Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: new thread - old topic ( NOT BBb vs. CC)


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Posted by Rick Denney on March 03, 2003 at 17:50:51:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: new thread - old topic ( NOT BBb vs. CC) posted by Chris R on March 03, 2003 at 17:34:03:

Well, shucks, in re-reading my post, I think I may have gone too far, and your comments have really reeled me back in.

There is a role for training in school, because there are skills that are needed on the path to obtaining an education. Before one can be educated, one must be able to read, and so on. So your point is quite correct. But the point of the training is to serve education, not as an end unto itself. Unfortunately, most people these days stop at the training and don't understand that the training is just the starting point of education.

It's the same with music. You train your beginners (and your more advanced students) to attain the skills of tone production and reading music and so on. But you don't declare success when they can play tones written on the page. The point of learning the skill is to play great music, and the greatness of the music will provide the education. That's why I hate to see bands spend the whole semester learning four contest pieces by rote so that they will do well at contest, only to miss the opportunity to be exposed to great music not on the contest list.

We teach reading so that students can read great literature. The literature provides the education. So, I'd rather have a discussion in class that a student can only prepare for by reading the material than a lecture on what the material means--you are absolutely right about that. But the reason we have the discussion is not to teach them something, but to force them to read the material. The discussion is the evaluation tool, not the teaching tool. Tests are the same way. I never have understood this educational notion that tests are learning experiences. The education comes when students reads the assigned material--the test merely forces them to read it.

Rick "becoming an expert trainer but with no pretense of being an educator" Denney


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