2011年7月27日 星期三

Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University

除了有趣之外 此種大學受科技影響論還有什麼意願呢?


How Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University

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Executive Summary:

In The Innovative University, authors Clayton M. Christensen and Henry J. Eyring take Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation to the field of higher education, where new online institutions and learning tools are challenging the future of traditional colleges and universities. Key concepts include:

  • A disruptive innovation brings to market a product or service that isn't as good as the best traditional offerings, but is less expensive and easier to use.
  • Online learning is a disruptive technology that is making colleges and universities reconsider their higher education models.

About Faculty in this Article:

HBS Faculty Member Clayton M. Christensen

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Editor's note: It has been more than a decade since the publication of The Innovator's Dilemma, in which Clayton M. Christensen introduced the idea of disruptive technologies—those unexpected products and services that shake up the market not because they are better than the traditional competition, but because they are are cheaper and easier to use. In The Innovative University, Christensen and Henry J. Eyring take the idea of disruptive innovation to the field of higher education, where new online institutions and learning tools are challenging the future of traditional colleges and universities. In this excerpt, they discuss the idea of a university's DNA.

The Innovative UniversityIn the absence of a disruptive new technology, the combination of prestige and loyal support from donors and legislators has allowed traditional universities to weather occasional storms. Fundamental change has been unnecessary.

That is no longer true, though, for any but a relative handful of institutions. Costs have risen to unprecedented heights, and new competitors are emerging. A disruptive technology, online learning, is at work in higher education, allowing both for-profit and traditional not-for-profit institutions to rethink the entire traditional higher education model. Private universities without national recognition and large endowments are at great financial risk. So are public universities, even prestigious ones such as the University of California at Berkeley.

Price-sensitive students and fiscally beleaguered legislatures have begun to resist costs that consistently rise faster than those of other goods and services. With the advent of high-quality online learning, there are new, less expensive institutional alternatives to traditional universities, their standing enhanced by changes in accreditation standards that play to their strengths in demonstrating student learning outcomes. These institutions are poised to respond cost-effectively to the national need for increased college participation and completion.

A disruptive technology, online learning, is at work in higher education, allowing both for-profit and traditional not-for-profit institutions to rethink the entire traditional higher education model.

For the vast majority of universities change is inevitable. The main questions are when it will occur and what forces will bring it about. It would be unfortunate if internal delay caused change to come through external regulation or pressure from newer, nimbler competitors. Until now, American higher education has largely regulated itself, to great effect. U.S. universities are among the most lightly regulated by government. They are free to choose what discoveries to pursue and what subjects to teach, without concern for economic or political agendas. Responsibly exercised, this freedom is a great intellectual and competitive advantage.

Traditional universities benefit society not just by producing intelligent graduates and valuable discoveries but also by fostering unmarketable yet invaluable intangibles such as social tolerance, personal responsibility, and respect for the rule of law. Each is a unique community of scholars in which lives as well as minds are molded. Pure profit-based competition would produce fewer of these social goods, just as increased government regulation would dampen the great universities' genius for discovery.

Ideally, the faculty members, administrators, and alumni who best appreciate the totality of the university's contributions to society will, in the spirit of self-regulation, play a leading role in revitalizing their beloved institutions. They have the capacity to determine their own fate and in so doing take the indispensable university to new heights.

In performing that critical task, they must understand not only current realities, especially the threat of competitive disruption, but also how universities have evolved over the past several hundred years. Even more than most organizations, traditional universities are products of their history. That history is shared, because most universities have emulated a handful of elite American schools that began to assume their modern form a century and a half ago. Prominent among them were Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and MIT. Together, they have evolved to share common institutional traits, a sort of university DNA.

Much as the identity of a living organism is reflected in its every cell, the identity of a university can be found in the structure of departments and in the relationships among faculty and administrators. It is written into course catalogs, into standards for admitting students and promoting professors, and into strategies for raising funds and recruiting athletes. It can be seen in the campus buildings and grounds. These institutional characteristics remain the same even as individual people come and go.

Pioneering institutions such as Harvard and Yale first began granting Ph.D.s in the mid-nineteenth century. As graduates of their doctoral programs joined the faculties of other universities, they took their experiences and expectations with them. With the support of ambitious university presidents, they strove to make their new academic environments like those from which they had come. This internal drive was reinforced by external systems for accrediting, classifying, and ranking universities. It also became embedded in a common academic culture. As a result, even the smallest and most obscure universities bear many of the essential traits of the greatest ones.

