Parallel commercial development
Dec, 2008
Mission
Statement --> ...
The
students "here" could not be challenged beyond a certain point, or else
they would not attend class. If under challenged, they would
learn how to make the passing grade without attending class. What
was required, for these students, was a simplification of the material,
a kindness in class, and a firmness that a minimal understanding was
required, even if a simple one. Students were allowed to pretend
as if they understood the curriculum, if only the very simplest part
were understood. The faculty cooperated in this pretension. <*>
To address the issue of
academic entrenchment, a commercial business infrastructure, Second
School Community Centers (SSCC), is designed to be located near college
and
university campuses. This business entity, if constituted, will
focus on enhancing the comprehension of individual students so that
they are successful in the freshman mathematics classes, not by mere
tutoring but through a psychological process. It is uncertain
whether we will move in this direction; however, this page will develop
the primary reasons why SSCC might be incorporated as a commercial
business.
Over the past two years I have been on a quest. This quest is to
understand if there is a process and a means to re-structure American
education from the ground up. This meant boots on the ground, and
teaching at those colleges where resources are limited and cultural
backwardness is sometimes quite profound. A number of polling
studies were also started to attempt to round out a knowledge of what
is in fact going on in the third tier of American education. What
has been learned should be placed into a book, but my time is
limited.
It is December 2008, and recent experience reaffirms an long term
analysis about the utter resistance of the current systems supporting
education for under-served communities. Remembering the quote
from the The Final Report of the
National Mathematics Advisory Panel; March 2008, U.S. Department of
Education *<*> we may
assert that these systems are broken, if they are designed to educate
those young people who are graduating from of high schools. My
effort during the Fall, 2008 semester had some successes, but I was
very disappointed. The culture at the college was markedly
anti-learning, was focused on primitive church like activities, and had
a faculty somehow captured in the prison of under-expectations.
The success in 2007-2008 was due to the creation of a cultural
movement, resulting in the students taking more seriously their
studies. A comparison between 2007-2008 and the Fall of 2008
could be made, based on some research in social theory; but my time is
limited and my heart disappointed.
The "rules" prevent me from going into detail, at least at this
point. I have taken the Spring semester 2007 off in order to work
on my advanced research *<*>.
I am grateful for the sabbatical but disappointed.
The prediction is made that many colleges and universities have
structural issues that will prevent demand side solutions from arising
within departments of mathematics.
The intellectual framing of what the issues are continues, and is
reported in the series of thirty five notes posted at *<*>.
My failure this past semester was not without a deepening of my
understanding of the HBCU. These under-served colleges have the
greatest problems, their structural issues
include, a predominance of green card holders as professors,
administrative retrenchment consistent with under expectation, chain of
command administrative repression of the legitimate interests of
professors, one way administrative practice, dysfunction, and
incompetence.
The prediction is consistent with a commercial strategy designed to
alter the practices in the freshman classroom. This strategy seems to
be necessary, but ultimately the goal is to have a new type of liberal
arts education about mathematics. This goal requires the
participation and consent of departments of mathematics. Thus the
commercial strategy is made in order that economic power be given to
the second school movement. In particular, in seeking national
political support for the National Bridge Program. *<*>
The national infrastructure will serve to recruit high school students
into proper college settings. Prototyping the infrastructure in
one state is desirable.