News Economic Systems: Probing the Debate of Communism vs. Socialism

[alexandra]

I'm indirectly involved in education in the secondary system where I see a statistically correct subsample of "the people", and no, I don't want them, on average, to decide even on how to write my name !

LOL - yes, students can get very creative when spelling names; it's annoying, I agree.

As much as there are intelligent and bright adolescents, as much as there are true dumba** idiots that don't know how to make a logical reasoning containing more than 4 steps.

But whose fault is that? Surely a society that valued education and the development of critical thinking skills would create a different kind of adolescent/person? If kids' brains weren't filled with the rubbish they show on TV all the time, or with the stupid electronic/computer war games that are so popular (because of capitalist advertising!), don't you think they would read more and develop their minds? I believe so - I believe people can be educated. Looking at myself - I was not born with the ability to reason; this is something that I learned over many years. Surely you have had a similar experience regarding your own development? If we could learn to think logically, why can't other people?

I don't want them, however, to decide WHAT to do ! Because, even if they vote for a dumb representative, the dumb representative still has to make the decisions him/herself and take responsability for it. The crowd can make totally stupid decisions WITHOUT taking responsability for it.

At the moment, we have leaders making decisions that affect our lives adversely. If people made bad decisions, they would quickly have to learn to make better ones - it would be in their interest to learn quickly. As things stand, people have no say over the important decisions that are made regarding wars and the environment, and leaders are immune to punishment - they can make any decision they like and are not held accountable in the most powerful countries on earth.

I have seen public debates on the EU constitution here and it was terrifying. The one that impressed me most was on the first TV show where poor Chirac tried to defend the EU constitution to a "representative sample of 18-25 year olds". One of those representatives wanted to know if the EU constitution imposed member states to proceed to selective litter collection. If it wasn't the case, he'd vote "no", because he thought that having selective litter collection was important...

I can imagine, vanesch It is not surprising, given the sort of society we are living in where people have not been encouraged to develop basic thinking skills. But people can learn... In any case, we all go through adolescence; it takes everyone time to learn how to evaluate arguments on the basis of evidence. I don't think it's fair to judge humanity on the undeveloped abilities of young people. [/QUOTE]

 

[alexandra]

I think it is the only correct way of holding referenda: ask a few technical questions about the subject of which there is an objective answer. I wouldn't mind parties giving intensive courses in which technically correct information is drilled into the heads of people initially sympathetic to their causes. If they are technically well-informed, they might make up their own mind!
For instance, one could compile a list of, say, 300 multiple choice questions concerning the subject, with clear technical answers, and randomly draw 10 of them for each voter (with electronic voting). You could then weight the vote with the fraction of correct answers to the questions.

This is an intriguing idea, vanesch - and a good one, I think. It annoys me just as much as it does you that people don't generally make the effort to stay informed about important issues. On the other hand, I do believe that this is the result of the kind of society we live in: it is not in the interests of those in power for ordinary people to do too much thinking! (See, if you're an 'elitist', I'm a cynic!).

In all OTHER decision processes, some of this procedure is followed. If you're ill, you go to the doctor's, don't you ? You don't ask in the local pub to vote for what treatment you should take. Why ? Because, in the past, the guy with the white coat DID have to answer technical questions before they gave him a certificate making him a doctor. When you have a legal problem, you go to see a lawyer for the same reasons.

But of course that is "elitist"...

Well, this is a good, logical argument (it's quite funny to think of taking a vote in the local pub about what treatment one should take for an illness ). Let's say I understand your 'elitism' given the current state of affairs - but I firmly believe that people can be different to how they are now: one just needs to change the kind of society we are living in, to have a generally more 'cultured' society. Again, I should point out that a capitalist society could never be cultured - real knowledge and understanding is not valued; only the sort of knowledge that makes money (witness the eradication of 'pure maths' courses and their replacement by 'applied maths' courses in universities - not to mention the plague of business courses that have infiltrated university campuses now). Well, these are my views in any case - I imagine most people will disagree with me. That's ok - I'm not trying to change your minds; I'm just putting across a different point of view because I find such discussions interesting.

That's Churchill, wasn't it ? I think *representative* democracy isn't that bad. I think it is less of a problem of having a few idiots up there, taking responsability for their acts, publicly exposed, than an anonymous crowd who can decide in all impunity.

But those few (very powerful) 'idiots' (I don't think they're idiots - I think they know *exactly* what they're doing and they're just immoral because they value money over people/the environment/everything) do not face any ill consequences whatsover; they get away with murder (literally).

 

[vanesch]

Again, I should point out that a capitalist society could never be cultured - real knowledge and understanding is not valued; only the sort of knowledge that makes money (witness the eradication of 'pure maths' courses and their replacement by 'applied maths' courses in universities - not to mention the plague of business courses that have infiltrated university campuses now).

