"Walter Bright" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... > Nick Sabalausky wrote: >> "Sean Kelly" <[email protected]> wrote in message >> news:[email protected]... >>> Intro courses in the sciences are often intended to weed out the people >> >> There's a *lot* of things wrong with the way schools work. Deliberate >> "weeding out" is a clear red flag that a school cares more about their >> own statistics (graduation ratio, etc) than actual education: > > That may be true for some schools. But there are incoming students who > simply don't belong, for a variety of reasons. I don't think it serves > those students to string them along with both the school and the student > pretending they can hack the material. > > Have you ever watched the tryouts on the TV show "So You Think You Can > Dance"? They have some applicants who clearly just don't belong there. > They are often asked if they've had training, and they'll say they've had > 5 years of dance training. They cry when told by the judges that they have > no talent. > > Apparently, none of their instructors told them this, they just continued > to take the tuition money and compliment the student on how well he's > doing. > > It's like me going to basketball camp. I will never, ever be a good > basketball player, no matter how hard I try or how much coaching I get. It > will never happen. For a coach not to tell me this is doing me a grave > disservice, because I should be expending effort at something I can > succeed at. > > Of course, if I then choose to take basketball anyway because I just love > the game, that's fine, too. But it would be unreasonable of me to expect a > top coach to be willing to coach me, even if I paid him $$$. He'll want to > be coaching people who can succeed at basketball.
See that's the thing, there's that middle-ground of sensibility right there that schools just won't go near. If they want to have a chat with someone about whether they think they're really on the right path, great. All problems solved. But instead they just play these bullshit games behind the students backs.