Much as the identity of a living organism is reflected in its every cell, the identity of a university can be found in the structure of departments and in the relationships among faculty and administrators.

University DNA is not only similar across institutions, it is also highly stable, having evolved over hundreds of years. Replication of the DNA occurs continuously, as each retiring employee or graduating student is replaced by someone screened against the same criteria applied to his or her predecessor. The way things are done is determined not by individual preference but by institutional procedure written into the genetic code.

There is evolution in the university, though its mechanism typically is not natural selection of random mutations. As a general rule, the university alters itself only in thoughtful response to significant needs and opportunities. Entrepreneurism occurs within fixed bounds; there is rarely revolution of the type so often heralded in business or politics. This steadiness is a major source of universities' value to a fickle, fad-prone society.

Yet the university's steadiness is also why one cannot make it more responsive to modern economic and social realities merely by regulating its behavior. The genetic tendencies are too strong. The institutional genes expressed in course catalogs and in standards for admitting students and promoting faculty are selfish, replicating themselves faithfully even at the expense of the institution's welfare. A university cannot be made more efficient by simply cutting its operating budget, any more than a carnivore can be converted to an herbivore by constraining its intake of meat. Nor can universities be made by legislative fiat to perform functions for which they are not expressly designed. For example, requiring universities to admit underprepared students is unlikely to produce a proportional number of new college graduates. It is not in the typical university's genetic makeup to remediate such students, and neither regulation nor economic pressure will be enough, alone, to change that.

美國大富豪的教育慈善款50億美元經驗談Was the $5 Billion Worth It?

美國大富豪的教育慈善款50億美元經驗談

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW
JULY 23, 2011 Was the $5 Billion Worth It? A decade into his record-breaking education philanthropy, Bill Gates talks teachers, charters—and regrets.

Seattle

'It's hard to improve public education—that's clear. As Warren Buffett would say, if you're picking stocks, you wouldn't pick this one." Ten years into his record-breaking philanthropic push for school reform, Bill Gates is sober—and willing to admit some missteps.

"It's been about a decade of learning," says the Microsoft co-founder whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now the nation's richest charity. Its $34 billion in assets is more than the next three largest foundations (Ford, Getty and Robert Wood Johnson) combined, and in 2009 it handed out $3 billion, or $2 billion more than any other donor. Since 2000, the foundation has poured some $5 billion into education grants and scholarships.

Seated in his office at the new Gates Foundation headquarters located hard by the Emerald City's iconic Space Needle, Mr. Gates says that education isn't only a civil-rights issue but also "an equity issue and an economic issue. . . . It's so primary. In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there's such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success."

One of the foundation's main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults.

"But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn't move the needle much," he says. "Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn't dramatic. . . . We didn't see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that." Still, he adds, "we think small schools were a better deal for the kids who went to them."

The reality is that the Gates Foundation met the same resistance that other sizeable philanthropic efforts have encountered while trying to transform dysfunctional urban school systems run by powerful labor unions and a top-down government monopoly provider.

In the 1970s, the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, among others, pushed education "equity" lawsuits in California, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere that led to enormous increases in state expenditures for low-income students. In 1993, the publishing mogul Walter Annenberg, hoping to "startle" educators and policy makers into action, gave a record $500 million to nine large city school systems. Such efforts made headlines but not much of a difference in closing the achievement gap.

Martin Kozlowski

Asked to critique these endeavors, Mr. Gates demurs: "I applaud people for coming into this space, but unfortunately it hasn't led to significant improvements." He also warns against overestimating the potential power of philanthropy. "It's worth remembering that $600 billion a year is spent by various government entities on education, and all the philanthropy that's ever been spent on this space is not going to add up to $10 billion. So it's truly a rounding error."

This understanding of just how little influence seemingly large donations can have has led the foundation to rethink its focus in recent years. Instead of trying to buy systemic reform with school-level investments, a new goal is to leverage private money in a way that redirects how public education dollars are spent.

