Thanks kindly to Paul Doniger!  He attributes our disagreement to
different backgrounds within education:

>What succeeds at the university may not be successful in high,
>middle, or elementary school -- and vice versa. What I think we all
>need is open mindedness.

Nancy Patterson says this:

>But I have to tell you that I am deeply offended by your remark
>that teachers who contextualize "jump through hoops to
>entertain."

Welcome to the club!  A lot of old grammarians are feeling deeply
offended these days.

To me, the crux is between experience (the contextual method)
and knowledge (the traditional method).  There is an actual
disagreement; sorry Paul!

Gretchen Lee describes two excellent contextual lessons, one
involving students doing statistical research and another involving
students being required to discover a formula on their own.  I think
that both lessons are creative, engaging, effective, in a word,
excellent.

However, the following statements seem categorical and untrue:

> Students learn from things that have relevance to them.  I can no more
> remember how to differentiate an equation or balance chemical equations
> from memory than I can become invisible.  In the context of my life, these
> things don't matter.  The idea is that kids will only really learn
> something if they have a structure to hang it on and a reason to remember
> it.

Where is the proof of these extreme statements?  Where is the
justification of so categorical a rejection of traditional methods?

I have nothing against creative projects like Gretchen describes.

But I _do_ see a deficiency in contextual education.  Contextual
education creates a shift away from "knowledge centered"
education to "student centered" education.

Traditional teachers value information.  We want our students to
have really extensive knowledge.  We see knowledge as the
empowerment of the student.

Contextual methodology seems to focus on the learning
experience.  It creates situations in which the students discover an
insight.  They experience learning.  They learn to learn.

I have no problem with that, but there are two points 1) this
happens in traditonal education also, and 2) this is a method that
does not emphasize complete coverage of information; it makes a
point but then is fragmented.

Please don't stereotype traditional teachers as blind authoritarians
who talk when no one's listening.

Gretchen reports a student complaining about those stupid old
traditional teachers: "'Why do they break it down into all those little
lessons?' she asked.  I still don't know what to say to her."

Well, I can report dozens of students over the years who
complained about contextual teachers.

They say "why didn't they teach us any of this in high school?"

Since we are using testimonials as arguments, one student wrote
"I learned more in three weeks in Robert's class than I learned in
three years of High School English."

My students respond to my methods, so I think we can just take
that question out of the equation.  Even the junior high students
that I tutor have unused intellectual potential.  They understand
things (like the articles on my web page) that the education
system would scorn as laughably irrelevant.

So the real objection to me is the lack of validity given to real old
fashioned knowledge and information in the school system today.
We need more knowledge and we do NOT need to scorn
something just because it's a hundred, or a thousand years old.

-----------------------------------------------------
Sincerely, Robert Einarsson
please visit me at
http://www.artsci.gmcc.ab.ca/people/einarssonb

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/