Mechanical Components Blog

...it's the TEACHERS that really make the difference, although, yes, the curricula is important too. Consider the fantastic results of teachers such as Jaime Escalante of "STAND AND DELIVER" fame!

Both the teachers as well as curricula or syllabus are important for education. Even if teacher is not good nowadays many students learn from websites. But a good teacher can make the task easy. Education or knowledge will be useless unless it is useful to the society. The students should learn fundamentals.

When the only way to be successful is to appear on a game show or reality show, no wonder nobody cares about engineering anymore. I can earn up to $100K as a very senior engineer, I get double that in sales or accounts.

Give the profession some respect, create more lower level feeder jobs for progression and you will find people are interested in it again.

Also get rid of your IPod and get a computer where you can learn some basic programming skills

Woohoo! We're in the top 1/3 for math!

Wait...25/70??? Yea, top 1/3!

The only way to get me shook up at my ole age is to bring about Teachers, Students and out dated merhods of bring forth the '3' 'R's'...We in our education system seem to be locked into the early 1950's when the inspired student came to school inspired with an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. The inpiration came from a home..And the many aspects that made a Home a home, a father with a job inpsired by the fact he had a family and enjoyed working for the betterment of both. The Mother proud to be careing and feeding and educating the Child that he or she might carry on this tradition. But up jumped the new wave of student being shoved out the door, so mama could be off with another uncle john and daddy is, if known, hasn,t been home ever, and to ride on a bus for an hour to be with people of like concerns and no light at the end of that tunnel and the choice readily becomes school or jail...The job of the Teacher has become babysitter, no way to Teach only to keep peace and Hope for change she knows is not comming. The methods she is to be teaching and the subjects do not fit the needs of society. Little johnny can recognize and measure a gram, milli-gram into a match box but cannot read a ruler or put a pound on a scale. Doom and gloom for sure, but there is 'for sure' many of the secure families with secure jobs and do inspire their children to learn and you could throw them in a pit of lemons and you would have a new lemonaide. Thank the good Lord for these..We must come up with new methods and new Teachers to teach not the '3', 'R's alone but to teach the needs of the community as it exist today. To show the student the need and teach him that he can fullfill it. Starting in daycare to the job.

A few years ago, Missouri eighth grade science students were given a District Assessment Test. The students were told to do their best, as their teacher would be rated based on the students' performance. The test was based on a student project to answer the question: are dry seeds alive? It was assumed that seeds which are alive have chemical processes going on, and chemical reactions often give off heat. The student took two plastic foam cups and put wet seeds in one and dry seeds in the other. An alcohol in glass thermometer was inserted in each cup. Each day, "at the same time," the temperatures were recorded. After the test, the students were given the "correct" answers. Question: What is the control? Answer: the wet seeds, since that is the natural condition of seeds. I would have thought the control should be a cup of dead seeds or an empty cup. Question: What should the student conclude? Answer: The dry seeds are alive. Oh? If the temperatures were the same, would that tell which seeds were alive? If the wet seeds were cooler, perhaps cooled by evaporation, would that show which seeds were alive? If the wet seeds were warmer, perhaps sprouting, would that indicate whether the dry seeds were alive? "Don't confuse me with facts; my mind is made up." A real scientist looks at the data before drawing a conclusion. Since no data were given, a better answer would be: there is insufficient information to draw a conclusion. Belief without evidence is religion, not science. I brought the test to the attention of a school superintendent. He seemed entirely unconcerned. In Missouri, it is public policy to teach junk science.