That's why at least part of the educational system should remain a matter of the state. However, I think it is a mistake to think that fundamental matters are not taught anymore because of "capitalism". I think it has more to do with theoretical "science of education" bulls**t, especially in the secondary system. You have to know that in France, there is a lot of extreme left wing stuff incorporated in this "science of education" thing ; for instance, mathematics should not be "abstract" but "concrete and practical" because the first approach is elitist, and those that inherit a cultural environment (the socially favored) do better at it than those of less favorable social descent. So kids end up coloring cubes in math courses when they are 15 years old ! And contrary to what you think, rich parents pay for private lessons for their kids where hard, abstract maths is taught !
In the same way, my wife (who is a classicist) often has to undergo this "elitist" critique that teaching latin and greek is only for the "entertainment of the socially favored". It is a leftish thing, apparently, to want to have directly applicable matterial in the classroom, while the conservative right is more in favor for the teaching of fundamental and cultural material. At least over here. Unfortunately, everything which touches upon education is heavily left wing colored. I say unfortunately, not because I should have a right wing bias, but because I think they do totally stupid stuff in matters of education, based upon a silly notion of "egalitarism", which translates: kids should not have to have any advantage in school from being in a socially and culturally favored environment at home.

In the long run, I'm convinced - whether you want to use your education to make money or whatever you want to do with your life - that learning fundamental matters are much more efficient than learning "applied" stuff.
The funny thing is that that is rather close to the right wing vision - at least in France.

 

[arildno]

vanesch:
I'm shocked!
Are you saying that this educational nonsense with respect to maths has come to France as well??
I was sure it was only limited to Norway.

 

[vanesch]

But those few (very powerful) 'idiots' (I don't think they're idiots - I think they know *exactly* what they're doing and they're just immoral because they value money over people/the environment/everything) do not face any ill consequences whatsover; they get away with murder (literally).

You have too negative a view of politicians. I know it is "politically correct" to say that politicians are a bunch of rotten corrupt powerhungry and greedy tyrans ; I'm not convinced that that is in general true. After all, a political career is way less certain and way less remunerated than a career in business: so if they wanted money that's what they would do. I think that most people who go into politics do that because they want to do something for society, and have some ideal. And then the practical details come in: they have to please, to be elected, once they get some power, they are exposed to unethical deals, they have to make compromise... and when they finally arrive at very influencial positions, there is not much that's left from the initial ideal they had in mind when they started out. I think that many politicians take the *right* decisions, as long as they DON'T want to please. Unfortunately, more and more, a political career looks like a "voter's capital" management, in which politicians decide as a function of what pleases most their electorate, instead of deciding according to a vision of matters they have.
A very arrogant, but maybe true, statement of former french president Mitterand was: "I'm the last great statesman of France: after me, you will only see bookkeepers"

 

[vanesch]

vanesch:
I'm shocked!
Are you saying that this educational nonsense with respect to maths has come to France as well??
I was sure it was only limited to Norway.

Well, now I'm shocked: I thought that the Scandinavian countries were more or less spared from it !

In France, there is some hope that people are seeing that this nonsense is leading nowhere. I read more openly criticism about it, even in leftish journals. Of course, it will take a lot of time to reverse the tendency, but 5 years ago, such criticism stamped you as almost fascist reactionary.
But now that France ended very low on one or other international test concerning maths, and that more and more private extra courses are being given, some taboos are being broken

 

[Smasherman]

I'd like to say something about capitalism and personal rights.

It seems to me that economic systems go through phases. According to Marx socialism would evolve into communism (I know communism is a form of socialism). I imagine capitalism goes through phases as well. My theory is that capitalism starts out fairly oppressive (terrible wages, long hours, little schooling). Workers then unite to gain better wages, better education, etc. Good life combined with refined propaganda allows those in power to oppress the populace more and more, leading to the same situation as early capitalism.

So (if my logic is correct), capitalism allowed the "little guy" to become wealthy, gives people great expression, etc, during it's middle phase. The end phase of capitalism ought to lead to a worldwide revolt like Marx predicted (if my logic is correct, that is). My biggest concern is whether or not the world ecology will be able to sustain people when that revolt happens.

I have another question that's really not very relative: Will communism lead to another economic system?

 

[alexandra]

That's why at least part of the educational system should remain a matter of the state. However, I think it is a mistake to think that fundamental matters are not taught anymore because of "capitalism". I think it has more to do with theoretical "science of education" bulls**t, especially in the secondary system. You have to know that in France, there is a lot of extreme left wing stuff incorporated in this "science of education" thing ; for instance, mathematics should not be "abstract" but "concrete and practical" because the first approach is elitist, and those that inherit a cultural environment (the socially favored) do better at it than those of less favorable social descent. So kids end up coloring cubes in math courses when they are 15 years old !

