| | Thanks, Erica -- and make sure your son understands the nature of knowledge as hierarchical and contextual and that one can generalize large and complex bodies of knowledge into a few simple statements, e.g. Newton's three laws of motion and one law of gravity to describe all of mechanics.
I represented the classic case of a student very good at memorizing equations and reciting facts and then applying them intuitively quite well on typical high school tests -- great for simple material but terrible for higher level grasping of complex topics like physics with calculus. These bad learning habits really hammered me at NCSSM and continued to haunt me all through college. I never really understood this "nature of knowledge" approach until I started reading Ayn Rand. This happened my last semester of college, naturally.
The single biggest mistake I made at NCSSM happened my last semester. I had the chance to read Atlas Shrugged for a book report and class project. I liked the title and visited the library, but the huge size intimidated me as I had very little time to spare. So I opted for a team project with two other guys for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance instead. We literally split the reading three ways and explained to each other the contents of our respective pieces -- a "fake it 'til you make it" approach. The gal who read Atlas Shrugged did not seem moved by it when she gave her report.
A fellow NCSSM graduate became my dormitory roommate my freshman year at NCSU. He majored in physics while I majored in mechanical engineering. He teased me about the lack of elegance of the typical freshman level mechanics course, e.g. the concrete-bound "four magic equations" that reflected a correspondingly concrete-bound learning mentality. By his sophomore year, he grew weary of the lack of integration and proper intellectual grounding the NCSU curriculum offered, so he took his inheritance from his late father and spent it on a proper "Great Books of the Western World" classical university program at Saint John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He eventually obtained master's and doctorate degrees in physics and now does research.
Regarding NCSU, its two major programs consist of Agricultural and Life Sciences (ALS) and Engineering. The overwhelming number of students enter in one of those two majors. Its college poster in 1984 consisted of a dairy cow looking at an Apple computer. My roommate said, "This poster represents everything I see wrong with NCSU." It took me quite a long time to understand what he meant. I still think most people would find themselves challenged to justify the cost of a private university education, however.
In my opinion, SuperCamp looks like an excellent way for students to learn to engage their whole minds in the learning process instead of just the small portion that the rote method uses. Since NCSSM obsesses with producing star students, it would do well to take a look at these methods and perhaps offer scholarships for incoming students to attend this program the summer before they begin NCSSM -- or require such incoming students to attend a similar program taught in-house. The book I mentioned, Quantum Learning, talks about SuperCamp learning strategies in detail.
(Edited by Luke Setzer on 9/06, 4:38pm)
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