國立台灣大學的校歌史

2011新年煙火?
我跟大凱說 可從台灣大學的農業試驗場/生態池處 (或山上墳墓區)
看煙火 幾乎零目障
他們就不用凍完還要徒步到和平東路-敦化南路處才有 Taxi 搭
****
我的年度字/詞: 槍強搶嗆
*****
我在台大逛一圈
在出版中心翻翻書許壽裳臺灣時代文集等等
在學生活動中心翻翻聯合和蘋果日報
到校史館讀讀傅斯年先生的嘉言 看殷海光最後的話語/殷海光全集 (??)影片
(台大是每下愈況 傅斯年先生早做就界定好一流大學 現在目標是什麼百大五十大的)

國立台灣大學的校歌有三版本
帝大的有青春活力 簡單有力

許壽裳先生作詞的 很好 他寫過一篇解釋的文章 很好 收入許壽裳臺灣時代文集
最令我驚訝的是末段 兩次提到企業 (企業有利等--憑記憶)

據校史館 1952-1968年該校無校歌(地下校歌是 望春風)
現在的 很白話 用玉山和淡水河當象徵:
http://www.ntu.edu.tw/about/song.htm
沈剛伯　作詞 //趙元任　作曲

上海學生考高分是中國教育的失敗

上海學生考高分是中國教育的失敗
北大附中國際部主任江學勤認為﹐中國學生在PISA考試中的高分並不一定說明中國教育的成功﹐相反﹐它說明中國的應試教育模式亟待改革。

Shanghai Schools’ Approach Pushes Students to Top of Tests

Ryan Pyle for The New York Times

Discipline issues are rare at the middle school linked to the Jing’An Teachers’ College in Shanghai. The city is thought to have China’s best schools.

By DAVID BARBOZA

Published: December 29, 2010

SHANGHAI — In Li Zhen’s ninth-grade mathematics class here last week, the morning drill was geometry. Students at the middle school affiliated with Jing’An Teachers’ College were asked to explain the relative size of geometric shapes by using Euclid’s theorem of parallelograms.

Enlarge This Image

Ryan Pyle for The New York Times

A teacher instructed students in class at the middle school associated with Jing’An Teachers’ College in central Shanghai.

“Who in this class can tell me how to demonstrate two lines are parallel without using a proportional segment?” Ms. Li called out to about 40 students seated in a cramped classroom.

One by one, a series of students at this medium-size public school raised their hands. When Ms. Li called on them, they each stood politely by their desks and usually answered correctly. They returned to their seats only when she told them to sit down.

Educators say this disciplined approach helps explain the announcement this month that 5,100 15-year-olds in Shanghai outperformed students from about 65 countries on an international standardized test that measured math, science and reading competency.

American students came in between 15th and 31st place in the three categories. France and Britain also fared poorly.

Experts said comparing scores from countries and cities of different sizes is complicated. They also said that the Shanghai scores were not representative of China, since this fast-growing city of 20 million is relatively affluent. Still, they were impressed by the high scores from students in Shanghai.

The results were seen as another sign of China’s growing competitiveness. The United States rankings are a “wake-up call,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.

Although it was the first time China had taken part in the test, which was administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, the results bolstered this country’s reputation for producing students with strong math and science skills.

Many educators were also surprised by the city’s strong reading scores, which measured students’ proficiency in their native Chinese.

The Shanghai students performed well, experts say, for the same reason students from other parts of Asia — including South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong — do: Their education systems are steeped in discipline, rote learning and obsessive test preparation.

Public school students in Shanghai often remain at school until 4 p.m., watch very little television and are restricted by Chinese law from working before the age of 16.

“Very rarely do children in other countries receive academic training as intensive as our children do,” said Sun Baohong, an authority on education at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “So if the test is on math and science, there’s no doubt Chinese students will win the competition.”

But many educators say China’s strength in education is also a weakness. The nation’s education system is too test-oriented, schools here stifle creativity and parental pressures often deprive children of the joys of childhood, they say.

“These are two sides of the same coin: Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests,” Jiang Xueqin, a deputy principal at Peking University High School in Beijing, wrote in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal shortly after the test results were announced. “For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education and the knowledge economy.”

In an interview, Mr. Jiang said Chinese schools emphasized testing too much, and produced students who lacked curiosity and the ability to think critically or independently.

“It creates very narrow-minded students,” he said. “But what China needs now is entrepreneurs and innovators.”

This is a common complaint in China. Educators say an emphasis on standardized tests is partly to blame for the shortage of innovative start-ups in China. And executives at global companies operating here say they have difficulty finding middle managers who can think creatively and solve problems.

In many ways, the system is a reflection of China’s Confucianist past. Children are expected to honor and respect their parents and teachers.

“Discipline is rarely a problem,” said Ding Yi, vice principal at the middle school affiliated with Jing’An Teachers’ College. “The biggest challenge is a student who chronically fails to do his homework.”

While the quality of schools varies greatly in China (rural schools often lack sufficient money, and dropout rates can be high), schools in major cities typically produce students with strong math and science skills.

Shanghai is believed to have the nation’s best school system, and many students here gain admission to America’s most selective colleges and universities.

In Shanghai, teachers are required to have a teaching certificate and to undergo a minimum of 240 hours of training; higher-level teachers can be required to have up to 540 hours of training. There is a system of incentives and merit pay, just like the systems in some parts of the United States.

“Within a teacher’s salary package, 70 percent is basic salary,” said Xiong Bingqi, a professor of education at Shanghai Jiaotong University. “The other 30 percent is called performance salary.”

Still, teacher salaries are modest, about $750 a month before bonuses and allowances — far less than what accountants, lawyers or other professionals earn.

While Shanghai schools are renowned for their test preparation skills, administrators here are trying to broaden the curriculums and extend more freedom to local districts. The Jing’An school, one of about 150 schools in Shanghai that took part in the international test, was created 12 years ago to raise standards in an area known for failing schools.

The principal, Zhang Renli, created an experimental school that put less emphasis on math and allows children more free time to play and experiment. The school holds a weekly talent show, for example.

The five-story school building, which houses Grades eight and nine in a central district of Shanghai, is rather nondescript. Students wear rumpled school uniforms, classrooms are crowded and lunch is bused in every afternoon. But the school, which operates from 8:20 a.m. to 4 p.m. on most days, is considered one of the city’s best middle schools.

In Shanghai, most students begin studying English in first grade. Many middle school students attend extra-credit courses after school or on Saturdays. A student at Jing’An, Zhou Han, 14, said she entered writing and speech-making competitions and studied the erhu, a Chinese classical instrument. She also has a math tutor.

“I’m not really good at math,” she said. “At first, my parents wanted me to take it, but now I want to do it.”

Bao Beibei contributed research.

台灣高教問題 (潘震澤 2010)

潘震澤老師的專欄我幾乎沒看 可是我佩服他 是少數的有心人 此文可知他今年的主要論點 所以轉載之

***

觀念平台－莫道書生空議論

• 2010-12-29
• 中國時報
• 【潘震澤】

　又是一年將屆，筆者有幸每兩周在此專欄寫篇文章，發表些書生之見；如今趁歲末作一番回顧，也算是檢討過去，策勵將來。

　綜觀今年發表的二十六篇文章，與學術生態有關的文章最多，共有十一篇；再加上三篇談大學教育，則高達十四篇。由於自己身在這一行已有三十來年，碰上與學術界有關的新聞自然是比一般人敏感得多，也常有話可說。

　這些文章裡，有好些篇與教授薪水及研究經費有關。本國教授的薪資比不上許多國家是事實，但在國內也算中高收入群；再加上一些隱形收入以及 相當優渥的退休制度，大學教授仍是讓人欣羨的職業。至於冒出雙薪教授問題，乃是法規與制度不完備所造成；與其攻擊個人，不如從立法著手，才是徹底解決之道。

　國內學界的問題，許多都與中研院有關，因此有幾篇文章的矛頭指向中研院。譬如中研院研究員不單享有充沛的院內經費，他們還同時申請國科會 計畫，與大學教授爭利。尤有甚者，由中研院主導的幾項國家型計畫更嚴重擠壓到國科會的經費，造成近年來個人計畫的大幅縮減；其中尤以私立院校的研究人員受 到的影響最大，造成人才與設備的雙重損失。

　個人在文章中指出：使用納稅人的錢從事研究，是學術中人的特權，不能視為理所當然。學術研究雖然不應講求齊頭式平等，但也不該讓少數人及單位享有過多資源，因而排擠其他更多人的研究機會。此外，中研院打著吸引與培養人才的幌子，不惜破壞體制，發明特聘研究員及國際研究生院，等於變相大學。至於荒謬且過時的中研院院士制度，更是引人詬病。這些都是中研院必須大刀闊斧興革之處。

　為了平衡與中研院的不對等待遇，也為了提升國 內大學在國際上排名，教育部乃有五年五百億邁向頂尖大學計畫之舉。錢多雖然好辦事，但也惹出許多問題，包括浮報碳粉匣支出、將研究經費中飽私囊，以及過分 重視SCI/SSCI期刊文章以量化研究成果等，引起的批評聲浪不斷。據個人觀察，批評多來自私立大學與社會科學學門，但很少看到受惠的國立大學及自然科 學學門提出反省檢討之聲。如此一來正落人口實：大家都忙於製造論文，無暇他顧，甚至連教學服務工作也可能馬虎應付過去。

　除了資源分配不均外，國內大學教育的問題還有一籮筐，像是新成立及改制的大學過多、十八分就可進大學；大學淪為職業訓練所、通識教育變成營養學分；學院與系所玩弄改名伎倆、實質則換湯不換藥；許多系所專任師資薄弱、以合聘兼任教師矇人，或採便宜手段，成立學程以招攬學生；資深教授忙於研究、疏於教學，資淺教授則蠟燭兩頭燒、教學研究難以兼顧等。

　雖然學界問題不少，但個人相信：有心把事情做好的人絕對占大多數，重點是要有個公平開放的環境，讓意見能充分溝通，個人的潛力也將得以發揮；要做到這一點，居上位者責無旁貸。

　（作者為生理學教授，科普作家）

Lucifer Effect 霸凌 能力分班

2010/12/28 在公 視看李四端主持的爸媽冏很大
探討國中的能力分班B/A班問題
這B班 在台灣60年代稱為放牛班
----
Lucifer Effect 霸凌 能力分班