"I bring a bias to this," says Mr. Gates. "I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts." Compared with R&D spending in the pharmaceutical or information-technology sectors, he says, next to nothing is spent on education research. "That's partly because of the problem of who would do it. Who thinks of it as their business? The 50 states don't think of it that way, and schools of education are not about research. So we come into this thinking that we should fund the research."

Of late, the foundation has been working on a personnel system that can reliably measure teacher effectiveness. Teachers have long been shown to influence students' education more than any other school factor, including class size and per-pupil spending. So the objective is to determine scientifically what a good instructor does.

"We all know that there are these exemplars who can take the toughest students, and they'll teach them two-and-a-half years of math in a single year," he says. "Well, I'm enough of a scientist to want to say, 'What is it about a great teacher? Is it their ability to calm down the classroom or to make the subject interesting? Do they give good problems and understand confusion? Are they good with kids who are behind? Are they good with kids who are ahead?'

"I watched the movies. I saw 'To Sir, With Love,'" he chuckles, recounting the 1967 classic in which Sidney Poitier plays an idealistic teacher who wins over students at a roughhouse London school. "But they didn't really explain what he was doing right. I can't create a personnel system where I say, 'Go watch this movie and be like him.'"

Instead, the Gates Foundation's five-year, $335-million project examines whether aspects of effective teaching—classroom management, clear objectives, diagnosing and correcting common student errors—can be systematically measured. The effort involves collecting and studying videos of more than 13,000 lessons taught by 3,000 elementary school teachers in seven urban school districts.

"We're taking these tapes and we're looking at how quickly a class gets focused on the subject, how engaged the kids are, who's wiggling their feet, who's looking away," says Mr. Gates. The researchers are also asking students what works in the classroom and trying to determine the usefulness of their feedback.

Mr. Gates hopes that the project earns buy-in from teachers, which he describes as key to long-term reform. "Our dream is that in the sample districts, a high percentage of the teachers determine that this made them better at their jobs." He's aware, though, that he'll have a tough sell with teachers unions, which give lip service to more-stringent teacher evaluations but prefer existing pay and promotion schemes based on seniority—even though they often end up matching the least experienced teachers with the most challenging students.

Teachers unions can be counted on "to stick up for the status quo," he says, but he believes they can be nudged in the right direction. "It's kind of scary for them because what we're saying is that some of these people shouldn't be teachers. So, does the club stand for sticking up for its least capable member or does it stand for excellence in education? We'll, it kind of stands for both."

Asked if the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have any incentive to back school reforms that help kids but also diminish union power, Mr. Gates responds by questioning the scope of that power. "We have heavy union states and heavy right-to-work states, and the educational achievement of K-12 students is not at all predicted by how strong the union rules are," he says. "If I saw that [right-to-work states like] Texas and Florida were running a great K-12 system, but [heavy union states like] New York and Massachusetts have really messed this up, then I could draw a correlation and say it's either got to be the union—or the weather."

Mr. Gates's foundation strongly supports a uniform core curriculum for schools. "It's ludicrous to think that multiplication in Alabama and multiplication in New York are really different," he says. He also sees common standards as a money-saver at a time when many states are facing budget shortfalls. "In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can't you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that's different from a California textbook that's different from a Massachusetts textbook. That's very expensive."

A national core curriculum, detractors say, could force states with superior standards, like Massachusetts, to dumb down their systems. And even if good common standards could be established, how would they improve going forward if our 50-state laboratory is no longer in operation?

Mr. Gates responds to that by saying there's no need to sacrifice excellence for equity. "Behind this core curriculum are some very deep insights. American textbooks were twice as thick as Asian textbooks. In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years." Nor does he see the need for competition among state standards. "This is like having a common electrical system. It just makes sense to me."

On the fraught issue of school choice, his foundation has been a strong advocate of charter schools, and Mr. Gates is particularly fond of the KIPP charter network and its focus on serving inner-city neighborhoods. "Whenever you get depressed about giving money in this area," he volunteers, "you can spend a day in a KIPP school and know that they are spending less money than the dropout factory down the road."

Mr. Gates is less enamored of school vouchers. "Some in the Walton family"—of Wal-Mart fame—"have been very big on vouchers," he begins. "And honestly, if we thought there would be broad acceptance in some locales and long-term commitment to do them, they have some very positive characteristics."

