clair073

As a college professor for many decades, I am always amazed at how so many students pass exams while having so little understanding. If I taught math, it would probably be different, because the task in math is to solve problems, which you can't do if you don't understand how to construct and solve appropriate equations. But for most other subjects, it is amazing how much students can learn with so little understanding. This problem also exists in the real world outside of academia. I have recently become engaged as a volunteer tutor in our community's citizenship preparation class for immigrants. This past week the topic was George Washington, and the two instructors spent a lot of time teaching trivial things, such as when he was born, where he was born, what he was (general, president), the name of his home. Nothing was presented about his philosophy about freedom and government. I had to remind the teachers and the class that after he had done such a good job in his two...

Most people have trouble focusing when there are distractions, and that will surely impair learning. Learning can be impaired by distracting background sounds. That is why teachers generally encourage students to study in quiet environments. Children, however, like extra stimulation when studying, perhaps because they view study as boring. So, a common practice is to play music or even have the radio or TV on. I have written about music effects on learning before (http://thankyoubrain.blogspot.com/search?q=music), but now there is other information I would like to share. Personality of the learner may be an important variable. Adrian Furnham and Lisa Strbac of University College, London, found that both background music or office noises impaired performance of introverts in tasks involving reading comprehension, mental arithmetic, and prose recall. Performance in silence was the same for both personality types, suggesting that introverts have a special need for silence in their study e...

In U.S. culture, hostility seems to be growing to epidemic proportions. We are teaching each other that hostility is acceptable and even necessary. Recently in my local newspaper, a letter to the editor by  Sana Rahman lamented that “people do not seem to have the same regard and respect for others that we used to have.” I have lived long enough to know she is right. Taking advantage of others is rampant. Everybody from corporations to individual free loaders want to feed at the federal trough. We legitimize free and undeserved stuff from government as entitlement.  Ripping off taxpayers occurs at all levels, especially in health care programs, government contracts, tax returns, and in all manner of subsidies. Violence is all around us in video games and movies and in murders in cities like Chicago and New Orleans. We read of horror stories where onlookers of rapes and beatings regard it as entertainment, refusing to intervene or call the police. In some cities, police are tar...