借霸凌事件還魂的幽靈

最近2周 台灣教育界最熱門的話題是八德國中的所謂霸凌風


許多師長竟然要求他們的"體罰權"
希望重擁昔日用重典 體罰之"權" (??)
網路上也盛傳這樣的 體罰 說帖

借霸凌事件還魂的幽靈

我們問一下 你會體罰你的子女嗎
如果這樣 社工人員必須訪問你 (別人的小孩就可體罰)

零體罰害死台灣人(轉錄PTT)

Why education fails the poor

教育也嫌贫爱富？

Why education fails the poor

作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家 蒂姆•哈福德

Students took to the streets of London last month to protest against a stiff increase in course fees.	学生们上月走上伦敦街头，抗议学费不断上涨。
I can hardly blame them, but the fee increase is not the great injustice that they claim. In one sense it is unfair, of course: earlier generations of students paid less. Some paid nothing at all. My Oxford education was free – as was that of David Cameron, who did the same course in the same college less than a decade before me – and I am grateful.	我很难责怪他们，但学费上涨并不是他们所宣称的最大不公。从某种意义上说，这当然是不 公平的：前几届学生付的费用较少。还有人根本就没有付费。戴维·卡梅伦(David Cameron)在牛津(Oxford)接受的教育是免费的；我也一样——我比他入学晚了近10年，在同一所学院学习了相同的课程。对此我很感激。
But was that free education an example of great social progress? Cameron’s family was hardly poor. He did well enough out of his Oxford education. Is it really outrageous to suggest that he, rather than taxpayers, should have paid for some of it?	但是不是免费教育就意味着巨大的社会进步？卡梅伦的家庭并不贫穷，而他的牛津教育背景也让他表现得足够出色。那么，认为卡梅伦本该支付自己的部分学费，而不应由纳税人来承担，这种观点是不是真的很过分？
And while the percentage of under-thirties attending university rose from 5 per cent to 35 per cent between 1960 and 2000 – with a surge during the early 1990s – it is still the preserve of relatively wealthy families. According to the economists Jo Blanden (University of Surrey and LSE) and Steve Machin (LSE and UCL) this expansion actually widened the participation gap between richer and poorer children. (To oversimplify, only kids from well-off families go to university, but whereas it was once just the bright boys, now the girls and the dim boys also get to go.)	虽然从1960年至2000年，英国30岁以下年轻人就读大学的比例从5%提高到了 35%——上世纪90年代初的升幅尤为迅猛，但高等教育依然是相对富裕家庭的专利。根据萨里大学(University of Surrey)和伦敦政治经济学院(LSE)经济学家乔•布莱登(Jo Blanden)，以及伦敦政治经济学院和伦敦大学(UCL)经济学家麦展勋(Steve Machin)的研究，这种扩张实际上拉大了贫富家庭子女就读大学的差距。（如果以过分简单的方式来讲，那就是只有富裕家庭的子女才能上大学，只不过以前 只接收聪明的男孩，如今女孩和笨男孩也都能上大学了。）
In short, a university education is a valuable product, largely consumed by the sons and daughters of well-off families, which plays a major role in ensuring that the sons and daughters are themselves well off – and, helps them to marry each other. This is the perk that students demand that the taxpayer should provide.	简言之，大学教育是一种名贵产品，消费者主要是来自富裕家庭的子女。在确保富家子女自身也能富裕并且帮助他们联姻的过程中，大学教育扮演了重要角色。这就是学生们要求纳税人应该提供的补贴。
Of course, raising fees will discourage students a little. My reading of a recent study, commissioned by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and conducted by researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Education, is that adding an extra £5,000 of annual tuition fees, and funding that with an extra £5,000 of cheap loans, would dent higher education participation by about 6 percentage points. That is bad news (and subject to a high margin of error). But regressive? No.	当然，不断上涨的费用会让学生们有点灰心。我近期读到英国商业、创新和技术部 (BIS)授权、财政研究所(IFS)和教育研究所(Institute for Education)研究员实施的一项研究。研究显示，如果每年再增加5000英镑学费，以5000英镑额外的低息贷款作为资金来源，将使高等教育的参与 度下挫6个百分点。虽然这是个坏消息（也存在很高的误差率），但这算是倒退吗？非也。
If you want something to get angry about, I wouldn’t look at tuition fees. I’d look at a little graph produced by Leon Feinstein of the Institute for Education, which shows tests of cognitive development given to almost 2,500 children at the age of 22 months, 42 months, five years and 10 years. The very brightest 22-month-old working-class kids were inexorably overhauled by the very dimmest children of professional or managerial parents – apparently by the age of about seven, and emphatically by the age of 10.	如果要对某些问题表达不满，我不会盯着学费，而会着眼于教育研究所的莱昂•范斯坦 (Leon Feinstein)制作的小图表，它展示了对近2500名儿童在22个月、42个月、5岁和10岁阶段进行的认知发展测试结果。在大约7岁时，22个月 大的群体中最聪明的工薪阶层的孩子，就会明显地为父母是专业人士或管理阶层的最笨的孩子无情地超越——到10岁时更为显著。
Research by Jo Blanden and by Paul Gregg and Lindsey Macmillan of the University of Bristol, underlines this. We know that “income persistence” is high in the UK – that is, parents wealthier than average have kids who also grow up to be wealthier. In other words, social mobility is low. We also know that education seems to play a strong role in this: countries such as Denmark have egalitarian schools and low income persistence. Blanden, Gregg and Macmillan have found that you can predict much of this income persistence simply by looking at exam results at age 16. Higher education is the icing on the cake.	乔•布莱登以及布里斯托大学(Bristol University)的保罗•格雷格(Paul Gregg)和林赛•麦克米伦(Lindsey Macmillan)的研究凸显了这一点。我们知道，英国的“收入连续性”较高，即比平均水平更为富有的父母，其子女长大后也会更为富有。换言之，就是社 会流动性低。我们还知道，教育似乎在其间扮演了重要角色——诸如丹麦这样的国家，教育比较公平，收入连续性也较低。布莱登、格雷格和麦克米伦发现，你只要 看看16岁时的考试成绩，就可以大致对这种收入连续性做出预测。高等教育只是锦上添花。
The real problem in British education starts very early indeed. Subsidising tuition fees for relatively prosperous students is not the solution. Subsidising poorer kids to stay on at school after 16 might help – although even that is too late for many – but this is a policy which the coalition government is set to scrap. It’s the three- and four-year-olds from poor families who have for decades been let down by this country’s education system. But toddlers don’t take to the streets in protest, no matter how right their cause might be.	英国教育的真正问题始于低龄阶段。为相对富裕的学生补贴学费并非解决之道。资助相对贫 穷的孩子，让他们在16岁之后仍然能接受教育，或许会有帮助——尽管这对许多人来说已经太晚了——然而，这项政策却是联合政府决心要废除的。这个国家的教 育体制几十年来所耽误的，正是贫穷家庭3至4岁的孩子。但是，蹒跚学步的孩子们不会走上街头抗议，无论他们的理由多么正当。
	译者/麦可林

Pygmalion in the Classroom

Pygmalion in the Classroom

文藝是國民精神所發的火光，同時也是引導國民精神的前塗的燈火。這是互為因果的……. (魯迅 從鬍子說到牙醫1925 收入 墳)

Justing 轉寄神秘的16號 (很棒的文章!) 給一些親愛的朋友。

這篇教育小說可能是戴明博士推薦的參考書之一例:

Pygmalion in the Classroom, by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969)(p27-c2, TNE) 或請參考Peter Scholtes的戴明領導手冊。

來來來大學 去去去失業

SCHOOLS TRY TO ESTABLISH COLLEGE-GOING CULTURE
By creating a college-going culture in elementary school, the hope is that students will aspire to a lifelong path toward higher education and deeper learning that ends with a degree. To reach that goal, the school plays up the concept that there are no excuses for poor effort and staff members have a belief that all students can excel. The article is in Education Week.

China’s Army of Graduates Struggles for Good Jobs

By ANDREW JACOBS

Villagers who will work in China’s factories are in demand, but many college graduates seeking professional jobs find their value plunging.

親子天下 一面向

~戴勝益：我為何斷絕孩子的退路
2010/11/23 11:45

王品集團董事長 戴勝益：
我為何斷絕孩子的退路
作者：李翠卿　 出處：親子天下


育有一兒一女的王品集團董事長戴勝益，

跟一般的企業家老爸很不一樣。

其他企業家無不處心積慮安排子女在家族企業接班，但是，戴勝益卻堅決

不讓子女進入他的餐飲王國，不要說是「接班」了，連去任何一個事業體「上班」都不行。


育有一兒一女的王品集團董事長戴勝益，跟一般的企業家老爸很不一樣。

其他企業家無不處心積慮安排子女在家族企業接班，但戴勝益卻完全不做此想。

王品是國內最大餐飲連鎖集團，除了王品牛排以外，旗下事業體還包括陶板屋、
夏慕尼、西堤牛排、原燒、聚北海道昆布鍋等多個品牌，兩岸店數逾百家，年營業額高達五十多億。

但是，戴勝益卻堅決不讓子女進入他的餐飲王國，不要說是「接班」了，
連去任何一個事業體「上班」都不行。

他不只擋了他們的「前途」，甚至還斷了他們的「財路」。明年王品股票即將掛牌上市，

戴勝益瀟灑宣布要捐出個人八○％的財產做公益，只各留五％給兒女，
而且還設下三十五歲才能動用的限制條款。

他並不打算讓王品變成一個家族企業；他的孩子，只是「戴勝益的兒子女兒」，
絕對不會是「王品集團的少東、公主」。

王品這座江山是他自己白手起家打下來的，如果孩子們也想要一座大好江山，
那麼，不好意思，請自己努力。

Q你自己是一個什麼樣的父親？教養哲學是什麼？

A我很民主，對小孩幾乎是寬容到極點，對我來說，小孩子只要不犯法，做什麼都可以。


我的教養觀跟一般家長不大一樣。很多家長逼著小孩補習、做功課、學很多才藝，
但我觀察，很多家長要孩子學東西，只是為了滿足自己小時候的遺憾；
而很多被硬逼著學這學那的小孩，長大以後的表現反而比較平庸。為什麼呢？
因為他忙著應付父母的期望，根本沒有空閒去發掘自己真正的興趣。