He praises the private school model for its efficiency vis-à-vis traditional public schools, noting that the "parochial school system, per dollar spent, is an excellent school system." But the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. "We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

It's a response that in some ways encapsulates the Gates Foundation's approach to education reform—more evolution, less disruption. It attempts to do as much good as possible without upsetting too many players. You can quibble with Mr. Gates about that strategy. You can second-guess him. You can even offer free advice. Or you can shake his hand, thank him for his time and remember that it's his money.

Mr. Riley is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

2011年7月18日 星期一

豐田汽車公司北海道設第二所技術學校

Toyota to establish new school in Tohoku

2011/07/19


photoA Toyota Motor Corp. employee teaches students to use computer-aided design (CAD) programs at Toyota Technical Skills Academy in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Toyota Motor Corp. will set up a new in-house school in the disaster-hit Tohoku region that will train junior high school graduates in the basics of manufacturing before hiring them, sources said.

The carmaker's second such training school will emulate the Toyota Technical Skills Academy in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, which dates back to 1938, according to the sources.

Toyota intends to provide solid employment and step up efforts to train human resources in the Tohoku region, which the company sees as its third main manufacturing area following the Tokai and Kyushu regions.

The automaker's subsidiaries in the region--Kanto Auto Works Ltd., Central Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Tohoku Corp.--have main plants either in Iwate or Miyagi prefectures, which means the school most likely will be located in one of the two prefectures.

Sources said many of young people in Tohoku hope to find jobs in or near their hometowns to support their families.

Toyota Technical Skills Academy, established under professional skill development laws, has about 400 students. It offers three-year high school diploma programs for junior high school graduates and one-year technical programs for high school graduates.

Students at the school learn the corporation's philosophies and manufacturing methods, in addition to English and engineering. The academy has about 17,000 alumni, and of the graduates, about 8,000 people work at Toyota inside and outside Japan.

台清交強徵農民農地

台大: 意識報039刊目錄(3/14/2011)竹北特刊

有空再研讀東海的學生刊物

昨天向台大的意識報》敬禮 !!!!

意識報》網址:

http://cpaper-blog.blogspot.com/

特別參考各國立大學逐錄竹北的報導: 039刊目錄(3/14/2011)竹北特刊

它的一缺點是放過清華大學…..




台大: 意識報039刊目錄(3/14/2011)竹北特刊

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台、清兩大學「為了5年500億,為了土地,什麼事都做得出來。」

蘋論:台清交強徵農民農地

2011年7月14日 星期四

Imagine Cup 2011:アイルランドと台湾が栄光に輝く

微軟創意盃 兩岸選手鋒頭健


第九屆「微軟潛能創意盃」(2011 Microsoft Imagine Cup)10日公布決賽進入最後一輪的21個入圍隊伍名單,其中軟體設計(Software Design)小組有六隊獲晉級,包括來自中國的大連理工學院Care Everyone,而嵌入式設計(Embedded Development)小組也有六隊晉級,包括來自中國的清華大學Hormonicare及來自台灣新竹的清華大學NTHUCS。

決賽入圍者9日的首輪比賽中,來自台灣及大陸的代表隊陸續上場,通過簡報演示及作品操作向來自不同國家的評委展示了他們的參賽項目,大連理工大學Care Everyone團隊、新竹清華大學NTHUCS隊等兩岸代表隊的精彩表現博得現場評委連連讚賞。

大 連理工大學Care Everyone團隊主講簡雅楠在隊員林顥的配合下,完美演示並講解了幫助殘障人士上網的「Mind Touch」軟件的多種功能,通過攝像頭捕捉並追蹤他們設計在帽子上的綠色標識來移動鼠標,因此殘疾人士可以通過頭部移動和語音命令,實現上網瀏覽新聞、 查看及回覆郵件、打電話、玩遊戲、畫圖等多項操作,評委熱情稱讚。其中一個評委觀賞後還問道,「為什麼只設計給殘障人士使用,像我這種想偷懶的人很想要 用」。指導老師金建設表示,在準備的時候因為中國設備相素和這邊的相素不一致,所以有點擔心,好在有驚無險,選手們都超水平發揮,現場應變也很快。

