mechanics of teaching, teachers aids (I recall a class on felt boards and three dimensional props for pre-school instructors) and little emphasis on the traditional broad university education.
I took a graduate course in multivariate statistics given through the graduate school of the education department once upon a time. About a dozen education grad students, two math grad students, one biology grad student, and me. Most of the education grads were teaching at local schools and taking this class during a free period, while the rest of us were more or less full time students, which probably makes a difference, the teachers were working more or less full time and attending class on the side. Regardless, the class required a good deal of work. Each week we employed different statistical techniques to explore the "High School and Beyond" data set, with the purpose of learning the intricacies of analyzing data containing multiple variables. In 16 weeks of class we blasted through the top ten of multivariate statistics. The professor had done his Ph.D. at Oxford, on principal components analysis I believe, in about 1940-1950 B.C. (Before Computers) and demanded that we be able to work the stats by hand as well as by dumping data into the computer hopper - the sort of thing that made you hate him then and remember him fondly now. He also graded on a strict 90%, 80%, 70% or some such scale that didn't allow much wiggle room.
The course was intensive and extensive. It was also a graduate course, in which only A's and B's count toward the degree. You've usually got to have a 3.0, a straight B average, to receive an advanced degree, so a C can only hurt you. Yet our education majors showed a remarkably lax approach to the class, some coming unprepared when they attended at all - yet they stayed in the class. In the end, two B's and two A's were awarded - to the two math students, the biology student, and me.
I've pondered the implications of this experience ever since. My initial reaction was to be shocked that would-be educators would avail themselves so poorly of an educational opportunity. I temper that with the realization that the education majors were attending the class for considerably different reasons than the rest of us. For them it was 'continuing education' or whatever the catch phrase of the time. They were more or less required to be seeking advanced degrees as a condition of their job, and even that particular class may have been required of them. They were also out in the 'working world' and oddly enough education wasn't the center of their existence.
Another observation: Even in studying multivariate statistics, the focus was on the "High School and Beyond" data set. In graduating to advanced work these folks had gone from studying teacher's aids and how to give a chalk talk, to analyzing educational statistics. The vocational education emphasis was still there. Perhaps this is a holdover from the days when my grandmother graduated from the North Dakota State Normal School. "Normal School," you've got to love that. It's what they called the teacher's college. Was that normal? [Sorry, couldn't resist] But seriously, teaching was treated as a vocation, like welding or diesel mechanics. Teachers didn't go to a university, they went to a vocational school. Much of this view of teacher training apparently still persists. Whether that is good or bad is an argument for another day.
Saturday, March 30, 2002- - -
".. the past should be left to the historians." Gerald Ford, as quoted by Robert Asprey in his book War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. Asprey's book gives an outstanding overview of guerrilla warfare since the days of the Scythians. It also illustrates why you shouldn't believe everything you read..
Discussing the build-up for the Vietnam war during the Johnson years, Asprey says (pages 814-815) In addition to standard arms and equipment, troops received rapid-firing Armalite rifles, at first the controversial M-16, later the improved M-14 which fired a lighter, 7.62-mm. round.
Yes, the M14 fires a 7.