我的小孩一開始都沒學才藝，我也不讓他們補習，等到他們發現自己的興趣時，
他會自己來說。像我女兒是在小五那年，才跑來跟我說她想學鋼琴、長笛；
我兒子則是在高中時，發覺自己對電腦很有興趣，才開始不斷深入鑽研。
我對孩子的課業只有一個要求：只要能夠如期畢業就好，不管排第幾名，
我都可以接受。

上課，真的是最重要的事嗎？我小學六年都拿全勤獎，這張獎狀就像是
「貞節牌坊」一樣，為了得到它，你就不能隨便「改嫁」。
於是在小學六年中，我錯過了太多重要的事：三年級時，我小阿姨結婚，
我沒參加；我阿公、阿嬤過世，我沒去送；我家附近做醮，
那是六十年一次的大拜拜，可以想像那是多麼熱鬧的場面，
但我也未能恭逢其盛……這些事後回想會讓人遺憾萬分的事，
六年來大概有十幾件，而我卻為了那一紙無聊的「貞節牌坊」，
全都錯過了，這值得嗎？

所以我很鼓勵小孩請假，只要家裡有需要家族成員參與的事：
旅遊、聚餐……沒問題，儘量請假；就連公司開股東會，
他們也可以請假旁聽；甚至只要他們感覺今天很想去爬爬山，
也可以請假。他們兩個在班上功課沒拿第一名，但請假次數都是第一名，
請到最後，老師還打電話問我：「戴先生，你是存心跟學校作對嗎？」
其實我不是要跟學校作對，只是覺得應該要把時間花在真正有價值的地方。

我公司現在也是這樣辦，公司員工只要有重要事情，什麼老婆生孩子、
小孩畢業典禮、母姊會，都可以優先請假，人生的關鍵時刻，絕不可缺席。


Q你有刻意幫子女規劃或引導他們未來的生涯嗎？

A我給他們的刻意規劃就是：徹底斷絕他們的後路。
早在十幾年前，王品就訂下了「非親條款」，所有幹部的親人都不得進王品工作。
我連他們去王品旗下事業打工都不准。拜託！哪個店長敢使喚董事長的兒女啊？
那打工有什麼意義？還壞了店裡的規矩。

前不久，我又決定把八○％的個人財產捐出去做公益，僅留給他們各五％，
而且要到三十五歲以後才能動用。這下徹底斷絕了他們繼承家產的退路，
這樣才能逼出他們的潛力！不然他們就會覺得自己橫豎有靠山，
不用努力也不用掙扎，甚至不用去「想像」自己以後要做什麼，
反正只要回去當王品的繼承人，坐著吃、躺著吃，甚至當植物人都可以活下去，
幹嘛還奮鬥？

Q你這種「斷絕小孩後路」的做法，跟你個人的人生經驗有關係嗎？

A我先講一個故事。我小時候家裡養了一隻雞，但我媽從不餵牠，每天早上
把牠從雞舍放出來，牠就「咯咯咯」叫著、抖擻羽毛跑到後山去覓食。
因為運動足夠，牠的肌肉結實、雞冠鮮紅、羽毛有光澤。後來，
我媽把這隻雞關進穀倉，從此那隻雞每天只要吃飽睡、睡飽吃就好，
但是牠反而變得垂頭喪氣，不再活蹦亂跳，沒多久就生病死了。

你覺得，小孩做穀倉雞，還是做放山雞好？如果小孩變成穀倉雞，那不是小孩的錯，是父母的錯。

我幼時家裡很窮，但國中以後，我爸的製帽事業逐漸上軌道，家境變得很好，
偏偏我爸又沒「斷絕我的後路」，於是我從一隻放山雞，變成穀倉雞。
我念台大中文，中文系的學生出路比較窄，班上同學都很有危機意識，
為了前途轉系、輔修什麼的，只有我一路混到底。反正我畢業後有三勝製帽
可以待啊，怕什麼？我一直到三十九歲孑然一身離開家族企業，另起爐灶創業，
才開始發揮自己的潛力，積極求生存，從穀倉雞又變成野外的放山雞。
雖然已經是一隻「老雞」，但那時候我才真正充滿企圖心。

我之前也掙扎過，要不要捨棄家業自立門戶，後來想到洛夫的詩：
「如果你迷戀厚實的屋頂，就會失去浩瀚的繁星。」

而我，不想要失去浩瀚的繁星。

我的體會是：一定要讓小孩走投無路，他們才會闖出屬於他們的生存之道。
每次看到媒體上企業後代跑趴、泡夜店、玩名牌的新聞，我都很不以為然。
我覺得這是未富先貴，這種光鮮亮麗的日子過慣了，以後怎麼可能任勞任怨、
苦幹實幹？我不要我的小孩不知人間疾苦，而要讓小孩知道人間疾苦的方法，
就是先讓他們過得很疾苦。


Q你怎麼讓他們「了解人間疾苦」？

A我有很多朋友都把小孩送去念私立的貴族學校，由司機開著黑頭大轎車接送上下課，
同學的爸媽都是有頭有臉的人物。但我的孩子國中以前，都念最普通的公立學校。
我女兒國中時，坐她附近的同學，有爸爸當水電工的、媽媽在菜市場賣滷味的，
也有同學下課後必須去打工貼補家用。我要我小孩接觸的社會是庶民社會，
而不是上流社會，我希望他們了解，那才是大多數人真實的人生。

我對孩子很寬容，很少給他們訂規矩，但我不會讓他們過得太舒服。
我兒子女兒一直到高中，每個月零用錢都只有一千塊，他們如果遭遇什麼困難，
通常我也是袖手旁觀。我兒子以前曾跟同學集資了一千美元，想在網路上買電腦，
賣方遠在印度。我心想，這八九不離十是個騙局，但我沒說破，眼睜睜看他把錢匯出去被騙，
之後也沒幫他善後，他就自己變賣身邊的東西籌錢還給同學。我就是要讓他經歷過慘痛的教訓，
他才會知道什麼叫做「陷阱」，這是一門寶貴的功課。

他們兄妹倆出國念書，我事先都沒協助他們申請學校、安排住所；我唯一做的事情
就是送他們去機場，給他們一張「留學生活須知」，之後就讓他們「自生自滅」。
我女兒到了紐約以後，自己查資料，跟七所學校交涉，爭取面試機會。雖然英文不太通，

但憑著筆談、口談、比手畫腳，竟也讓她弄到一所學校念。解決問題本來就是一種學習，

若我什麼都幫他們弄好，甚至還親自帶他們過去，那他們要學什麼？

我告訴他們，出國讀書的目的有四項：文憑、語言、國際觀，以及獨立解決問題的能力。

我不要求他們念什麼名校，只要是教育部承認的學校就好，功課也只要「能畢業」就好，

所以，我叫他們不要整天待在圖書館，要擴大視野，多體驗文化、
多結交形形色色的朋友，深入當地人的家庭
這些都比功課還要重要。

Q你的孩子遇到困難，難道都不會跟你求救嗎？

A我很少幫他們收拾殘局，他們早已「習慣」，所以很少求救，因為求救也不大有用。
我兒子當兵時在官田新兵訓練營服役，除了要煮飯、整理靶場，晚上還要站衛兵，很操。

他常傳簡訊跟我訴苦，說幾乎沒有時間睡覺，累得快瘋掉，
「爸爸不是很有辦法嗎？怎麼不想辦法讓我調單位？」

我一直都不理他，只是勉勵他要忍耐、這是濃縮的學習，直到他退伍前三個月，
我才去找他的指揮官。指揮官一看到我的名片，肅然起敬問我：「有何貴幹？」
我說：「貴幹是沒有啦，只是聽說我兒子快被你操死了。我是來感謝你的，
當兵就是要操才好，如果你這裡很涼，我就想盡辦法把他調走了。」

當天晚上，指揮官找來官田地區的鄉紳辦桌歡迎我。之後就把我兒子調到軍官室修電腦，

不用戴鋼盔、打綁腿，還有自己的寢室，讓他最後的當兵生活過得比較爽，不過也只剩三個月了。

我之所以退伍前三個月才去「關說」，是為了讓兒子覺得，這個老爸其實有在關心他，
既然「訓練效果」已經達到了，我也不好做得太「趕盡殺絕」啊，哈哈哈。


Q你覺得你的孩子跟一般養尊處優的企業二代有何不同？
A他們真的比較有憂患意識，我兒子早在高中時，就已經開始用一種「如喪考妣」的態度

來摸索自己的人生。爸爸這樣「無情無義」，以後真的要靠自己欸，不緊張點怎麼行？
他對電腦很有興趣，高中畢業時，就辛辛苦苦去考了一張 CCIE（Cisco Certified
Internetwork Expert）證照。
這張證照很難考，他年僅十九歲就考上，是考上這張證照最年輕的華人。
我問他：「你考這張證照幹嘛？」他回答：「啊你都斷我後路了，我要自己想辦法啊！」


我兒子女兒現在在紐約讀書，每一次我去看他們，他們都跟我講很多未來想做的計畫。
他們這麼有想法，都是因為我斷他們後路，他們得自力救濟啊。

他們對物質缺乏的容忍度也比較高。我去年寒假去紐約看他們，我女兒還是拎著她
在逢甲夜市買的、一只不到台幣五百元的大包包。她敢在紐約這個時尚大都會，
這麼理直氣壯、毫不自卑的拿著這個夜市包包，有這種精神，我以她為榮。

我兒子跟他女朋友在紐約登記結婚，連捧花都自己紮。因為美國新娘捧花很貴，
一束要一百五十美元，自己做成本才七十幾元。登記當天，我看其他人都穿著
豪華的燕尾服，只有他穿著一件四十美元的H＆M西裝，裡頭搭一件圓領的素色上衣。
因為沒有領帶，他拿了一支麥克筆現場在衣服上「畫」了條領帶，旁觀者看了
都用力幫他鼓掌，我也覺得我這兒子真有創意！這個婚禮，保證他一生難忘。