金 建設還表示,他們在準備這個項目一年多的過程中很辛苦,遇到很多困難,他們為了讓軟件能更加完美經常熬夜,來紐約的這幾天幾乎每天大家都只睡三、四個小 時。一開始為了達到高識別率,他們重複試驗安裝在帽子中標識的各種顏色及形狀,到最後發現綠色是識別率最好的,花了將近一個月的時間,頭部移動了數千次。

來 自台灣的新竹清華大學NTHUCS隊表示,去年台中發生幾十人死亡的大火後,他們就一直在思考如何讓人們在火災中有效地逃生。他們設計的「Right! This Way」系統通過將樓宇內的探測器、E-box微型中央處理器及動態信號燈用無線信號進行連接,並以不超過10秒的處理速度在瞬間整合訊息,為火災中的人 們提供快速、可靠的逃離指令。他們表示在已經進行過的測試中該系統達到100%的準確率。

在隨後的現場展示環節,NTHUCS隊通過向建築模型內注入煙霧模擬火災,展示系統「Right! This Way」的引導工作方式,處理器E-Box在模型內被注入煙霧後,逃生指示燈箭頭方向隨即發生改變,有序地指向模型的四個出口。




Imagine Cup 2011:アイルランドと台湾が栄光に輝く



米国ニューヨークで開催されていたMicrosoft主催の学生技術コンテスト「Imagine Cup 2011」の結果発表式典が7月13日、同市内にある複合芸術施設Lincoln Center for the Performing ArtsのDavid H. Koch Theaterにて行われた。

 60以上の国と地域の参加者が世界大会に参加したソフトウェアデザイン部門では、交通事故防止を目指す自動車向けソリューションを発表したアイルランド のチーム「Team Hermes」が優勝を勝ち取った。2位には米国の「Team Note Taker」が、3位はヨルダンの「Oasys Team」が名を連ねた(2位、3位の発表については前日行われたプレゼンテーションを参照)。

アイルランドのチーム「Team Hermes」 アイルランドのチーム「Team Hermes」

 組み込み開発部門では、ビルなどでの火災時に、矢印をかたどった電灯とレーザーで人々を安全な避難経路に誘導する「RIGHT!! This Way」を発表した台湾の「NTHUCS」が優勝。2位には中国の「Harmonicare」、3位にはルーマニアの 「Endeavour_Design」がそれぞれ入賞した。

台湾の「NTHUCS」 台湾の「NTHUCS」

 また、女優で活動家の Eva Longoria氏も登場。自身が見て回った発表について語った後、プレゼンターとして、視覚障がい者向けソリューションでソフトウェアデザイン部門に出 場したバングラデシュのチーム「Team Rapture」にPeople's Choice Awardを贈った。

 Eva Longoria氏(左から2人目)と「Team Rapture」 Eva Longoria氏(左から2人目)と「Team Rapture」

 式典にはニューヨーク市長のMichael Bloomberg氏も登壇。異なる国や地域からやってきた多様な住民が住むニューヨークを例に挙げ、学生らがともに協力し、世界のさまざまな問題の解決に取り組むよう語った。

ニューヨーク市長のMichael Bloomberg氏 ニューヨーク市長のMichael Bloomberg氏

 またMicrosoftも、世界中にあふれる問題の解決に向け、3年間で総額300万ドルに上る助成金プログラムを開始することをあきらかにした。このプログラムはImagine Cupのファイナリストらに適応される見込みだ。詳細は今夏にも明らかにされるという。

 2012年のImagine Cupは、オーストラリアで開催される予定だ。オーストラリア副総領事のGerard Seeber氏とMicrosoft Australia マネージングディレクターのPip Marlow氏らが、自国でのImagine Cup開催に向けて思いを語った。