Yes, I have heard of these critiques against 'left wing' reformist educational theories, and such practices should, of course, be criticised. From the research I have done on these issues, especially in the field of mathematics education, the situation is much more complex than the common understanding of it, however. This is a bit OT, but is perhaps important and interesting enough to discuss further...

The thing is, traditional methods of teaching mathematics (where students are taught standard algorithms "off by heart") have resulted in generations of adults who see maths as some sort of 'mysterious' thing that you either 'understand' or have no hope of understanding. Traditionally, mathematics was taught in ways that did not make sense. Mathematics educators, represented by bodies such as the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, http://www.nctm.org/about/beliefs.htm) realized that teachers have to adopt a different approach so that students were understanding what they are learning rather than trying to remember how to solve specific problems using methods learned by rote that they did not understand, and so promoted the adoption of constructivist methods of teaching and learning (whereby learners are actively involved in constructing their own knowledge). They did not intend that their reform recommendations be simplistically interpreted to mean that students should not learn how to do the difficult maths at all, but this is how many non-educators (and, unfortunately, perhaps some incompetent mathematics educators) have interpreted it.

While there is an emphasis in the ‘reform movement’ on linking the teaching of mathematics concepts to relevant, practical and meaningful ‘real life’ examples, this is not meant to occur at the expense of an understanding of abstract concepts. The idea is to use the practical contexts to give meaning to the abstract concepts. Unfortunately, it takes very skilled mathematics educators to achieve this aim – it seems many mathematics teachers do not know their discipline well enough and don’t have a deep enough understanding themselves to teach in any way other than in the traditional way (the way they were taught themselves). So I do not believe that it is the ‘reform’ movement that is at fault here – the problem is how to implement those reforms properly. Vanesch, I would agree with you that the state of mathematics education in the secondary (and in the elementary) sector needs urgent attention – but I do not agree that we should return to the type of mathematics teaching that presents mathematics as something ‘alien’ and impossibly difficult to understand. In my own case, I learned very little real maths at school and had to teach myself from scratch as an adult. I firmly believe that this was because I was not taught in a way that facilitated understanding – I was shown how to do computations (the addition algorithm, the long division algorithm, etc), but the underlying concepts of such algorithms, and the processes involved, were never explored.

To get back OT, though – I do not believe that ‘leftist views’ have any impact at all on the sorts of courses that are offered at university level. What we are seeing operating there is economic rationalist principles, intricately related to capitalism. In Australia, the higher education sector has just undergone another radical ‘reform’ and universities have had to cut courses they are offering as a result. To attract funding from private business (because government funding is being slashed), universities are compelled to offer more applicable courses – and to save money, they are forced to stop offering pure maths courses. Education costs so much here (individual students get government loans that they have to pay back once they start working) that students have adopted a very ‘practical’ approach when selecting their courses: they are forced to choose to study courses that will ensure them a job, so they are forced to choose the more ‘applicable’ courses instead of the theoretical ones. So student numbers in pure maths courses drop, and they become unviable economically. That’s why I say that capitalism is to blame for what’s happening at the university level.

And contrary to what you think, rich parents pay for private lessons for their kids where hard, abstract maths is taught !

I believe this. I did not say rich parents don’t value education – I have explained in a lot more detail what I meant in the paragraph above.

In the same way, my wife (who is a classicist) often has to undergo this "elitist" critique that teaching latin and greek is only for the "entertainment of the socially favored". It is a leftish thing, apparently, to want to have directly applicable matterial in the classroom, while the conservative right is more in favor for the teaching of fundamental and cultural material. At least over here.

Yes, if the so-called ‘left’ adopts this position, they are being extremely superficial and ridiculously short-sighted. There are different ‘qualities’ of ‘left-wing’: some so-called ‘left wing’ people are not really, IMO, worthy of the title – they are certainly no better than the completely uninformed if their understanding is so superficial.

Unfortunately, everything which touches upon education is heavily left wing colored. I say unfortunately, not because I should have a right wing bias, but because I think they do totally stupid stuff in matters of education, based upon a silly notion of "egalitarism", which translates: kids should not have to have any advantage in school from being in a socially and culturally favored environment at home.

I totally agree with you on this final statement. When I think of egalitarianism, I think of raising everyone to a higher level rather than lowering everyone to some mediocre common denominator.

In the long run, I'm convinced - whether you want to use your education to make money or whatever you want to do with your life - that learning fundamental matters are much more efficient than learning "applied" stuff.
The funny thing is that that is rather close to the right wing vision - at least in France.

I don’t know anything about France’s politics, but I totally agree with your first sentence. It’s just that if there are no pure maths courses available to study, how can one choose to study in this field? Economic rationalism has meant the eradication of such study options at many universities, and this is (in my opinion) a serious issue that won’t be addressed as long as the focus is on transforming institutions of education into businesses - in other words, when I analyse it I see the cause of the deterioration of higher education as being capitalism.