今年寒假他們回來，我把他們叫過來，宣布我的財產處置計畫。
他們其實可以跟我「張」（台語，耍賴）一下，或至少討價還價、看可不可以提高比例，

畢竟法律上他們本來可以各得我一半財產，但他們都不假思索就答應了。

因為他們知道，我是愛他們才這麼做的。他們明白，爸爸不給他們財富、
不讓他們進公司，都是為他們好。

畢竟，要有血有汗有淚的人生，才是精采的真人生啊！

戴勝益給兒女的「留學須知」
(1) 順利完成學業拿到文憑（成績毋需太好，不能整天待在圖書館）。
(2) 英文要學到非常好，說、聽、寫自如（CNN懂 90％以上）。
(3) 交很多外國朋友（各行業各年齡層均有）。
(4) 遊遍全美國各州、各大城、各景點。
(5) 看遍 N.Y. 的所有歌劇、舞台劇、電影、博物館、美術館。
(6) 每日步行10,000步以上，養成每日運動的習慣。
(7) 在「安全保障」與「固定預算費用」下，極力擴大見聞與視野，千萬不要儲蓄。
(8) 深入當地一般人的生活領域。
(9) 開始練習理財，培養「讓每分錢發揮最大效益的本事」。
(10) 培育第一流的公關技巧（讓大家願意接受你、信賴你、協助你）。
(11) 需熟讀《Taiwan Today 》，以及寄去的經濟資訊剪報，不能與台灣的經濟圈脫節。

(12) 四年內務必完成以上事項，回台創業。

親子天下

PISA啟示錄 走錯方向的語文教育

PISA國際閱讀評比報告出爐，台灣在兩岸三地，成績墊底。為什麼台灣孩子能閱讀一般性的文章，簡單的問題釐清，卻普遍缺乏反思和批判的能力？怎樣的改變，可以搶回台灣少年的語文能力？ more>>

Students' reading ability

又是排名升....有意義嗎

EDITORIAL: Students' reading ability

2010/12/09

The 2009 results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test of international assessments focused on 15 year olds (first-year high school students), have been announced. Of interest were improvements by Japanese children in the country-based ranking for reading comprehension.

In the PISA, begun in 2000, Japan has seen its standing steadily decline. This prompted the government to include the goal of a top-level global ranking in its new growth strategy vision. The education ministry must feel relieved now, in light of the apparent success of recent measures.

We wonder, however, if Japanese children have truly acquired the skills key to weathering the stiff challenges of the 21st century.

The PISA can be viewed as an international barometer of academic competence for the era of information and globalization. It questions how learned knowledge and skills are used to cope with situations encountered in everyday life. Such abilities are tough to attain simply by accumulating knowledge that has long been the Japanese hallmark.

As noted, the reading comprehension performance of Japanese children is up. Also noted, however, is some degree of trouble with connecting different blocks of information in text and relating that to one's own knowledge and experience.

In a separate questionnaire, it was found that Japanese students taking part in online debates, lifestyle information searches and other tasks finished below the average for the individual countries surveyed.

Emerging from these findings is the image of Japanese students as capable of accurately comprehending subject matter, but still lagging behind in their ability to use language tools to engage in exchanges with others, deepen personal thinking powers and contribute to society.

The past decade has seen numerous academic improvement measures in Japan. Particularly singled out for censure has been the "yutori kyoiku" approach of "pressure-free education."

In reaction, a sudden change in course has been engineered to increase study volume in order to firm up the basics. Japan's national academic ability survey was revived three years ago. The mood of competing on the basis of point scores has also strengthened.

Also being advanced, however, are approaches patterned after PISA-style scholastic ability, reading comprehension and other formulas.

The education ministry's new teaching guidelines appeal for the "strength to live," and advocate greater skills in application and expression. The national academic ability survey is adopting questions requiring "application" ability, which closely resembles the PISA.

Educators have been thrown into confusion by the question of what particular academic skills are needed. Demanded now are thorough inquiries and analyses into what efforts have paid off during these years, and which areas remain lacking.

As a measure aimed at reading comprehension, "morning reading" sessions in the classroom are expanding. The results of the latest survey suggest that reading has become a more familiar practice for students.

The idea is not only to compete in how many books can be read, but also to have students discuss their impressions of the content while absorbing other students' ideas. We hope that approach will pick up greater steam.

From this coming spring, elementary school textbooks will become far more voluminous. The hours needed to teach the added contents will leave little margin to instill the powers of creative thought in individual students.

Classroom methods must be devised for an effective way of using texbooks and of implementing interdisciplinary courses covering various academic fields.

The time has arrived to buckle down with the future in mind, working to truly transform the essence of education for the better.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 8

求學打工的一些回憶

求學打工
中學時幫父親工地
1971-75 東海大學: 學校可打工 大二/大四 到企業實習
1978-79 英國ESSEX大學: 去過麵包廠當清潔工 某工廠當文書整理

2008年的書中寫過"英倫省錢大作戰"

****

我有話說－發放高等教育券

• 2010-12-06
• 中國時報
• 【賴鼎銘／世新大學校長】

　大學生打工分三種。

　第一種並非急需，卻日以繼夜打工，最後被二一退學；這應該是王院長罵「笨死了」的對象。

　第二種打工是為獲取經驗，並向社會學習，只要花的時間不多，其實可鼓勵。

　但第三種打工，則是值得同情，必須思考如何幫助。這些同學打工，與家庭的經濟狀況有關。我就碰過僑生因為家庭變故，開始參加直銷行列。我更碰到學生因父親負債，全家被黑道追到無安身之地。他不得不打帶跑地賺錢打工，最後連課業都無法兼顧。這樣的學生，王院長不僅不應指責，反而應該思考如何幫助他們。

　最近我才發覺，私立大學辦理就學貸款的學生近三成，國立大學的學生則不到一成。這麼多窮困學生群集私立學校，他們不打工幾乎是不可能的事。如何協助他們安心就學，應該是當務之急，更是政府與教育單位的共同責任。

　為保障弱勢學生受教權益，自九十六學年度起，教育部已針對私立高中職家戶，逐年實施加額學費補助。未來，政府應該評估將這樣的政策推廣到私立大學，規劃發放「高等教育券」，協助經濟弱勢學生，減輕學費籌措之困境。此舉將有助於他們減少打工機會，可以專心就學。

　追求公平正義，是馬英九總統競選的政見之一。作為監察院長，王院長除了關心大學生的學習之外，更應該返身監督馬總統落實照顧弱勢的政見，這才是監察院可以發揮鉅大影響力的所在。

評鑑/ Teacher Ratings

Teacher Ratings Get New Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher

By SAM DILLON 紐約時報

Bill Gates is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.

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評鑑的迷思
"

【聯合報╱廖玉蕙】 2010.12.04 02:05 am

日 前，教改總體檢論壇及台灣競爭力論壇發起「反對獨尊ＳＳＣＩ、找回大學求是精神」連署，重新檢討人文社會科學的評鑑標準，對政府獨尊ＳＳＣＩ發表量，罔顧 理工、醫學與人文學術性質不同卻引用同一標準檢視的荒謬現象。自從評鑑制度成立以來，其實，這個現象為人詬病已久，一直遲遲沒有得到善意的回應，如今，引 起不平之鳴早在預料之中。 評鑑的荒謬其實還不只此端，這些年來，政府補助款多寡及教育部動輒威嚇減班併所的雙重威脅，讓評鑑變得風聲鶴唳。各校系所教授為了這些量化的評鑑標準，拚 命寫計畫案爭取國科會及其他相關單位獎助，已達廢寢忘食地步。憑良心說，一個人的精力畢竟有限，計畫案爭取越多的教授，不但投注在教學上的時間相對減少； 有些教授甚至還假研究之名行剝削之實，讓所指導的研究生叫苦連天地幫忙完成計畫。據我所知，另有一些對教學充滿熱誠，也深受學生愛戴的老師，因為論文發表 數不多而受到校方嚴重「關切」，有人不甘受辱，乾脆提前退休；有人含恨隱忍，卻也因此心灰意懶，大大影響教學熱情。 不當的評鑑制度之危害，還不只於此。因為關係重大，學校對評鑑一事，常常無法以平常心對待。以前的教師只要盡心研究、努力教學、做好服務即可；如今，還得 加上一些莫名其妙的額外工作，譬如得隨時記下「業績」，諸如怎樣安排學生出國交流、如何輔導學生進修、得過哪些獎勵、曾經去過哪些單位演講、到過何處發表 論文或進行論文講評、曾為考試院或其他什麼單位出過考題、評審過什麼文學獎或演講比賽……，每隔一段時間，老師就被要求填上一些無聊表格，告訴世人你曾經 有過的豐功偉績！那段時間內，每個研究室裡的印表機都咧咧作響，一張張的紙不斷吐出，我感覺一棵棵的樹木彷彿正應聲倒下。 尤有甚者，評鑑進行之時，大批委員南奔北走，住宿、交通無不花錢。遊覽車大軍壓境似的兵臨城下，受訪的學校如臨大敵，為了整併各項資料，前置作業就讓一干 行政人員人仰馬翻；接著得分工布置場地、脅肩諂笑接待訪客；還要明令教師、學生當日無論有課、無課，都得滯留學校，等候抽籤召喚，垂詢對學校的觀感；甚至 已然畢業的學生，也被請求請假回校，靜候評鑑委員隨時訪查畢業後的去向……學校如此戰戰兢兢的配合評鑑委員，就為一字之針砭。有時我不免會想像，這些時間 如果拿來備課或關切學生心理、生理問題，甚至只是休養生息，都不知道要在教學上增添多少成效！而所花費的大量經費如果用來補助貧困的學生，該有多少學子受 惠！ 是不是一個好老師，絕對不是目前檯面上我們所填的這些資料可以準確評斷出來的。老師靜聽學生傾訴失戀傷痛而讓學生因此感受溫暖，可以放在評鑑標準的那一 項？學生在教室內接受老師的專業啟蒙而立定人生的方向，又該填在那一格裡？當老師盡心指導學生寫作論文跟有名無實的掛名指導，在評鑑上只能得到同樣的分 數；當一個計劃案或一篇論文就可以贏過孜孜教學的評比時，評鑑代表的意義在哪裡？量化的數據把老師逼到了絕境後，我不知道所謂的師生倫理會淪落到怎樣的地 步！ （作者為國立台北教育大學語文與創作系教授）"

