The disease is the fact that we have let attention spans decline in our
society. We are all addicts of "brain candy". Those fast-paced programs
that we can tune out while at the same time watching them. The 15-second
sound bites that we let pass for news. The brainless, non-educational video
games we let our children play (using them as a baby sitter) when we could
be inducing them to be out doing something, reading something, learning
something.
We have produced a generation of students who are merely reacting the way
they have been taught to act by the society in which they live. The
chronological age of students is the same, but their world of experiences
are certainly different. The problems that we face in any academic field
still require that a person or group of persons get together, concentrate on
the problem at hand, and then work together for a solution. What we've done
is produce a bunch of people to not concentrate and to not be able to break
the problems they face down into parts that they can analyze and handle.
The best learning in math still comes down to a student, a piece of paper, a
pencil and a brain in full concentration upon the concepts that they are
trying to apply to solve the problem.
It's not that students can't learn. It's that we have been extremely
successful in teaching them the wrong things.
David Beach
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