 ソフトウェアデザイン部門および組み込み部門以外の入賞者は次のペー


  • ゲームデザイン部門(モバイル)
    優勝:フランス「Geekologic」
    2位:フランス「Close World Mobile」
    3位:米国「Team Dragon」
  • ゲームデザイン部門(モバイル)
    優勝:ポーランド「Cellardoor」
    2位:フィリピン「Signum Fidei」
    3位:スロバキア「Quegee Team」
  • ゲームデザイン部門(Windows/Xbox)
    優勝:ブラジル「Signum Games」
    2位:タイ「JubJub」
    3位:チェコ共和国「WickedTeam」
  • デジタルメディア部門
    優勝:ルーマニア「M.N.A.」
    2位:オマーン「Brothers Forever」
    3位:台湾「CottonCandy」
  • Windows Phone 7部門
    優勝:韓国「HOMERUN」
    2位:韓国「Zipi Zigi 」
    3位:米国「The LifeLens Project」
  • インターオペラビリティチャレンジ部門
    優勝:ギリシャ「alaniarides」
    2位:ブラジル「Bells Team」
    3位:ポーランド「DemosceneSpirit」
  • ITチャレンジ部門
    優勝:フランス Jean-Sébastien Duchene氏
    2位:ポーランド Błażej Matuszyk氏
    3位:シンガポール Yunheng Mong氏
  • オーチャードチャレンジ部門
    優勝:デンマーク「MP Brun」
    2位:ブラジル「Virtual Dreams」
    3位:セルビア「Zveen Zveen Team」
  • Windows 7 タッチチャレンジ部門
    優勝:フランス「India Rose」
    2位:インドネシア「dreambender」
    3位:日本「IUVO」

2011年7月8日 星期五

知之為知之的中華文化基本教材

什麼科舉餘孽
都假中華文化基本教材之惡名
來毒害青少年
老師們有多少真正懂得這玩藝的
教育第一要義是不要假裝你懂得這些古文字
知之為知之
醒醒吧
去翻翻毛子水先生的論語今譯...的 毛子水先生 (1893-1988)《毛子水全集》與胡適之先生

****

台灣立報2011-7-06 20:50 作者:社論

  教育部擬將四書以「中華文化基本教材」形式,列為高中必修,引起正反意見交鋒。由於茲事體大,教育部實有必要兼聽、兼視而後動。

  在這場辯論中,最不可取的意見,就是粗糙的政治大論述。例如,支持一方,希望把台灣打造成「文化中國」的正統品牌;而反對陣營則認為這是執政黨親中、去台灣化的包藏禍心。

  這兩種貌似對立,實則同質的政治大論述,都預設了某種「國家文化傳統」的存在,因此具有某種優先性與排他性。這也是為什麼支持四書陣營多懷抱「復興」夢想,而所謂台灣本土派則擔憂「殖民」捲土重來。

  實際上,文化是一個開放的互動系統,就像19世紀的美國文化和20世紀的美國文化,不會長同一個模樣。因此無論是中國想像或台灣想像,那種問題重重的本位觀,都是一種空洞的政治懷舊,不具往前看的積極性。

   西方民主社會,有一個重要的前提:政教分離。這個前提的出現,和「包容」這個普世價值息息相關。如果有國教或國家價值,則必有「異教徒」。因此若無適當 保障,極易淪為對異教徒的壓迫。問題在於,對少數的保障,需由國家為之,若國家即教會,勢必產生角色衝突:這是一個為正信者而存在的國家?還是保障信仰自 由的國家?

  這也是為什麼國家必須分離於教會角色之外,並受憲法規範,而憲法必須保障個人信仰自由的原因所在。

  或有人謂,將四書列入文化基本教材必修,不應上綱到「國教」層次,而僅是希望修補國人道德基本素養。若然,則我們必須討論,四書是否合乎這個要求?為什麼不是聖經?柏拉圖?

   進一步論,晚近人們所感受到的道德危機相當程度是源於政治危機所致,但卻怯於制度改革,而鴕鳥式地退縮回個人修身。舉例而言,美國黑人的犯罪率高、未婚 生子普遍、校園暴力嚴重,是因為「缺德」與信仰不堅?抑或是體制不義所導致的邊緣化現象?實際上,把貧窮、犯罪等現象視為一種道德問題,正是美國保守福音 派的政治策略,他們對於解決社會問題毫無興趣,而僅僅熱中於區分「好人」與「壞人」。

  在規範價值上,獨尊四書,違反了民主;就改革而言,寄望四書的道德感化來解決社會亂象,更是保守、怯懦的政治意志表現。基於上述理由,教育部必須三思。

2011年7月5日 星期二

California Master Plan (1960-2011)

The California Master Plan was born in Sacramento in the spring of 1960, the loving creation of Governor Pat Brown and University of California President Clark Kerr. The Plan lived a full and vibrant life, passing quietly in its sleep on June 30, in a Shakespearean twist of tragedy, dying from a wound inflicted by the signature of its creator's son, Governor Jerry Brown and the passage of the California State Budget.