台灣國立大學註冊率遽減的 笑鬧劇

管理這有意義嗎
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國立大學註冊率遽減 監委要教部正視

國立知名大學全校學生註冊率遽減表

〔記者林曉雲、陳怡靜、胡清暉／台北報導〕監察院教育及文化委員會召委趙榮耀，昨天在巡察教育部後公布，國內知名大學如政大、交大、成大的學生註冊率普遍降低，陽明大學從九十五年到九十八年更減少近十個百分點，教育部應正視問題的嚴重性。

除大學外，監委表示，技職更嚴重，虎尾科大註冊率則從八十九．二七％降到七十七．○八％；勤益科大則是從八十九．四二％，掉到七十七．七五％。既然學生人數減少，教育部就應要減少招生名額。

教育部昨日一度搞不清楚數據來源，直到晚間才證實監委數據的正確性，少子化確實使得大學招生不足，甚至國立大學學生註冊率也直直落。

教育部政次林聰明表示，有可能是學生轉系、重考，也可能有人非台大不念，教育部對此會納入總額管制，另將檢討大學招生名額的核定，對學生流失及不足的學校也會監測、輔導轉型。

對註冊率遭點名僅七成七，勤益科大副校長張天任則驚呼：「不可能！」強調註冊率多超過九成；虎尾科大教務長張信良也反駁：「應是數據被誤解。」去年新生註冊率達九成八。

陽明大學副校長許萬枝分析，陽明醫學系、牙醫系每年報到率維持在百分之百，但非醫科的科系常有學生選擇重考、或報到後就休學，這種結構性問題，在醫科大學較明顯。他建議，應該把醫科、非醫科的學雜費差異擴大。

交大教務長林進燈則質疑官方數據有誤，強調交大各管道註冊率有九成五至九成六；成大表示，詳細數據須進一步瞭解，會持續提升競爭力；政大主秘徐聯恩指出，會查證數據，研究所有重榜現象，因此註冊率統計應分開。

報到率不到九成？ 眾大學喊冤

2010/12/02

【聯合報╱記者陳智華／台北報導】 監委趙榮耀昨天到教育部巡察，他表示，包括陽明、交大等國立大學報到率這幾年下降不少，有的甚至不到九成，有國立科大甚至從九成掉到七成七，少子化問題非常嚴重，要求教育部拿出對策。 不過，被點名的學校多表示註冊率很高，更大聲喊冤，強調至少有九成四、九成五，對監委拿出的數字很「訝異」，不清楚那裡來的。 教育部表示，監委資料不是他們提供的，是來自立法院預算中心，查證後發現，監委數據不只是大一新生報到率，還包括大學、研究所、進修部、專科、夜間部及外加名額等，跟只算新生報到率不同。 趙榮耀指出，資料顯示95年到98年間國立大學新生報到率下降不少，如果國立前端大學和科大都如此，私立學校一定更慘。 不過，進一步跟教育部和學校查證，都指出有監委數字有誤。教育部技職司表示，國立學校報到率相當高。也有大

中國大學的學歷

中國大學學歷只值300塊？
中國經濟增長強勁﹐農民工的工資水漲船高。然而中國大學畢業生卻遭遇尷尬﹐有調查說大學生平均起薪每月只比農民工高300元。很多人開始思考﹐學歷到底價值幾何？
文科生不如工科生賺得多?
大學生就業不愛外企愛國企
中國大學畢業生的“蟻族”生活
視頻：美高校鼓勵學生自創大學專業

中國大學的學歷真的這麼一文不值嗎？蔡昉說﹐並非如此。和葡萄酒一樣﹐大多數大學生的薪水會隨著時間大幅提高。但蔡昉說﹐負激勵效應已經開始出現苗頭﹐尤其是工薪階層家庭的學生﹐他們覺得學費和工資損失的代價太大。

代某光通信部品與次系統台商徵高階品管主管

代某光通信部品與次系統台商徵高階品管主管

本刊版主剛從中國回來 一周來未更新

代某光通信部品與次系統台商徵高階品管主管
請將履歷等資訊寄
hcsimonl@gmail.com


鍾 漢清
Hanching Chung (or HC/ hc)
網址：http://www.deming.com.tw
台灣戴明圈: A Taiwanese Deming Circle
http://demingcircle.blogspot.com/
地址：台北市新生南路三段88號2樓
電話：（02） 23650127

TALKING NUMBERS COUNTS FOR KIDS’ MATH SKILLS

TALKING NUMBERS COUNTS FOR KIDS’ MATH SKILLS
In almost every home and pre-school in America, young children are being taught how to recite the alphabet and how to say their numbers. A new study by University of Chicago psychology professor Susan Levine finds that simply repeating the numbers isn't as good as helping kids understand what they mean. According to her study, for children to develop the math skills they'll need later on in school, it is essential that parents spend time teaching their children the value of numbers by using concrete examples — instead of just repeating them out loud. The information is from NPR’s All Things Considered.

我現在忙著企業顧問
基本上 企業界也需要其版本的深度學習

ENCOURAGING DEEP LEARNING
Many community college students do not engage in enough classroom activities that enhance their “broadly applicable thinking, reasoning and judgment skills,” according to the latest Community College Survey of Student Engagement released today. This year’s release of the survey, now in its 10th year, draws from the responses of more than 400,000 community college students in 47 states, the Marshall Islands and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario. In addition to the annual set of questions about their classroom and campus experiences, this year’s respondents were asked specific questions about “deep learning” techniques — defined as those “abilities that allow individuals to apply information, develop a coherent world view and interact in more meaningful ways.” The article is in Inside Higher Ed.

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Encouraging Deep Learning

November 11, 2010

Many community college students do not engage in enough classroom activities that enhance their “broadly applicable thinking, reasoning and judgment skills,” according to the latest Community College Survey of Student Engagement released today.

This year’s release of the survey, now in its 10th year, draws from the responses of more than 400,000 community college students in 47 states, the Marshall Islands and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario. In addition to the annual set of questions about their classroom and campus experiences, this year’s respondents were asked specific questions about “deep learning” techniques — defined as those “abilities that allow individuals to apply information, develop a coherent world view and interact in more meaningful ways.”

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The authors of this year’s survey argue that the percentages of students who reported that they engaged “often or very often” in “deep learning” activities indicate that community colleges must do a better job of promoting them in the classroom if they hope to boost student performance.

Only 43 percent of students reported that they “included diverse perspectives (different races, religions, genders, political beliefs, etc.) in class discussions.” Forty-five percent noted they “learned something that changed [their] viewpoint about an issue or concept.” Fifty-six percent stated that they “put together ideas or concepts from different courses when completing assignments or during class discussions” and “examined the strengths or weaknesses of [their] own views on a topic or issue.” Finally, only 57 percent reported that they “tried to better understand someone else’s view by imagining how an issue looks from his or her perspective." As these are experiences that just about all students should have, the survey's authors think these figures are all way too low.

The survey’s authors argue that strategies, like these, that strengthen student learning are essential in helping produce more community college graduates, as the sector has been challenged to do by the Obama administration and various education groups.

“While summits are clearly important, policy papers are critical, and changes in institutional culture are fundamental, graduation rates simply will not increase unless we attend with equal urgency to what goes on between teachers and their students,” said Kay McClenney, director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, in a statement. “It’s really a straightforward position. We have to invest in faculty work to invest or learn about effective educational practices, deploy them in classrooms of all kinds — whether virtual or face-to-face — and then bring them to scale.”

Integrating Student Support

Elsewhere in the survey, many students reported that they do not always know about the availability of their college’s student and academic support services or how to access them. And some who do use these services noted that they “find them inconvenient” or “feel stigmatized by using them.”

Fifty-one percent of students reported that they have “rarely” or “never” used their college’s career services. Forty-seven percent noted the same estrangement from peer or other tutoring. Thirty-seven percent reported that they have had little or no exposure to an on-campus skill lab for writing or mathematics. Finally, 34 percent noted they have “rarely” or “never” taken advantage of academic advising/planning services at their institution.

The survey’s authors argue that “intentionally integrating student support into coursework circumvents many of the barriers that keep students from these services.” They highlight a number of institutions that have tried such integration.

For example, Delta College, in Michigan, brings tutors into all “first-level” sections of remedial English and mathematics courses. Tutors offer one-on-one support sessions for all students with a course grade lower than B during the traditional course time “so the students can have no excuse for skipping them.” And Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas now provides student orientation in all entry-level English classes offered during the fall semester. The college did this because many students were not enrolling early enough for summer orientation.

“We have to relinquish our reluctance to require, even when that reluctance arises from an abundance of empathy for multitasking students,” McClenney noted.

In addition to the national report, CCSSE also released individual benchmark scores on its website for all of the 241 community colleges that participated in this year’s survey. The colleges are evaluated in five categories — “active and collaborative learning,” “student effort,” “academic challenge,” “student-faculty interaction” and “support for learners." Though colleges get benchmark scores, CCSSE opposes the use of them to generate rankings of community colleges; however, The Washington Monthly released just such a community college ranking this summer.

“We have to relinquish our reluctance to require, even when that reluctance arises from an abundance of empathy for multitasking students,” McClenney noted.

In addition to the national report, CCSSE also released individual benchmark scores on its website for all of the 241 community colleges that participated in this year’s survey. The colleges are evaluated in five categories — “active and collaborative learning,” “student effort,” “academic challenge,” “student-faculty interaction” and “support for learners." Though colleges get benchmark scores, CCSSE opposes the use of them to generate rankings of community colleges; however, The Washington Monthly released just such a community college ranking this summer.

— David Moltz

“We have to relinquish our reluctance to require, even when that reluctance arises from an abundance of empathy for multitasking students,” McClenney noted.

In addition to the national report, CCSSE also released individual benchmark scores on its website for all of the 241 community colleges that participated in this year’s survey. The colleges are evaluated in five categories — “active and collaborative learning,” “student effort,” “academic challenge,” “student-faculty interaction” and “support for learners." Though colleges get benchmark scores, CCSSE opposes the use of them to generate rankings of community colleges; however, The Washington Monthly released just such a community college ranking this summer.