 

[alexandra]

I'd like to say something about capitalism and personal rights.

It seems to me that economic systems go through phases. According to Marx socialism would evolve into communism (I know communism is a form of socialism). I imagine capitalism goes through phases as well. My theory is that capitalism starts out fairly oppressive (terrible wages, long hours, little schooling). Workers then unite to gain better wages, better education, etc. Good life combined with refined propaganda allows those in power to oppress the populace more and more, leading to the same situation as early capitalism.

So (if my logic is correct), capitalism allowed the "little guy" to become wealthy, gives people great expression, etc, during it's middle phase. The end phase of capitalism ought to lead to a worldwide revolt like Marx predicted (if my logic is correct, that is). My biggest concern is whether or not the world ecology will be able to sustain people when that revolt happens.

Very clearly expressed, Smasherman - I agree with this analysis. And my biggest concern is the same as yours. I don't know what your specialist background is (perhaps you are a specialist about climate), but in any case many reputable climatologists appear to share our concern. Today I heard an interview with Stanford academic, Stephen Schneider. He discussed climate policy and had some rather scary things to say - More: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Policy/CliPolFrameset.html . And more and more scientists have been becoming more forthright about their concerns recently. It seems they too are worried about how much time we have to sort things out.

I have another question that's really not very relative: Will communism lead to another economic system?

I imagine so - I think that's just too far in the future to make any predictions about and will depend on what happens - how things unfold. But I don't imagine human societies will ever stop evolving; that wouldn't make sense. Oh, unless we wipe ourselves out as a species by not getting out of the current mess...

 

[vanesch]

The thing is, traditional methods of teaching mathematics (where students are taught standard algorithms "off by heart") have resulted in generations of adults who see maths as some sort of 'mysterious' thing that you either 'understand' or have no hope of understanding. Traditionally, mathematics was taught in ways that did not make sense. Mathematics educators, represented by bodies such as the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, http://www.nctm.org/about/beliefs.htm ) realized that teachers have to adopt a different approach so that students were understanding what they are learning rather than trying to remember how to solve specific problems using methods learned by rote that they did not understand, and so promoted the adoption of constructivist methods of teaching and learning (whereby learners are actively involved in constructing their own knowledge). They did not intend that their reform recommendations be simplistically interpreted to mean that students should not learn how to do the difficult maths at all, but this is how many non-educators (and, unfortunately, perhaps some incompetent mathematics educators) have interpreted it.

I entirely agree with your analysis - I didn't mean to say that "in the old days it was much better". What has happened, however, is the following: this "self construction of your own knowledge" (one of its favorite promotors is our good own Charpak) has its limits. While it can be fun to illustrate something, or to get started or so, you cannot expect from your average - good student to rediscover, on his own, even guided, about 2500 years of development from the smartest people in history. The trial and error method is simply too slow and inefficient. But because this was seen as "progressive", instead of considering as an eventual method to ACHIEVE educational goals (which could be tested scientifically, by comparing different methods on representative samples of students, and see how good or bad the methods are in reality), they became, for pseudo-political reasons, the GOAL. And because these methods work very well for learning how to color cubes, but not on how to fit together a correct abstract proof in Euclidean geometry (how do you do that "constructively", except if your name is Euclid or the like), they CHANGED the objectives: the method became the goal.

While there is an emphasis in the ‘reform movement’ on linking the teaching of mathematics concepts to relevant, practical and meaningful ‘real life’ examples, this is not meant to occur at the expense of an understanding of abstract concepts. The idea is to use the practical contexts to give meaning to the abstract concepts.

Well, I would think that part of the interest of teaching mathematics in high school is to make kids used to ABSTRACT reasoning, exactly because they should get their thinking INDEPENDENT of practical contexts. The main goal is NOT that they have an intuitive understanding of geometrical problems as "pieces of cardboard", but that they can think about it without making this association ; and then, once they master the abstract way of thinking, that they can apply it to cardboard situations (but not that they need the cardboard picture to help them do the reasoning). So I think - especially in mathematics - that people trying to do that missed ENTIRELY the whole educational interest of mathematics teaching ! The aim is NOT to be able to solve practical problems - the aim is to learn to think abstractly. The by-product is that you can also solve practical problems.

Unfortunately, it takes very skilled mathematics educators to achieve this aim – it seems many mathematics teachers do not know their discipline well enough and don’t have a deep enough understanding themselves to teach in any way other than in the traditional way (the way they were taught themselves). So I do not believe that it is the ‘reform’ movement that is at fault here – the problem is how to implement those reforms properly.

You cannot require from your average math teacher to have the level of a hotshot university professor: otherwise he'd not be teaching in high school, for the salary he gets and the working conditions he has. But even that would not be sufficient because usually a university professor has not the RIGHT pedagogical skills to deal with adolescents (he usually takes a certain maturity in the student for granted).

