[P1] iBook article in the NYT

[Brett Haselton]

Children today are too bombarded with visuals. Reading and imagination
are slipping into never never land.
In higher education, textbooks that were once written at a supposed
college level can be understood by bright 10 year olds. Dumbing down is
occurring. IN order to make more people feel successful. The college
degree today has the same equivalence that a high school diploma had 10
years ago.

Brett M. Haselton
Technology Procurement Coordinator
Information Technology
Metropolitan State College of Denver
PO Box 173362
Campus Box 96
Denver, CO 80217-3362
303-352-4255
fax 303-556-5037 
mailto: haselton at mscd.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: iBook List [mailto:ibook at lists.themacintoshguy.com] On Behalf Of
david
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 11:11 AM
To: iBook List
Subject: Re: [P1] iBook article in the NYT



On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 10:31  AM, Mike Beede wrote:

>
> On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 05:51 US/Central, david wrote:
>
>> Pictures, graphs, diagrams...is it a question of dumbing down or is
>> it a question of trying to appeal to different learning styles?
>
> My hypothesis
> is that no textbook was ever rejected for being too
> flashy, but texts *are* rejected for including facts
> that the school officials or some dim-bulb pressure group feels are 
> "inappropriate for young minds."  Hence, the tendency to flashier and 
> dumber.  As for "different learning styles," I'm not sure you're doing

> someone a favor to let them slide through school without learning
> to deal with the primary source of knowlege in the world.
> Seems like the fast track to "you want frys with that?"
>
I certainly agree that information gets removed from books because it 
is politically incorrect etc.

How you jump to the impression that we are talking about letting 
someone slide through is beyond me. Perhaps you are example of someone 
whose primary learning style isn't reading? Note that I said, and I 
quote myself:

"...even among the literate, learning by reading as the dominate 
learning style is not common."

We aren't talking about sliding through. We are talking about utilizing 
every method possible to help someone learn. If I give the average 
*literate* student a chapter to read, he will retain about 45% of the 
information. If I add diagrams and pictures (where appropriate) perhaps 
a film clip and other appropriate learning experiences I can boost 
retention to over 90%. Now, am I dumbing it down here? I think not.

I'm not talking about telling people they don't have to read. Far from 
it. Although society as a whole certainly seems to be telling kids 
reading isn't important, I am not part of that crowd.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Good qualities are easier to destroy than bad ones, and therefore
uniformity is most easily achieved by lowering all standards.
  ~~ Bertrand Russell

David


=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Good qualities are easier to destroy than bad ones, and therefore
uniformity is most easily achieved by lowering all standards.
  ~~ Bertrand Russell

David

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