— David Moltz

IES SETS EDUCATION RESEARCH PRIORITIES

IES SETS EDUCATION RESEARCH PRIORITIES
The Institute for Education Sciences this week officially set a new research agenda for the U.S. Department of Education, as its advisory board approved the first revised priorities in five years.The institute’s topics of study won’t change much under the new priorities. They include educational processes, instructional innovations, and teacher recruiting, retention, training, and effectiveness. The latter is in line with the federal economic-stimulus law’s focus on “teacher effectiveness” over the older “teacher quality.” But the new priorities put greater emphasis on putting federally supported education research findings into context “to identify education policies, programs, and practices that improve education outcomes, and to determine how, why, for whom, and under what conditions they are effective.” The document is intended to guide for the foreseeable future the discretionary grants made through the institute’s $660 million research budget. It’s also likely to change the shape of the regional education laboratory system, which provides technical assistance and research services in 10 regions across the country. The article is in Education Week.

倫敦金融學院 臉書線上MBA結合

倫敦金融學院 臉書線上MBA結合

英國的倫敦商業金融管理學院，最近宣布推出線上MBA課程，學生只要透過facebook登記，就可以免費在線上觀看所有名師教授的課程，而且也只有在想拿學位的時候,才需要付費.這項創舉在短短一周之內，就吸引了三萬人登記。

就在倫敦商業金融管理學院，宣布在臉書上推出MBA課程後一個禮拜，倫敦市的交通，立刻為這項創舉做了間接的背書。因為倫敦地鐵大罷工，通勤族只得騎單車在壅擠的車陣中穿梭，這時候如果能在家上課，該能省去多少麻煩。

目前，這項臉書線上MBA課程，已經吸引了三萬名使用者。不過還沒有人真正掏錢刷卡成為正式學生。校方採用先享受後付款的機制，學生聽了課感覺滿意，決定正式註冊攻讀學位的，才需要付錢。

這項創新改革當然也面臨很多問題，目前已經有15名教職員因為不認同而出走，況且發展這套全球MBA授課平台，得耗資七百五十萬英鎊，折合台幣三億以上。 不過校方很有信心，認為才一個星期就招生三萬人，未來可以輕易突破五億線上學生的關卡，當中一定有足夠的學生願意付錢取得正式學位，這筆收入就能支持校方 投資更多。

至於這種前所未見的商業模式能不能成央A或野艘ㄗ悀F這家商學院學生一個最好的個案研究教材。

(2010-11-04 20:00) 公視晚間新聞

Google Apps For Education,

Google has announced that New York University is moving all of its enterprise functions onto Google Apps For Education, providing more than 60,000 students and faculty and all 18 NYU schools with cloud-based e-mail and collaboration tools like Gmail and Documents.

Google estimates that the project will save NYU roughly $400,000 a year by "eliminating the need to purchase, upgrade, and maintain in-house mail servers and software licenses," wrote Miriam Schneider with Apps for Education team, on the Official Google blog.

Marilyn McMillan, NYU's Chief Information Officer says the move is "a win-win: in one stroke, we are able to provide better e-mail services to members of the NYU community, offer a new set of tools for academic collaboration, and achieve savings for the University."

Currently NYU is hosted on SquirrelMail, an e-mail system with a 200MB limit.

The announcement comes just weeks after the New York State partnered with Google to bring Google Apps for Education to all its K-12 schools.

"With students and faculty across New York now using Google Apps, it looks like the Empire State has fully embraced the cloud," Schneider added.

BENEFITS SEEN FOR STUDENTS TEACHING VIRTUAL PUPILS

BENEFITS SEEN FOR STUDENTS TEACHING VIRTUAL PUPILS
Educators have long held that peer tutoring can help students learn, and emerging research on students working with computer characters points to one possible reason why: Teaching begets learning for the teacher, too. Researchers at Stanford University’s AAA Lab and Vanderbilt University’s Teachable Agents Group call it the “protégé effect,” which posits that students will work harder, reason better, and ultimately understand more by learning to teach someone else—even a virtual “teachable agent”—than they will when learning for themselves. Being social is a frame of mind, said David Schwartz, the director of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based AAA Lab, a social and cognitive learning research center. “These kids know these characters aren’t alive, but they get engaged with the narrative and play pretend, and it brings out a lot of good behaviors,” he said. The article is in Education Week.

BILL GATES: What I've Learned About Great Teachers

BILL GATES: The PARADE Interview

What I've Learned About Great Teachers

by: Paul Tough

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3. 12 Career Winners

"In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time," says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. "That hasn't been the case for teaching." This month, Gates is sounding the alarm about public education in Waiting for "Superman," a new documentary from An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim. "He has this amazing capacity to drill really, really deep," Guggenheim says of Gates. "He has an infectious curiosity." PARADE sat down with the software mogul turned philanthropist to talk about the movie, the American education system, and his own school days.

PARADE: Why did you decide to appear in Waiting for "Superman"?
BG: Our foundation has picked education as a priority in the United States, and we've spent over $4 billion on various projects. So when I heard that somebody who's done great documentaries was doing one on education, my interest was to share some thoughts and say, "Hey, don't get too depressed."

PARADE: Depressed? Do you think people will find the film pessimistic?
BG: Most people don't realize how bad the situation really has become. They think, Geez, if half the kids in the inner city were really dropping out, wouldn't somebody declare a crisis? The movie shows how bad the system is, and that's a downer. But you also see that there are great schools, and kids in the inner city can succeed. So that's a very hopeful thing.

PARADE: In the documentary, experts say there are too many bad teachers in America and not enough great ones. Why is that?
BG: Very little is invested in understanding great teaching. We've never had a meaningful evaluation system that identifies the dimensions of great teachers so we can transfer the skills to others. The Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn: "Does your teacher use class time well?" and, "When you're confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?"

PARADE: As a student, did you have one teacher who really influenced you?
BG: I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn't cool. Then my parents switched me to the Lakeside School [a private school in Seattle]. A teacher there, Mr. Anderson, was pairing people up by ability for a geography quiz, and he put me with this kid I didn't think was very clever. I thought, Wait, he thinks I'm the same as this kid? Man, oh, man, there's something wrong.

PARADE: How did you turn yourself into a different kind of student?
BG: When I was in eighth grade, I scored the best in the state on a math exam. After that, my math teacher let me go off and do independent study and computer stuff. I also became good at relating to adults. When I'd meet a teacher, I'd say, "Hey, tell me your 10 favorite books." I'd read them, and then I could talk to the teachers about something they knew a lot about.

PARADE: You and Melinda have three school-age kids. Are you involved in their education?
BG: Last year our family traveled for three months, and we did some home-schooling. I taught math and science. We went to the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator in Switzerland. We went to a toilet-paper factory, a garbage dump, an aircraft carrier, and a coal plant. I also found great educational material on the Web, including short videos at Khanacademy.org.

PARADE: What did you learn from working with your kids?
BG: Teaching's hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, commanding their attention in a certain way. I'd be better at teaching the college-level stuff.

PARADE: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has criticized Waiting for "Superman" for focusing too much on charter schools as a solution. What do you think?
BG: She points out that, on average, charter schools don't do better than other public schools. She's right. But it's a strange point to make: "Hey, they're as bad as we are!" The fact is, we're failing those kids. Ms. Weingarten represents the teachers' union, but say there was a students' union. Might they ask that the dropout rate be lowered? Might they stay at the negotiating table until it was below 50%? We ought to ask kids whether they think the status quo is working.

Learning how to learn?

THE QUEST FOR ‘DEEPER LEARNING’
Hewlett’s Barbara Chow writes in RE: Philanthrophy: When I joined The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation last year as the director of its education program, my colleagues and I took a hard look at public education in the United States, our own grantmaking, and the lessons we’ve learned. We talked to lots of smart people, read everything we could, and visited the widest possible diversity of schools. After months of research, and consulting with more than 100 top thinkers in education, business, and public policy, we asked ourselves one question: What could we do to make the biggest impact? Our answer was to focus on a set of skills and knowledge that reinforce each other and together promote rigorous and deeper learning. These include:
• Mastery of core academic content
• Critical thinking and problem-solving
• Working collaboratively in groups
• Communicating clearly and effectively
• Learning how to learn

HCL's Shiv Nadar on Bringing Business-plan Rigor to Social Entrepreneurship

HCL's Shiv Nadar on Bringing Business-plan Rigor to Social Entrepreneurship

Published: June 17, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton

Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of the US$5 billion Indian IT group HCL, has forayed into setting up educational institutions and attempting to bridge the country's urban-rural divide. He has designed this effort with business-plan rigor, thinking big but starting with pilot projects before scaling them. In a conversation with Wharton management professor Michael Useem and India Knowledge@Wharton, he spoke about his model of social entrepreneurship and building organizations, processes and leadership skills in students, among other topics.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You have spent your career building HCL as an entrepreneur. How do you view the relationship between entrepreneurship and the social goals you are trying to achieve through the Shiv Nadar Foundation?

Shiv Nadar: I have a view on this. When a corporation grows up, when it takes up a certain percentage of its revenue [or] a certain percentage of its profit and puts it into social causes, what can be done gets fairly limited. And it'll create a very discontinuous effort. Otherwise it'll become very small. If we say that we will put in one percent of our profit or five percent of our profit, and then put it in, what happens when you do this in a year in which there's no profit? Then they all become projects. Projects are by nature discontinuous. But what [the corporation] gains is the project management and program management capabilities, which will always be inherently very strong in the corporation.

We know that the subjects where we can contribute are very many. So we encourage our employees to participate along with NGOs (non-government organizations) in many of the causes. One of the causes for which we seek their cooperation is to go and teach in a school. It's a question of how long your time is available, and accordingly, we work with NGOs which will find when our employees can go and teach in a school. We have 62,000 employees. So the number of hours they can contribute is large.

But what we have done, or what my family and I have done, is different. We have two operating companies in HCL -- HCL India and HCL Global. HCL India is about US$2.5 billion in size and HCL Global is US$2.8 billion. They have been declaring dividends since inception. HCL India was formed in 1976 and HCL Global is [the former] HCL Technologies, formed and listed in 2000. These dividends flow into a family corporation. The family corporation bequeaths a large quantum of it into a Shiv Nadar foundation. So we have found a very sustainable way of doing this. With this, we can take a long-term effort -- something which will take 10 years or 25 years, a big project. At the end of the day, what have I achieved, what have we achieved? We have built two institutions. And we know how to run them with processes and structures. So if you want to create institutions which are built to we will do them as institutions, not as projects.

