aristotle on education

[Guest guest]

http://faculty.gvc.edu/ssnyder/470/ArisLC.html

 

 

Members may want to check out this interesting article. The issue of

student learning proclivities is far from an open and shut case in

academia. While many liberals advocate a student centered approach

where the teaching of any subject is geared towards the students innate

learning styles, others reject that and adopt a more classical stance.

Which is that learning should be subject centered (as in the subjects

of biology, etc.). Which means that if one's innate learning styles

may be an ineffective way to learn some subjects and thus some may be

innately unable to tackle that subject. that is the logical end of

this argument. You can't teach advanced math kinesthetically, nor

chinese herbs, IMO. It makes no sense to spend time adapting a subject

that is really only learned well by visual learners who can follow

text, diagrams and charts. Don't dismiss this. Conservative

classicism is on the rise in academia once again and many of the sacred

tenets of the past half century are about to be challenged head on and

many will fall.

 

Many american TCM students come from backgrounds in martial arts and/or

massage. In all likelihood, they are heavily weighted towards

kinesthetic learning as all these subjects are predominantly of this

nature, assuming prior life choices are indicative of anything. they

often excel at acupuncture, hate their herbal studies and this is just

one more reason to separate the two types of training and practice.

The education in one often actually interferes in the education of the

other if one adheres to a subject centered approach. I am frankly

surprised to read some of you arguing for a student centered approach

when for years the nature of other arguments were quite subject

centered. A case in point is the necessity of chinese language study,

a case inherently weighted against auditory and kinesthetic learners.

And I wholeheartedly agree.

 

For the bodywork wing of our profession, let em do it all kinesthetic

and not waste their time with all this book learning and vice versa for

the internal medicine folks. there is a reason some go into physical

therapy and others into medicine. From this perspective, it only hurts

us to demand comprehensive TCM education and this is perhaps another

reason to avoid an entry level doc requirement as such a program will

no doubt be one that demands both subjects to be mastered, thus wasting

students time and money even more than current programs do.

 

I have recently heard a disturbing rumor that the national alliance is

going to come out in favor of an entry level doc transition, which will

effectively end their commitment to a diverse profession, IMO. Can

anyone comment on this rumor?

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

 

Nice article. Thanks for the referral. The question is not either/or.

Like most everything else, the best approach is somewhere in the

middle. Remember, this discussion was begun by your critique to

Powerpoint as a teaching modality. :-)

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

>I have recently heard a disturbing rumor that the national alliance is

>going to come out in favor of an entry level doc transition, which will

>effectively end their commitment to a diverse profession, IMO. Can

>anyone comment on this rumor?

 

Check out http://www.tsca.edu/d1-1.htm

It would seem to be only a simple matter of time to make this transition

happen. I hope this happens soon.

Mike W. Bowser, L Ac