In more than a half century of a full life, the Master Plan saw the great expansion of access to higher education for multiple generations of Californians. Serving as a model of higher education internationally, the Master Plan attracted industry, academic talent and students from around the world. During its time, 47 University of California faculty members received a Nobel Prize, 2.5 million students graduated from the California State University system and Community Colleges educated fully three-quarters of California's GI Bill Veterans.

In its early years, the Plan represented a new promise to millions of Californians who had never dreamed of a college education. This access provided a steady stream of intellectual capital to grow the Silicon Valley, the Southern California medical device industry and the agriculture science intensive Central Valley, serving the people of California well. Later in life the Plan suffered a number of budget ailments, once in the mid-1990s and twice in the last ten years of life. Ultimately, the final budget reductions proved too tough to overcome, crushing the last breaths of life out of it, with nearly $2 billion in cuts to the once golden plan.

The loss of the Master Plan will leave a major void in the State of California. It is expected that the State will experience a shortage of 1 million college graduates by 2025. Without the Master Plan, students will now experience sharp increases in tuition as well as reductions to access and quality of instruction. The loss of dependable funding for the three systems of higher education is expected to put new strains on the criminal justice and social welfare systems. A 2005 study by the University of California, Berkeley demonstrated that for every state dollar invested in higher education, California saves three dollars in corrections and state social services.

Clark Kerr, one of the creators of the California Master Plan, was quoted shortly after its creation as saying,


The Master Plan has been called 'The California Dream'... We were not dreaming the California Dream... we were more trying to escape the nightmare that was otherwise facing us.

It appears now that California sits at the precipice of that nightmare.

The California Master Plan is survived by 10 University of California campuses, 23 California State Universities and 109 California Community Colleges. The State of California kindly requests in lieu of flowers and in remembrance of fifty-plus years of service to the people of California, donations be made to local scholarship funds.

2011年7月4日 星期一

slow advance into the realm of higher education for The New York Times

‘TIMES’ TICKS ON
The New York Times Company plans to continue its slow advance into the realm of higher education this fall. It announced today that it is teaming up with the University of Southern California to offer continuing education programs to try to tap a growing market of adults looking to pick up new skills. The new programs will comprise sequences of online courses taught by USC faculty through the Times Company’s online learning platform. While the programs will not count toward any degree, they represent the media company’s first foray into multicourse online sequences intended to confer a coherent body of knowledge. And that is yet another step toward full-fledged degree programs, which are coming, according to Felice Nudelman, the company’s executive director of education. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.

2011年7月2日 星期六

Significant Learning Rogers, Carl R.

Rogers, Carl R. "Significant Learning in Therapy and in Education." Educational Leadership 16 (1959): 232-242

http://www.carlrogers.info/articlesbyCarl.html

收入
Rogers, Carl R. On Becoming a Person: a Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Also published in 1965 with a new introduction by Peter Kramer.
成為一個人 宋文里譯 台北:桂冠 1990


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Books by Carl R. Rogers

Rogers, Carl R. Interviewed by David Russell. Carl Rogers the Quiet Revolutionary: An Oral History. Roseville, CA: Penmarin Books, 2002.

Rogers, Carl R., and H. J. Freiberg. Freedom to Learn. Columbus, OH: Charles Merrill Publishing Company, 1994.

Kirschenbaum, Howard, and Valerie Land Henderson, eds. The Carl Rogers Reader. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989.

Kirschenbaum, Howard, and Valerie Land Henderson, eds. Carl Roger Dialogues: Conversations with Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, B. F. Skinner, Gregory Bateson, Michael Polanyi, Rollo May, and Others. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

Rogers, Carl R. Freedom to Learn for the 80s. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1983.

Lyon, H. C., Jr., and C. R. Rogers. On Becoming a Teacher. Columbus, OH: Merill, 1981.

Rogers, Carl R. A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1980. Also published in 1995 with a new introduction by Irvin Yalom, M.D.

Rogers, Carl R. Carl Rogers on Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary Impact. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977.

Rogers, Carl R. Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives. New York: Delacorte Press, 1972.

Rogers, Carl R. Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

Rogers, Carl R. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1969.