Michael Useem: Let me ask you about the target of your efforts. It could be health, the arts or community services, but you have chosen to focus on education. Why education?

Nadar: Education came [about] with not much of reasoning. Because when we wanted to give something back, I looked at myself, I said, "What am I?" I'm a product of education. Education and scholarship gave me a lot of confidence. And aspirations I picked up from friends and the ambience in which I grew. If I could provide a similar ambience, it could help a lot more people. That's how we set up a college of engineering (the Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering), under Anna University. But we set it up [saying] that this is going to grow big, this is going to last, this is going to do many more things than just engineering. We bought a 230-acre (an acre is 4,047 square meters) campus near Chennai.

In 14 years, we did the processes right, we built the institution right. In its ninth year it's topped the state; there are 400 engineering colleges in the state. In the 10th year it ranked among the top 10 private colleges in entire India. Nine years ago, we said, 'Let's start a joint program for masters, and let's do it with the best school in the world in these fields.' So we've done that with Carnegie Mellon [University, in Pittsburgh, Penn.]. We offer four post graduate courses. In a globalized world, we believe you should study in multiple countries.

Now I'll step back and give you the reasons. China has become India's largest trading partner. It's rare to find an Indian who speaks Chinese. It's rare to find a Chinese who can speak any of the Indian languages. Neither of them at the trading level -- I want to repeat this, at the trading level -- can speak English either. All businessmen -- how do they communicate? God knows. Sign language, probably. They are our largest trading partner; they displaced the United States. We all speak English, but no one speaks Chinese. If you've ever traded with them ... they come up with a calculator and tell you, "This is the price." That's all. You always go back with the price that you want. The way they cost their materials is probably very different, [perhaps] by weight or something [else].

So now, this has to be recognized. It has to find its way into the education system. It will be good for India exchange programs, where if there's a two-year course, someone goes there, spends three months and comes back. And then over that entire period learns Chinese -- to speak, read or write. You have a problem in America where everyone speaks only English or Spanish. In India everyone speaks their mother tongue or English. [Over time], the economies at No. 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be China, Japan, Germany, India. They have to speak a different language now.

Anyway, we thought that this joint program should pick up the experience. These programs have two semesters in India and one semester in the U.S. The students are solid; most of them work for American company and go through a placement system. In the third step, we had a product of technology. We had a product of R & D. Our company began its efforts in producing computing before either Microsoft or IBM did in the personal computing area. We were one of the earliest in the '70s. We were also one of the earliest in Unix.

So we know that the way stages itself. Technology comes first. Research comes first. As a result of it (research), technology comes. As a result of it, engineering comes. If you build an engineering college, how do you connect it up with what happens before? So we started working on that. We built a research center. We got somebody from defense research. We've got great advisors who are supporting this. The people who support us include [Carnegie Mellon professor] Raj Reddy and V.S. Arunachalam (former scientific advisor to India's defense ministry). We thought we would do this as something which is inspiring. Our belief is that aspirations, meritocracy and a world class institution are the three ingredients our country needs.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How serious is the educational challenge in India and what is your strategy to try and tackle that?

Nadar: Education in India requires correction in some places, new interactions in some places and widening in some places. When my daughter (Roshni Nadar) came here to study, the first thing I insisted was: 'You live abroad for a year alone and work in a company just by yourself.' She went and worked in the communication business with Sky News (in London), completely anonymous. No one knew who she was; she got a job because she had a degree in communications. But it's great experience. One must have some alien experiences like this. Studying in one location somehow doesn't appeal to me -- not for the future.

I come from a generation in which the average life expectancy is in the 80s. They (his daughter's generation) are going to be in a generation in which life expectancy should be 100 plus. If it is so, they have more time to strengthen their education. It can be a discontinuous effort, too.

We thought that we would provide all these things and build a university. That is another project we are doing. We are not doing it in the traditional style, where we take land, then start with some courses and then build it [over time]. Not like we did it the last time. This time we are going ahead and constructing it, so that a full fledged university is what will be built. We will get to work with partners across the world and then take it from there, offering a completely different educational experience. Someone asked me what is this [university] going to look like? We don't know. It's a leap of good faith. These are two things we're doing in higher learning.

Useem: You've built the university, and yet I know you're also very interested in students of younger age at a different stage. Where have you intervened in the educational course that people follow? Why intervene at the university level? Why intervene at a younger level? A related question is, what do you think about scale or scaling? You want to intervene, but I also know you want to intervene and have a large impact on a lot of people.

Nadar: There are two things that we noticed as serious gaps. One, let me talk about my home state. My home state is not where I come from, which is Tamil Nadu. My home state is U.P. (Uttar Pradesh, adjacent to New Delhi), where we are the largest private employer, which is where we built all our businesses. We employ 20,000 people who all are in U.P. If the state were to be a country, with a population of 190 million, it will be the seventh most populous state in the world. But it has very depressing failures. The school system with 180,000 schools is not able to cope with the needs. Politically, compulsions have been such that a student will just get through class after class after class without measuring what he or she has learned.

If you take fifth standard students (aged 10-11), 45 percent of them don't know how to read. If you take second standard students, a similar percentage of students can not recognize letters. So we have a serious problem, okay? If you knew that how to correct that, they would have followed it. The state government is very sincere; I'm not blaming them. Someone needs to experiment and find an answer.

We have run some pilot models of delivering education through a non-qualified teacher. Deliver it through this medium and a telecast mode, where someone only is assisting, standing next to the student; it's almost like cooking with a television instruction. We created it, tested it and piloted it. After every hour or so, we reinforce the learning, then find gaps and close them.

The huge advantage a city-bred person has is the mother becomes a teacher. No one can replace a mother's teaching, because she will ensure that the child learns and retains what she has taught, if she can teach. That's why the urban students get to be much more competitive, particularly the bulk of what learning potential that there is. We are bringing in a control and command system through satellite, so that the most proficient of the teachers take all the students who have gaps; they're connected through satellite, and they teach and correct.

Our objective is to get 90% of what is being taught to be retained by 90% of students. The advantage of this system is if someone has a two-month handicap, he or she can join a class. You take away this mental conception of one year for each one standard. Think without those limitations. You have so much to study; it has to be paced to what you have. And in between, if you are to go away for something else, it'll wait. These are people who may drop out after the first standard or drop out after school. This is the only opportunity they have to have any foundation.

The government knows that we are fairly sincere people. We have a good reputation. We say we will do what we say we will do. And if we don't commit [to] anything, we'll say at least we'll experiment with all sincerity. So of the 180,000 schools (in U.P.), we asked them to give us the management of 200 schools. [We asked them to] just agree to be patient with us and we will correct things. We are yet to do it. But we are starting now.

They (the U.P. government) said, "Take at least 1,000 schools." There were 200 schools and we are talking about 60,000 students. So it is a very serious responsibility. I said, "Look, it's an act of faith with what you're giving. It's a leap of faith. And the least we will do is we'll follow the old method, but deliver good education to these people." These 60,000 people will take charge. Next year, we'll write in the letter of intent that we'll go up to 1,000 schools. But post that, we will program-manage this interaction over the state to the 180,000 schools. This is the largest such effort. We will work side by side with [the government.]

It's a very well-intentioned thing. And the team which is doing it is highly capable. The project is headed, you know, by a person no less than T.S.R. Subramaniam, who was chief secretary of U.P. and [Union] cabinet secretary. The team is very high-powered, and has very capable individuals. I'm personally involved in this project, which is called Shiksha. The other project is called VidyaGyan. [It addresses the urban-rural divide, which] is very sharp.

[Take] 2001, 2002, 2003. In three consecutive years, India registers nine percent growth. In 2004 there is an election and the ruling party (the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance) is defeated. And it has not come back [since then]. The problem is the [country's] 300 million poor people who go and vote, never saw the benefit of the nine percent growth. In the subsequent five years, they (the government) called it all-inclusive growth, and did partly, and promise mostly, that they would get them (the poor) the benefits. And they started seeing them.

Currently all benefits are going to urban people. How do we take it to the rural people? How do we bring them to be equals? We need to bring leadership at the rural level. Talent is randomly distributed. It doesn't look at caste, it doesn't look at creed, it doesn't look at religion, it doesn't look at where you are studying and where you are living.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How can you develop leadership at the high school level among students?

Nadar: At the level in which you develop them, because afterwards it may be late. You develop it in every stage. They get very aspirational. Aspiration comes when all of them are almost similarly qualified. If you go to 2,000 schools and take school toppers and select 200 students, they're all very similarly qualified when they come in. So you compete and then you correct yourself. In some field or the other, we make sure that they lead. If we hold a play like Ramayan (an ancient Indian epic story), 56 of the 200 students will participate. We'll make sure that in sports, they compete every week on something or other. Competition raises leadership. There are many team events in which they participate. It's a very busy life. Those kids lead a very busy life. They get up at five in the morning, they get to work at 5:45 and they get to sleep at nine or 9:30; they don't have a minute free.

To me these are projects which will take a long time. I hope I live long enough to see the results because they have to go to school, then they have to go through college, then they have to go through work life. Will they go into an IIT or IIM (Indian Institute of Technology or Indian Institute of Management)? I guarantee you, yes. Unquestionably they will be able to pick up where they want to go, anywhere in the world. I would want them to go back to IAS (Indian Administrative Service, the country's civil services cadre) or political life. Run for office. We would prepare them for it. When I was very young, they said every Kennedy was prepared to be a president of the United States. They pretty much did.

Useem: So as a business entrepreneur for many years, you developed a capacity to think strategically and to build an organization, set a direction. As you've come in now to serve as a social entrepreneur, what are the skills that have carried over from your years at HCL?

Nadar: Whatever we aspire to do has to be big to keep my interest in it alive. All our initiatives were bigger than what we thought we could do at the time we started them. The first thing we always do is to work out a plan. The plan has always been a 10-year plan. We work on financial allocations, which will be a 10-year allocation. We work out an organization structure of how we create it. We said, "First, we need a board that will guide it." We construct the board. The person who had served as the head of the IAS academy is on our board, someone who's managing the petroleum ministry is on our board. You know, we got them. For the school, we have one who is principal of Miranda (Miranda House, a residential women's college in New Delhi); the vice chancellor of Delhi University is on our board. For the engineering college, we have Dr. Natarajan (R. Natarajan, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai) on the board and we have Dr. [V.S.] Arunachalam on the board. We have the previous election commissioner on the board.