Vanesch, I would agree with you that the state of mathematics education in the secondary (and in the elementary) sector needs urgent attention – but I do not agree that we should return to the type of mathematics teaching that presents mathematics as something ‘alien’ and impossibly difficult to understand. In my own case, I learned very little real maths at school and had to teach myself from scratch as an adult. I firmly believe that this was because I was not taught in a way that facilitated understanding – I was shown how to do computations (the addition algorithm, the long division algorithm, etc), but the underlying concepts of such algorithms, and the processes involved, were never explored.

Again, I agree that we should not return to the 50-ies teaching per se. There were problems, the main one being that the "good" student was the perfect parrot. But AT LEAST he learned something, and those that DID understand, got a very good education. Now, the good average to brightest are simply WASTED (except if their parents can give them extra education, themselves, or by paying extra courses). The dummies have fun, and are mislead in thinking they are good at maths, which makes them make choices where they get completely blocked, 3 or 4 years later.
I think the goals and the methods are 2 different things: the goals should be: a good capacity of abstract reasoning (correct proof vs. flawed proof etc...), and good problem solving skills. For the methods, all options are good, but you could test their efficiency scientifically on representative samples.

To get back OT, though – I do not believe that ‘leftist views’ have any impact at all on the sorts of courses that are offered at university level. What we are seeing operating there is economic rationalist principles, intricately related to capitalism. In Australia, the higher education sector has just undergone another radical ‘reform’ and universities have had to cut courses they are offering as a result. To attract funding from private business (because government funding is being slashed), universities are compelled to offer more applicable courses – and to save money, they are forced to stop offering pure maths courses. Education costs so much here (individual students get government loans that they have to pay back once they start working) that students have adopted a very ‘practical’ approach when selecting their courses: they are forced to choose to study courses that will ensure them a job, so they are forced to choose the more ‘applicable’ courses instead of the theoretical ones.

Maybe that's the mistake: that they think they have to take practical courses instead of fundamental ones. It is a matter of INFORMING people correctly. University professors, instead of being in their ivory tower, should try to CONVINCE their business partners who cofinance them, that a certain amount of fundamental and theoretical teaching is absolutely essential in the education of good co-workers. I know that this tendency has already started, where businesses take care of the "practical" education, and ask universities to ensure the more theoretical aspects.

So student numbers in pure maths courses drop, and they become unviable economically. That’s why I say that capitalism is to blame for what’s happening at the university level.

No, it is not. It is the fault of the pure mathematicians that fail to convince the value of their work to society. Of course, there needs to be public funding of these matters, but I think there is also the error of a certain ivory-tower arrogance from the part of the universities.
Fundamental materials are to universities what are long-term investments for businesses.

 

[alexandra]

You have too negative a view of politicians. I know it is "politically correct" to say that politicians are a bunch of rotten corrupt powerhungry and greedy tyrans ; I'm not convinced that that is in general true.

Yikes, vanesch! Politically correct? Aargh, no - please don't accuse me of that I pride myself on being an independent thinker, and I can assure you that no-one I know thinks of my views as in any way politically correct (I'd be really worried if they did!).

After all, a political career is way less certain and way less remunerated than a career in business: so if they wanted money that's what they would do. I think that most people who go into politics do that because they want to do something for society, and have some ideal. And then the practical details come in: they have to please, to be elected, once they get some power, they are exposed to unethical deals, they have to make compromise... and when they finally arrive at very influencial positions, there is not much that's left from the initial ideal they had in mind when they started out. I think that many politicians take the *right* decisions, as long as they DON'T want to please. Unfortunately, more and more, a political career looks like a "voter's capital" management, in which politicians decide as a function of what pleases most their electorate, instead of deciding according to a vision of matters they have.

My cynicism runs very deep. Perhaps some politicians do start out with ideals but, as you say, soon get corrupted. Perhaps France is different (I just don't know anything about modern French politics - I know a little bit about historical French politics surrounding the Revolution, of course) - in the countries whose politics I have studied, the politicians are all in the pockets of big business. They do not feel accountable to the voters - they feel (and are) accountable to big business, and they lie to the voters to get into power. And it's a lot more complex than that. I have studied some Journalism units, and as part of those studies had to research the role of Murdoch's newspapers in engineering consent for specific political parties in Australian elections. That research was quite an eye-opener: media owners basically determine the 'line' pursued by journalists and editors working on their newspapers, and so indirectly they determine the outcomes of elections. France may be different, though - as I said, I don't know enough to have an informed opinion.

A very arrogant, but maybe true, statement of former french president Mitterand was: "I'm the last great statesman of France: after me, you will only see bookkeepers"

I don't know much about Mitterand, but his assertion made me laugh

 

[vanesch]

in the countries whose politics I have studied, the politicians are all in the pockets of big business.