Rogers, Carl R., and William R. Coulson, eds. Man and the Science of Man. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1968.

Rogers, Carl R., E. T. Gendlin, D. J. Kiesler, and C. B. Truax, eds. The Therapeutic Relationship and Its Impact: A Study of Psychotherapy with Schizophrenics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.

Rogers, Carl R., and Barry Stevens. Person to Person: the Problem of Being Human: A New Trend in Psychology. Walnut Creek, CA: Real People Press, 1967.

Rogers, Carl R. On Becoming a Person: a Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Also published in 1965 with a new introduction by Peter Kramer.

Rogers, Carl R., and Rosalind F. Dymond, eds. Psychotherapy and Personality Change: Coordinated Research Studies in the Client-Centered Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954.

Rogers, Carl R. Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951.

Rogers, Carl R., and John L. Wallen. Counseling with Returned Servicemen. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1946.

Rogers, Carl R. Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.

Rogers, Carl R. The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939.

Rogers, Carl R. Measuring Personality Adjustment in Children Nine to Thirteen Years of Age. New York City: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1931.



-----參考資料之一


Education: What Price Life Adjustment?


It seemed for a while that all the critics of U.S. public education, so vociferous since the war, had just about shot their bolt. Then came Sputnik. Last week two distinguished engineers lashed out again at the slovenly ways of the American high school and college.

The Harsh Fact. "The trouble is," said former President Herbert Hoover in Manhattan, "that we are turning out annually from our institutions of higher education perhaps fewer than half as many scientists and engineers as we did seven years ago. The greatest enemy of all mankind, the Communists, are turning out twice or possibly three times as many as we do. Our higher institutions of learning have the capacity to train the recruits we need. The harsh fact is that the high schools are not preparing youngsters for the entrance requirements which must be maintained by our institutions training scientists and engineers."

Today, said Hoover, there is the "too prevalent high-school system of allowing a 13-or 14-year-old kid to choose most of his studies. Academic freedom seems now to begin at 14. A youngster's first reaction in school is to seek soft classes, not the hard work of science and mathematics. Also, he has a multitude of extracurricular activities that he considers more beguiling than hard work.

"You simply cannot expect kids of those ages to determine the sort of education they need, unless they have some guidance. If this nation is not to degenerate intellectually and to lose its strength for daily life and defense against our enemies, the taxpayers, the school boards, the Parent-Teacher Associations had better wake up."

The Overvalued School. Another trouble, said Rear Admiral H. G. (Nautilus) Rickover. in Detroit, is the "misconception of the worth of the American high school. We have always overvalued it. It comes out that we have many more children in high school and in college than [Europeans] have in secondary schools and universities, and this makes us proud. But all of these comparisons are meaningless, because the European secondary school graduate has learned more than most of our college graduates; and as to the high school diploma, the less said about it the better.

"One cannot even compare the number of hours spent in our high schools with those spent in any European or Russian secondary school. There, an hour at school means an hour of uninterrupted serious work; here there are assemblies, errands to be run, trips to survey various adult activities, checking on the fire department or the bakery, and much time goes into preparing the school play. Every pupil in a European science-mathematics secondary school has nine years of one foreign language and six years of another. Yet many of our high schools teach no foreign languages at all. Some American high school graduates never get beyond quadratic equations, but every graduate of the European science-mathematics secondary school must be familiar with differential and integral calculus, analytic geometry, application of mathematics to physics and spherical trigonometry."


Council for Excellence. "In some fashion," said Rickover, "we must devise a way to introduce uniform standards into American education. It would be best to set up a private agency, a Council of Scholars, financed by our colleges and universities as a joint undertaking—or perhaps by Foundations. This council would set a national standard for the high school diploma, as well as for the scholastic competence of teachers. High schools accepting this standard would receive official accreditation, somewhat on the order of the accreditation given medical schools and hospitals. Teachers would receive a special certificate if they complete the requisite course of studies.

"For the first time, parents would have a real yardstick to measure their schools. If the local school continued to teach such pleasant subjects as 'Life Adjustment' and 'How to know when you are really in love,' instead of French and physics, its diploma would be, for all the world to see, inferior. Taxpayers will begin to wonder whether they are getting their money's worth . . . when their children find admission to college difficult because theirs is an inferior diploma."