The first task is to create a board that will help and then build the institution. And then build an organization structure. How do you translate a 10-year goal to a five-year goal? They have to have the aspiration. These things cannot be served by people to whom it is just not a job. In our educational institution, people turnover is pretty close to zero because they like what they do. They are compensated well and we introduce metrics for everything, because it must be measured. The topper's grade was 92.8 percent. In the school for leadership, 25% [of the students] scored about 90%.

How did they get there? It is checked out week by week. It runs with an institutional discipline. I learned that from somebody. I learned how the [Bill and Melinda] Gates Foundation works. It works like a business organization, excepting [that] its business is to meet some other objective, which are not business objectives.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How will you measure your success?

Nadar: In?

India Knowledge@Wharton: In the field of social impact and education.

Nadar: The social impact of something like an engineering institution is measurable. There are many measures to that. [But for] something like a brand new idea of a university, which will function in collaboration with universities in multiple countries, it has never been done before. So it has to be adapted. We always create an institution, an organization.

We have to keep correcting -- being the first in doing anything is nothing to go by. The only thing to go by is to keep collecting feedback to see [if what you are doing] is correct and keep checking the outcome. We have an advisory board of people who not only govern the inputs but also will be the final consumers -- it could be businesses, it could be the government, or wherever we want these people (students) to go to, such as research.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Thank you very much.

Useem: Terrific, thank you. It was very interesting.

學府排名/美國第48名

"學府排名"已成小小產業

【學府排名】倫敦商學院連續兩年蟬聯金融時報，行政工商管理碩士排名榜三甲位置
財華網
HongKong,Oct26,2010-(亞太商訊)-倫敦商學院於剛公佈的金融時報(FinancialTimes)行政工商管理碩士(EMBA)排名榜再次獲得佳績，更成為全球唯一一所商學院在排行榜中擁有2個席位的商學院。 倫敦商學院與哥倫比亞商學院合辦的行政工商管理碩士全球課程(EMBA-Global)本年度全球 ...
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Editorial

48th Is Not a Good Place

Published: October 26, 2010

The National Academies, the country’s leading advisory group on science and technology, warned in 2005 that unless the United States improved the quality of math and science education, at all levels, it would continue to lose economic ground to foreign competitors.

The situation remains grim. According to a follow-up report published last month, the academies found that the United States ranks 27th out of 29 wealthy countries in the proportion of college students with degrees in science or engineering, while the World Economic Forum ranked this country 48th out of 133 developed and developing nations in quality of math and science instruction.

More than half the patents awarded here last year were given to companies from outside the United States. In American graduate schools, nearly half of students studying the sciences are foreigners; while these students might once have spent their careers here, many are now opting to return home.

In a 2009 survey, nearly a third of this country’s manufacturing companies reported having trouble finding enough skilled workers.

The academies call on federal and state governments to improve early childhood education, strengthen the public school math and science curriculum, and improve teacher training in these crucial subjects. It calls on government and colleges to provide more financial and campus support to students who excel at science.

The report sets a goal of increasing the percentage of people with undergraduate degrees in science from 6 percent to 10 percent. It calls for the country to quickly double the number of minority students who hold science degrees — to 160,000 from about 80,000.

Too often, science curriculums are grinding and unimaginative, which may help explain why more than half of all college science majors quit the discipline before they earn their degrees. The science establishment has long viewed a high abandonment rate as part of a natural winnowing.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County — one of the leading producers of African-American research scientists in the country — rejects that view. It has shown that science and engineering students thrive when they are given mentors and early exposure to exciting, cutting-edge laboratory science. Other colleges are now trying to emulate the program.

Congress has an important role to play. It can start by embracing the academies’ call to attract as many as 10,000 qualified math and science teachers annually to the profession. One sound way to do that — while also increasing the number of minority scientists — is to expand funding for programs that support high-caliber math and science students in college in return for their commitment to teach in needy districts.

At Harvard, the Kitchen as Lab

Michele McDonald for The New York Times

Students at Harvard who are studying the science of cooking learn techniques from guest chefs who stop by, like Carles Tejedor from Barcelona, shown with Amy Rowat, a researcher.

By KENNETH CHANG

Published: October 19, 2010

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Multimedia

Video: Harvard Lectures on Science and Cooking

On YouTube, lectures from a public series given in connection to the undergraduate course, with Ferran Adrià, Harold McGee and others.

Related

Partial Syllabus From the Course

Lab Exercise From the Course: Molten Chocolate Cake

IN a basement laboratory at Harvard, Ashley Prince read from the instructions as her lab partner, Allan Jean-Baptiste, poured fruit nectar into a pot.

“Heat it to 113,” Ms. Prince said.

Then Mr. Jean-Baptiste added a mix of sugar and pectin, and Ms. Prince whisked.

“So far, so good,” Ms. Prince said.

These Harvard students were making chewy fruit gelées for From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science, an undergraduate course that uses the kitchen to convey the basics of physics and chemistry, a most unusual Ivy League approach to science.

Each Thursday, David A. Weitz, a physics professor, or Michael P. Brenner, a professor of applied mathematics, covers the science concepts. On the following Tuesday, one of a select group of top chefs, some well versed in kitchen technology — like Wylie Dufresne, of WD-50 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, or Grant Achatz, of Alinea in Chicago — talks about cooking techniques that illustrate the science.

Besides the laboratory work — the week before the fruit gelées, the students made ceviche; the week after, molten chocolate cake and ice cream — the students also work on projects tackling some sort of culinary science conundrum.

The guest chefs have suggested ideas and problems that they hope the students can solve.

Mr. Dufresne and the other chefs at WD-50 have concocted Parmesan noodles for the fall menu, but the texture deteriorates too quickly.

“They’re e-mailing and calling, ‘Is there any team you have yet that can run this project?’ ” said Amy Rowat, a postdoctoral researcher who is also involved in putting together the course.

Mr. Achatz wants help with some dessert geometry. At Alinea, some desserts are served by pouring them onto a latex sheet draped on the table. Cream will pool into the expected circular puddle. But chocolate flows, to spectacular effect, into a square puddle, and Mr. Achatz would like to know why.

The projects will culminate in a science fair in December, at which the students will be judged on their science (by the instructors) and the culinary presentation (by chefs including David Chang, of the Momofuku restaurants).

For Mr. Jean-Baptiste, a junior majoring in economics, it’s been an introduction to two worlds. “I think I will start to cook,” he said. “I actually think I will take more science classes.”

His gelée experiment was part of a lesson on elasticity (how easily a solid, like gelatin, can be squeezed or pulled) and viscosity (whether a liquid flows fast or slow).

Dr. Weitz also used a steak to demonstrate elasticity, measuring its thickness, applying some weight to it and seeing how much it was squeezed.

“A steak is a spring,” he said enthusiastically. “We’re going to understand the difference between a raw, rare and well-done steak. Tofu has exactly the same behavior. It’s all the same.”

Cooks increase the viscosity of gravies and sauces by using flour and cornstarch as thickeners. In recent years, some chefs have manipulated the textures of their dishes by tapping ingredients from the processed-food industry like xanthan gum and guar gum.

To show how that worked, Dr. Weitz had a brainstorm in the morning, saying in an e-mail to Dr. Rowat, “Please bring spaghetti.”

Pouring cooked spaghetti out of the pot, Dr. Weitz explained to the students that the strands entangle and rub against one another and that the friction slows their movement, increasing the viscosity. In the same way, the proteins in flour, cornstarch and xanthan gum also increase viscosity and thicken the liquid.

If the spaghetti strands — or these proteins — stick together, the liquid turns into a gel.

In the laboratory, as their fruit gelées were cooling and solidifying in a freezer, the students measured the viscosity of water mixed with varying amounts of guar gum and the elasticity of blocks of gelatin.

The experimental apparatus was an improvised mash-up of science and cooking tools. To measure the viscosity, the liquids were poured into measuring columns — standard equipment for a chemistry lab. The funnels were upside-down mustard squeeze bottles with the bottoms cut off.

This particular week, Carles Tejedor, the chef at Via Veneto in Barcelona, had flown in to give the Tuesday lecture. He stopped by the laboratory to see what the students were doing and then started experimenting himself.

In his kitchen, Mr. Tejedor has been developing olive oil jellies. A tiny bit of xanthan gum can thicken water but does nothing when added to olive oil. But if he first made a mixture of water and xanthan gum and then blended in olive oil, the result would be olive oil jelly.

In the Harvard lab, he did something similar but with guar gum, a thickener he had not used before.

“And it’s really good,” Mr. Tejedor said. “It’s like crème brûlée.”

(The guar gum was actually a second choice of the instructors. Originally, the lab was to use xanthan gum solutions, but “at high concentrations, it has strange properties we couldn’t explain,” Dr. Rowat said.)

Explaining how all this works — why, say, honey is viscous and sugar water is not — has turned out to be a tough task, even for the professional scientists.

“What we realized is we also don’t completely understand it,” Dr. Weitz said. “We learn a lot in trying to explain it.”

The science-of-cooking class grew out of a visit to Harvard a couple of years ago by Ferran Adrià, the wizard chef of El Bulli in Spain. At the time, Harvard was looking to revamp and revitalize the core undergraduate curriculum, and the idea of such a class popped up. Mr. Adrià liked the idea, and his foundation collaborated on the course material, which covers the phases of matter, thermodynamics and the various chemical reactions that turn ingredients into food.

The subject material appealed to the students as well, many of whom are history or political-science majors yet to take a science course.

Nearly 700 students wanted to enroll. By lottery, 300 got in. (Dr. Brenner noted to the students that the chance of getting into the class, about 43 percent, was still much better than the chance of getting a reservation at El Bulli.)

A “Top Chef” aesthetic has already made its way into the laboratory. Madison Shelton, a senior, cut her finished gelée into various shapes and attempted to stand them up on a rectangular white shape, just as on the television cooking shows. The soft gelées, however, did not stand up straight, but leaned to the side.

“If you have time, you ought to figure out the elasticity of your jellies,” said Tom Dimiduk, a physics graduate student and one of the teaching assistants for the lab section.

Ms. Shelton took no heed of that suggestion. “I need to make more shapes — a star,” she said, and she cut a star out of the gelée, then a heart, and added them to the plate.