article post: the teaching opinions of others.

i should reiterate that this is not a blog about teaching.

if i were a better teacher and if my job were mainly to teach, then sure. instead, this blog is about one man's frustration with mathematical research .. and, of course, the occasional lack of frustrations.

having said all of that, i still want to share this blurb from an article, which is about university education.

from "We preτend to τeach 'em, they preτend to 1earn"
by MAR6ARET WENτE @ the g1obe & mai1

In order to boost their high-school graduation rates, many provinces have mandated a no-fail approach. Nowhere is this policy more entrenched than Ontario, where schools are under intense pressure to get their numbers up. "Our hands are tied," said another caller, an Ottawa high-school teacher. "The government does not allow you now to give zeroes for work not done. If you give a kid 10 assignments and he does three, you can't give him a zero for the other ones. The government stance is that this is a behavioural problem, and you need to give them another chance to hand it in. If a student cheats on a major exam, you can't give them zero. The government doesn't tell you what to do the second time he cheats."

i don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds plausible ..
.. if only because it agrees with my embittered worldview.

something is wrong in the state of education today, but i can't say i know how to fix it. even if i did, i don't know if i'd have the energy and willpower to fix it, either.

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in other news today, i'm endeavoring to flesh out some research ideas. as usual they are intuitive and nonrigourous, so it takes more discipline to carry them out than i thought.