On Wed, February 10, 1999 at 19:14:12 (-0500) Michael Yates writes: > ... I have to say that the level of >illiteracy and general stupidity seems to be rising among students. the >most basic words are unknown to them, and they never bother to look them >up. I have to continually check myself when I am about to use a word I >know that they should understand but do not. Solution?: write up a dictionary of all the terms that you will use. Give it to them on the first day. > On a recent quiz someone said that the name of Adam Smith's famous book >was "Rivethead."!! this after at least a dozen mentions of "The Wealth >of Nations." ... Not to be too critical, especially at a distance, but perhaps you should take part of the blame. This at least has the virtue of providing an avenue from the despair you seem to be drifting towards, because you can then work on something close to fix, rather than trying to fix the students' problems, which are more remote. It sounds to me as if your examples are a bit on the rote-ish side of things. If the students fill in "Rivethead" for "Wealth of Nations", that's pretty sad, but why are you asking them this? This sounds like a very good measure of how much interest the kids have in the subject, not how stupid they are. Perhaps you could alter your teaching a bit --- I mean if today's kids are even less prepared, perhaps traditional methods, or whatever elements of traditional methods you use, could be rethought. Perhaps try making economics fun, or meaningful, on their terms --- I mean, who cares if Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations" or "Rivethead" or "Gunga Din"? Perhaps try interviewing some of the kids to find out why they wrote some of these outrageous things (Did you just not care? Were you bored?). The most important thing for a teacher is to develop the natural curiosity of the students. You have to reach deep for this one, especially in a subject as potentially boring as economics. I have always thought that having the students act out, in a sort of play, different types of roles that illustrate what you are talking about, would be a good learning mechanism for economics. Take, say, the creation of money. You could have students form different entities: The Treasury, Banks, Farmers, Consumers, etc. Then, the directions of the play would have the Farmer go for a loan to the bank, etc. Someone could be in charge of counting all the money that exists (you could give stop/start directions to the actors, "OK, everybody stop, Counter, go count the money"). Someone could write on the chalkboard when money was destroyed (reflux!), etc. Or another game might be to have a small society that buys and sells different colors of apples (or Mountain Dews, or Snowboards, etc.). Each group of students would have different apples (etc.) and would buy and sell with the other groups. You could illustrate the MV = PT identity. You could have several runs where V varied, etc. You could calculate GDP, etc. This society could be combined with the banking society, etc. Or, how about watching the Wizard of Oz in class one day? Discuss with them the Gold Standard and why Baum was writing the things he did... Relate this to why the PT = MV equation holds such interest for people who wanted (and want) tight money, etc. This might pique interest in general... Or, give them a book by Noam Chomsky discussing how the rich are screwing the rest of us (e.g., *Class Warfare*). Or, get a tape from David Barsamian and edit it for class, play it, then discuss it. Try to motivate them to *want* to learn this stuff from the first day. It might just get them interested enough in the economics if you show the political side of the game and how consciously it is played by elite groups --- might also be worth it to explore some of Tom Ferguson's work on how the wealthy and corporations dominate, and have always dominated, the political system, and how our Constitution was written to give them this advantage over the rest of us. Read William Lazonick's essay "The Anglo-Saxon Corporate System" in the book *The Corporate Triangle* --- not terribly difficult, you could even perhaps summarize it yourself to cut down on length, then go on a field trip to a factory to see for yourself. Go to a bank. Go to the Federal Reserve branch... Go to an EPA office to see how much pollution industries are letting off, and how much they pay relative to their annual profits in fines and purchases of pollution credits. Or, have a union member or activist, or Michael Perelman, or Doug Henwood, or Paul Newman or Ed Asner (make some phone calls) come in to talk to the kids. Let them know what unions are for. Get political, man! Finally, by all means, don't tackle this alone. Call in outside help on this. Not just from other economists, but from teachers who have had success in getting kids interested in the broad scope of subjects in order to teach sometimes messy/boring details. Try reading Nancy Eisenberg and Paul H. Mussen's *The Roots of Prosocial Behavior in Children* (Cambridge University Press, 1989) to see if you get any ideas from it. But, this is just random thoughts. I'd say you have a tough job on your hands, and my sympathy. Bill