There are places where that's certainly the case, and often there is a link between media monopoly and this situation. Italy is an example, with Berlusconi. But most other European countries do not suffer from that problem - as far as I can see. What is of course the case is that many politicians are somehow sold to a certain electorate. For instance, in france, the electorate of Chirac is typically the farmers (those that didn't switch yet to extreme right). That explains, for instance, his insistance on these famous European aids for farmers. Some more right-wing parties are sold to the practicing catholics. The extreme-right wing (fascist) parties essentially recrute in the low-paid workers sphere, and, very funny, in the immigrants sphere.

The social-democrats in france are sold to the worker's unions (in fact, most of them CAME from the worker's unions) and to a strange kind of "pseudo intellectual left" (people who have all the characteristics of right-wing voters, like owners of real-estate, businesses etc..., but where it became fashionable to be "left" to get a kind of intellectual stamp). There is a party in france which is devoted to businesses - it doesn't have much success, and is now absorbed into Chirac's moderate right wing union. And then there are several left wing parties with independent programs from the social democrats ; each of them doesn't weight much (there is the communist party, there are 2 Trotskist parties, there is the green party, there are a few parties centered around the promotion of different ethnicities, there's a women's party ...) They hover in fact around the social-democratic party and jump on the train when the social-democrats win the elections.

 

[Smasherman]

I don't have a background in much of anything (I'm 16), but I spend a lot of time thinking about problems (I know I am too young, but I am too old to stop, too).

Also, have you read the book Ishmael? It describes our cultural problems very well, in a story form (not allegory). I could summarize the problems, but it'd be better to read Ishmael, since it's written to allow a fuller understanding.

Ishmael doesn't offer solutions, but rather a new viewpoint to use to solve our problems.

 

[alexandra]

I entirely agree with your analysis - I didn't mean to say that "in the old days it was much better". What has happened, however, is the following: this "self construction of your own knowledge" (one of its favorite promotors is our good own Charpak) has its limits. While it can be fun to illustrate something, or to get started or so, you cannot expect from your average - good student to rediscover, on his own, even guided, about 2500 years of development from the smartest people in history. The trial and error method is simply too slow and inefficient. But because this was seen as "progressive", instead of considering as an eventual method to ACHIEVE educational goals (which could be tested scientifically, by comparing different methods on representative samples of students, and see how good or bad the methods are in reality), they became, for pseudo-political reasons, the GOAL. And because these methods work very well for learning how to color cubes, but not on how to fit together a correct abstract proof in Euclidean geometry (how do you do that "constructively", except if your name is Euclid or the like), they CHANGED the objectives: the method became the goal.

Absolutely correct, vanesch - I think it takes an incredibly skilled and dedicated teacher to properly pull off the constructivist teaching method because, as you point out, it has to be done much more efficiently than the 'trial and error method': the teacher (they call them 'facilitators' now; 'teacher' is politically incorrect - I still use the word 'teacher' ) has to really know their stuff and, as you say further down...

You cannot require from your average math teacher to have the level of a hotshot university professor: otherwise he'd not be teaching in high school, for the salary he gets and the working conditions he has. But even that would not be sufficient because usually a university professor has not the RIGHT pedagogical skills to deal with adolescents (he usually takes a certain maturity in the student for granted).

So, we're stuck with pretty 'average quality' teachers and, even if we got real discipline experts into high schools, they wouldn't know the crucial pedagogic principles (and are generally not terribly good communicators in any case )

Well, I would think that part of the interest of teaching mathematics in high school is to make kids used to ABSTRACT reasoning, exactly because they should get their thinking INDEPENDENT of practical contexts. The main goal is NOT that they have an intuitive understanding of geometrical problems as "pieces of cardboard", but that they can think about it without making this association ; and then, once they master the abstract way of thinking, that they can apply it to cardboard situations (but not that they need the cardboard picture to help them do the reasoning). So I think - especially in mathematics - that people trying to do that missed ENTIRELY the whole educational interest of mathematics teaching ! The aim is NOT to be able to solve practical problems - the aim is to learn to think abstractly. The by-product is that you can also solve practical problems.

Again, I agree with you. It boils down to how best to teach abstract reasoning. I need to do a lot more research on this, but intuitively (and yes, intuition is not good enough on such an important issue) I would have thought that referring backwards and forwards from the abstract to the concrete (making constant links throughout the teaching) may be an effective method. The currently accepted 'best practice' teaching principles in primary school mathematics is to start off with the concrete and gradually introduce abstraction - but while this makes sense at the primary school level, I can see (now that I'm thinking about it more ) that maybe it wouldn't work at the higher levels. But on the other hand, studying Calculus at university level - the textbooks cover the abstract theoretical concepts, but then also include sections of practical applications from discipline areas like physics and biology...

