childish platitudes or left a blank piece of paper with their  
> name on it. The best answer went the the student who explained why  
> she hated physics.
>
> I thought of myself as the worst lecturer in the world, which was  
> even more depressing because as a physics undergrad, I thought that  
> I had been taught by the most likely candidates!
>
> However, subsequently, from giving lectures to different students,  
> I learned that the fault was not mine, even though I still have a  
> lot to learn, nor was it the UWE students fault either. It is the  
> whole system that destroys the confidence and the curiosity of the  
> students as it conditions them for the workplace by making them do  
> boring things for long periods of time and make them perform  
> arbitrary tasks such as tests and exams.
> The whole system is geared up to measuring aptitude for work -- it  
> is based economic class and how to discipline the children in  
> preparation for their appropriate level of employment.
>
> The revolution in education -- teaching wisdom inquiry instead of  
> knowledge inquiry -- would not be simply be a change in the content  
> of education. It would be radical change in its organisation and  
> how students were to participate in it from the onset. It would be  
> a change in the vision for education -- a radical re-evaluation of  
> what the purpose of education would be. In my view, this would  
> teach students how to educate themselves, how to critically  
> evaluate their own education, and how to explore the world freely  
> and authentically. Such a revolution would also be a revolution in  
> politcal economics and it would change the world.
>
> So, in short, wisdom would not be taught as in a course, say Wisdom  
> 101, but rather indirectly through a much broader educational  
> process, directed towards the well rounded development of human  
> character and capacity for, as Nick has put it, to realise for  
> ourselves and for others what enhances the quality of life.
>
> And, no, you will not be examined on that.
> Send instant messages to your online friends http:// 
> uk.messenger.yahoo.com