New York Times Conflates Teaching with Marketing and Then Notes Students Could Do Better?

Here are links to two articles in today’s The New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html?rref=us&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&pgtype=article

and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/us/us-students-strong-at-problem-solving-but-trail-other-nations.html?ref=us (only online for now)

The first article seems to be about how a professor, one of many,  is using a creative new approach to teaching about climate change issues.  I looked at ratemyprofessor.com for her.  Here is what I found.

She is tremendously popular.  Her students lover her.  (good) She makes the course interesting. (good) She gets them involved.  (good)  But do they learn?  I doubt it.  Here are some quotes from her reviews.

•  …If you do the reading and pay attention it’s impossible to do badly…
• …As long as you’re not a complete slack, the class is easy and fun!
• …If you do the reading and pay attention to the slides you will do fine…
• … If you read and take good notes, this class is a breeze…
• …this class was not very hard and totally interesting….she also had a lot of visual[s]…
• …she tells you everything you need to know in lecture and puts the important notes online.  Why doesn’t every professor teach like this?
• …nice person, but boring class. very disappointed as an environmental studies major. definitely more of an english class. dont really have to read the books though, most of them have nothing to do with the environment either. also, a 1 page journal is due every class on the assigned reading, but its easy to ****. WORTHLESS CLASS.

I don’t think the first article is really about good teaching and good courses.   I think it shows how easily universities and professors can fool students, parents, and even reporters.  (I doubt if this prof. even thinks she is fooling anybody.  She is just doing great at her job.  The question is:  what is that job? and does she even know that’s really her job.)  I think David Riesman put it well when he described what she and her university are really doing – satifying naive students’ “wants”, not their “needs”.  (See the link at the top for quotes from David Riesman.)

Now for the second article.  Just note the title.  “U.S. Students Good at Problem Solving But Trail Other Nations”.  Duh?  (For more detail about the connection, see my category University Education Dumbs Down High School.)