Again, I agree that we should not return to the 50-ies teaching per se. There were problems, the main one being that the "good" student was the perfect parrot. But AT LEAST he learned something, and those that DID understand, got a very good education. Now, the good average to brightest are simply WASTED (except if their parents can give them extra education, themselves, or by paying extra courses). The dummies have fun, and are mislead in thinking they are good at maths, which makes them make choices where they get completely blocked, 3 or 4 years later.

Hmm, yes - true. But this does not hold only for maths. At least in this country, it seems to hold in every discipline area. I teach people who have actually (in some cases) completed all their years of formal schooling and 'passed', and yet they still cannot write an essay (or even a basic sentence - or even spell my name correctly ) And they have absolutely no knowledge of history or current events

I think the goals and the methods are 2 different things: the goals should be: a good capacity of abstract reasoning (correct proof vs. flawed proof etc...), and good problem solving skills. For the methods, all options are good, but you could test their efficiency scientifically on representative samples.

When I studied maths in high school (in another country), we studied geometry and the formal geometrical proofs intensively as part of the mathematics curriculum. In Australia, however, students do not study the formal geometrical proofs any more. I find this absolutely incomprehensible (primary school children are also not taught how to do 'long division' any more - crazy!)

Maybe that's the mistake: that they think they have to take practical courses instead of fundamental ones. It is a matter of INFORMING people correctly. University professors, instead of being in their ivory tower, should try to CONVINCE their business partners who cofinance them, that a certain amount of fundamental and theoretical teaching is absolutely essential in the education of good co-workers. I know that this tendency has already started, where businesses take care of the "practical" education, and ask universities to ensure the more theoretical aspects.

No, it is not. It is the fault of the pure mathematicians that fail to convince the value of their work to society. Of course, there needs to be public funding of these matters, but I think there is also the error of a certain ivory-tower arrogance from the part of the universities.
Fundamental materials are to universities what are long-term investments for businesses.

And at this point, vanesch, is where our differences begin - my understanding of capitalism (derived from observations of what is happening in the higher education sector) is that it is not interested in investments that do not yield a return in the short-term. If you can 'mass produce' enough engineers who can basically 'do the job' (however superficial their knowledge is), and you can do this more quickly and with less money by making them all do applied maths courses and cutting out the theoretical, abstract, 'useless rubbish' (note, I do not believe it is 'useless rubbish'!), then that's 'good enough'. Personally, I think the whole system will implode on them (the 'free market' economic rationalists) precisely because, as you write, "theoretical teaching is absolutely essential in the education of good co-workers" - and by the time they realize it (business types need to actually see the proof; they are hopeless at extrapolating!) it'll be too late: the university system will be in tatters by then. Personally, I don't think pure mathematicians have either the political nous or the persuasive skills to convince business and political leaders of anything - you cannot convince those in power to see what it does not suit them to see when it comes to their short-term profit margins.

 

[alexandra]

I don't have a background in much of anything (I'm 16), but I spend a lot of time thinking about problems (I know I am too young, but I am too old to stop, too).

Wow, Smasherman - very impressive Keep on reading and thinking... you already seem to have a better understanding and more developed critical thinking skills than many people I have talked to who are twice your age!

Also, have you read the book Ishmael? It describes our cultural problems very well, in a story form (not allegory). I could summarize the problems, but it'd be better to read Ishmael, since it's written to allow a fuller understanding.

Ishmael doesn't offer solutions, but rather a new viewpoint to use to solve our problems.

Thanks for the reference - I haven't heard of this book, but I will certainly locate and read it.

 

[alexandra]

There are places where that's certainly the case, and often there is a link between media monopoly and this situation. Italy is an example, with Berlusconi.

Ah yes, Berlusconi is the perfect example of big business, the media and politics all coming together - a very blatant example of what happens in other countries just a bit more subtly in that while all the powerful belong to the same class, they aren't the exact same person!

But most other European countries do not suffer from that problem - as far as I can see. What is of course the case is that many politicians are somehow sold to a certain electorate. For instance, in france, the electorate of Chirac is typically the farmers (those that didn't switch yet to extreme right). That explains, for instance, his insistance on these famous European aids for farmers. Some more right-wing parties are sold to the practicing catholics.

Yes, this is true here. In the Australian Coalition (formed between the Liberal Party and the National Party because neither historically had the numbers to win an election on their own), the National Party generally represents the interests of the rural sector (the farmers) while the Liberal Party represents the interests of big business. The Australian Labor Party has totally lost its support base (as have labour parties throughout the west, I think) because its policies have moved to the right and are now identical to the policies of the Liberals. The working class has been punishing Labor for this for years now, but because of the wider politico-economic structure and the spread of global capitalism, Labor cannot bring back popular policies that favour the working class so they're dead as a political force. In my opinion, they may as well just pack up and join the Liberals! The working class needs to organise its own party now.

