Learning

This page is an index to articles I write about education. I am labeling the article "learning" to emphasize that education is something that takes place inside the student's head and not something that flows from the teacher.

I believe that the best approach to learning is to encourage and esteem for reason, then to structure an environment where students have ample access to learning materials and are encouraged to learn.

It is important for the reader to note that I flunked out of the Education Department of the University of Utah. Having been judged unfit to teach in the state of Utah, I think it safe to assume that I am unfit to write about education.

I flunked entry level classes that athletes took during game season because one didn't really have to show up for class or do class work. As I had taken a large number of extremely difficult math and engineering classes, I believe my flunking entry level classes was not do my inability to handle the academic rigor.

I decided to start writing about education because David Horowitz has been on a crusade to stop the practice of ideological tests in colleges.

I admit, I also think my views on education are interesting.

The reason that I had joined the education department is because I was intensely interested in math education. I wanted to write a calculus book for high school students.

I believe that the current process of math education over emphasizes problem solving. I wished to develop a liberal arts approach to math that presented mathematics as a set of tools that people use to develop and communicate their ideas.

At the time, I figured I would need about $100k seed money to write my books (about $300k in 2008 money). Unfortunately, I am gradually forgetting the things that I wanted to say.

Having been flunked out of the University of Utah, I started to give serious thoughts to the curriculum development process.

It dawned on me that the free market would be the best mechanism for both the development and delivery of a quality curriculum. If there was a free market for education, then it would be possible for someone like me to test my idea about teaching calculus to see if the idea worked.

I became interested in the movement to privatize schools; However, I quickly departed from the Conservative thinking about privatizing schools. Privatizing a school focuses the power of the free market on the administration of the school. Privatizing a school would create a better school administration. I was interested in creating a better classroom experience.

My clever approach the problem was to privatize the classroom. In the case of my Calculus class, I would form a company that developed the curriculum, and hired and trained the teachers and contracted with schools.

A system of teaching companies would essentially elevate teachers to the status of entrepreneurs.

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