The extreme-right wing (fascist) parties essentially recrute in the low-paid workers sphere, and, very funny, in the immigrants sphere.

LOL - yes, it's amazing how some groups of people crazily vote in direct opposition to their own interests! Things have gotten so confused, sizeable groups of people don't even seem to be able to identify what their own interests are any more.

The social-democrats in france are sold to the worker's unions (in fact, most of them CAME from the worker's unions) and to a strange kind of "pseudo intellectual left" (people who have all the characteristics of right-wing voters, like owners of real-estate, businesses etc..., but where it became fashionable to be "left" to get a kind of intellectual stamp). There is a party in france which is devoted to businesses - it doesn't have much success, and is now absorbed into Chirac's moderate right wing union. And then there are several left wing parties with independent programs from the social democrats ; each of them doesn't weight much (there is the communist party, there are 2 Trotskist parties, there is the green party, there are a few parties centered around the promotion of different ethnicities, there's a women's party ...) They hover in fact around the social-democratic party and jump on the train when the social-democrats win the elections.

French politics sound incredibly complex, vanesch. The 'pseudo intellectual left' sounds like a hilarious (but also quite a sad) group - rich 'socialists'?

 

[vanesch]

Ah yes, Berlusconi is the perfect example of big business, the media and politics all coming together - a very blatant example of what happens in other countries just a bit more subtly in that while all the powerful belong to the same class, they aren't the exact same person! Yes, this is true here.

It is indeed a danger. I'd say that as long as there are SEVERAL different groups having their different influences in the media, it isn't so bad. It is when effective monopolies arise that there is a real danger of positive feedback and latch-up: political power< -> media power <-> business power. It has been suggested over here that the media became such an important power in society that they should be given a special status ; instead of having 3 fundamental 'forces' (the legislative power, the executive power, and justice), that one should add 'news media' as a 4th force, so that media would become a pillar whose independance would be as much guaranteed (by independent legal review commitees) as the independence of justice - so that there would be some "high court of journalists" whose mission is to crack down on every attempt to influence the news media.

The working class has been punishing Labor for this for years now, but because of the wider politico-economic structure and the spread of global capitalism, Labor cannot bring back popular policies that favour the working class so they're dead as a political force.

Yes, that's about everywhere the same thing ; problem is, the old electorate of social-democrats usually goes extreme: right or left. (and usually more right than left...)

The 'pseudo intellectual left' sounds like a hilarious (but also quite a sad) group - rich 'socialists'?

Yes, they even have a name here: "bobo - socialists". I know one personally: he's a university professor, married to the daughter of a Greek boat fleet owner (yeah! like in the movies), his father was a colonel, he talks full of dispise about the "stupid workers fixing his fancy appartment on the mediteranian" which he pays unofficially, but an extreme-left wing activist who distributes tracts and so on, and goes playing bongo in the park with other "activists". He regularly asks me if I don't want to join. Crazy guy !

 

[alexandra]

It is indeed a danger. I'd say that as long as there are SEVERAL different groups having their different influences in the media, it isn't so bad. It is when effective monopolies arise that there is a real danger of positive feedback and latch-up: political power< -> media power <-> business power. It has been suggested over here that the media became such an important power in society that they should be given a special status ; instead of having 3 fundamental 'forces' (the legislative power, the executive power, and justice), that one should add 'news media' as a 4th force, so that media would become a pillar whose independance would be as much guaranteed (by independent legal review commitees) as the independence of justice - so that there would be some "high court of journalists" whose mission is to crack down on every attempt to influence the news media.

The problem is, though, that the trend seems to be in the opposite direction: towards more concentrated corporate ownership and control rather than towards more independence. For instance, here's an exctract from the International Federation of Journalists' website:

Every year the process of media concentration is increasing and with it comes growing concern for the impact on media quality, pluralism and diversity.

Public concern about corporate and political dominance over media and information services is greater than ever. Confidence among readers, viewers, listeners and users of information is low and there is an increasing perception that journalism is failing to carry out its watchdog role in society because of the vested interests that drive the media business. Reference: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Issue=OWNER&Language=EN

I do not personally agree with their next statement (which I believe is a result of flawed analysis on the part of the International Federation of Journalists, but I will include it so I am not accused of being selective in the facts I present):

Not surprisingly, politicians are worried, too. The media concentration process has paralysed policy makers and it is time to stimulate fresh debate and prepare concrete actions to confront the challenge of corporate power in mass media. Reference: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Issue=OWNER&Language=EN

And here is my reason for being skeptical about their previous statement (funny how they can see this themselves, yet not draw the obvious conclusions)

The IFJ says the market itself cannot protect pluralism and diversity. The public’s need to be properly informed means that information services must be regulated beyond the market framework of ratings, profits and commercial objectives.
Reference: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Issue=OWNER&Language=EN