Teaching Economics (Thomas Sowell)

Creators Syndicate ^ | June 3, 2012 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

Having taught economics at a number of colleges for a number of years, I especially welcomed a feature article in the June 22nd issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, on how economics courses with the same name can be very different at different colleges. It can also be very different when the course is taught by professors in the same department who have different approaches. The usefulness of the three approaches described in the article depends on what the introductory course is trying to accomplish. One professor taught the subject through a steady diet of mathematical models. If the introductory economics course is aimed at those students who are going to major in economics, then that may make some sense. But most students in most introductory economics courses are not going to become economics majors, much less professional economists. Among those students for whom a one-year introductory course is likely to be their only exposure to economics, mathematical models that they will probably never use in later life, as they try to understand economic activities and policies in the real world, may be of very limited value to them, if any value at all. If the purpose of the introductory course is to serve as a recruiting source for economics majors, that serves the interest of the economics department, not the students. It may also serve the interests of the professor, because teaching in the fashion familiar in his own research and scholarship is a lot easier than trying to recast economics in terms more accessible to students who are studying the subject for the first time. Having written two textbooks on introductory economics — one full of graphs and equations, and the other with neither — I know from experience that the second way is a lot harder to write, and is more time-consuming. The first book was written in a year; the second took a decade. The first book quickly went out of print. The second book ("Basic Economics") has gone through 4 editions and has been translated into 6 foreign languages. Both books taught the same principles, but obviously one approach did so more successfully than the other. The same applies in the classroom. The opposite extreme from teaching economics with mathematical models was described by a professor who uses an approach she characterized as democratizing the classroom, "so that everybody is a co-teacher and co-learner." This has sometimes been called "discovery learning," where the students discover the underlying principles for themselves while groping their way through problems. Unfortunately, discovery can take a very long time — much longer than a course lasts. It took the leading classical economists a hundred years of wrestling with different concepts of supply and demand — often misunderstanding each other — before finally arriving at mutually understood concepts that can now be taught to students in the first week of introductory economics. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the discovery learning professor sometimes seemed to be the one doing most of the work in the class, "bringing the students' sometimes fumbling answers back to economic principles." This course's main focus is said to be not on mastering the principles of economics, but being able to "dialog" and discuss "shades of gray." With such mushy goals and criteria, hard evidence is unlikely to rear its ugly head and spoil the pretty vision of discovery learning. Discovery learning may not serve the interests of the students, but it may well serve the ego of its advocate. Education may be the only field of human endeavor where experiments always seem to succeed — as judged by their advocates. By contrast, the third method of teaching introductory economics, in lectures by Professor Donald Boudreaux of George Mason University, tests the students with objective questions — which means that it is also producing a test of whether this traditional way of teaching actually works. Apparently it does. The Chronicle of Higher Education also reported on the students. The feckless behavior of today's students in all three courses makes me glad that I left the classroom long ago, and do my teaching today solely through my writings.

[nicmarlo]

“Discovery learning” is what they are forcing new educators to do with elementary through high school students. It’s also an abject failure....and partly why the kids learn little to nothing in skool.

[jazusamo]

and partly why the kids learn little to nothing in skool.

I heer you and totaly agre. :-)

Seriously, you're dead on the money.

[Lizavetta]

an approach she characterized as democratizing the classroom, "so that everybody is a co-teacher and co-learner."

I despise this attitude for three main reasons.

1. It devalues the learned knowledge of the instructor -- assuming he has any.

2. It pretends that learners' opinions on a subject -- opinions that are passed on and that fellow learners can "learn" -- have merit.

3. It lets a lazy-ass teacher off the hook for having to teach. Why bother, when all the "learners" are "learning" from each others' opinions?

This really chaps my ass.

[BobL]

““Discovery learning” is what they are forcing new educators to do with elementary through high school students. It’s also an abject failure....and partly why the kids learn little to nothing in skool.”

The whole point of education is to let people build on the “discoveries” that others have spent lifetimes working on. The idea that some little brat with an IPOD and the inability to find pants that make it to his waist could ‘discover’ Calculus just doesn’t pass the smell test.

[jazusamo]

Absolutely...Teachers are there to teach (assuming they have the ability), not to promote the opinions of other students.

[KarlInOhio]

The idea that some little brat with an IPOD and the inability to find pants that make it to his waist could ‘discover’ Calculus just doesn’t pass the smell test.

It's interesting that you picked "discover calculus" for your example. I was just looking up Isaac Newton's (one of the two independent inventors of calculus) quote "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Discovery learning is the very opposite of standing on the shoulders of giants.

[LibWhacker]

Ever try to teach math to a kid who has been taught that anyone’s approach to problem solving is as valid as anyone else’s, even the teacher’s, as long as it’s a sincere approach? I have. Hopeless. That’s discovery learning. By the time a kid gets to high school, the damage is done. There is little you can do to reverse it.

[jazusamo]

In the early 70’s our youngest was started on the “new math”, what a disaster. She'd come home and want help and I had no idea what was going on nor did my wife and we were knowledgeable with math.

I realize it's not the same thing but it's an example of how teaching was changing. Fortunately the new math didn't last long and she recovered with help but it was something that should not have been allowed to happen.

[GlockThe Vote]

sowell is a national treasure.

[DeFault User]

“new math”, what a disaster...

Yep, apples and oranges became sets. You can't add apples and oranges unless you classify them as fruit. That I understood in elementary school, but sets, base 8 and the crap I encountered in a college course entitled "Algebraic principles of new math" reached the absurd when I found there were 21 steps to prove 1>0. Huh????

As to the discovery method of teaching: it can have some application if the instructor is leading the discovery. Witness Plato's descriptions of Socrates' classes. The Socratic method has the teacher asking the students questions whose answers are arrived at by prodding their brains to think critically and logically. They can reach a conclusion by performing all the logical steps to get there. Concepts and lesson learned. Brain exercised in critical thinking.

[Graewoulf]

Thanks for bringing us Dr. Sowell. His articles are a soothing relief to the insanity of The Obamanator and his Bolsheviks!

[BobL]

“It’s interesting that you picked “discover calculus” for your example. I was just looking up Isaac Newton’s (one of the two independent inventors of calculus) quote “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Discovery learning is the very opposite of standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Yea, Newton and Leibnitz, not my kids, not your kids, not anyone’s kids today. Two absolutely AMAZING people, especially Leibnitz, who had the friggen Ottomans ready to smash his town to bits at the time (look up Battle of Vienna).

I took a short cut with my kids - I TAUGHT them what Newton and Leibnitz had spent their lives discovering, because, while my kids are special, they don’t hold a candle to these two geniuses. Maybe some day my kids will come up with something useful - but, for now, there’s plenty to be learned from people who spent their lifetimes discovering things for the past two thousand years.

[exDemMom]

The idea that some little brat with an IPOD and the inability to find pants that make it to his waist could ‘discover’ Calculus just doesn’t pass the smell test.

That's funny.

I used to play around with math to amuse myself when I was a kid. I discovered several principles of calculus by the time I was 11 years old... concepts which I did not learn in a formal manner until university, when I took calculus. My self-invented methods of expressing the equations were not the standard forms, but they worked.

That isn't to say that most kids, or even a large minority of them, would be able to do what I did. They have to see math as a game, first.

[BobL]

“I used to play around with math to amuse myself when I was a kid. I discovered several principles of calculus by the time I was 11 years old... concepts which I did not learn in a formal manner until university, when I took calculus. My self-invented methods of expressing the equations were not the standard forms, but they worked.”

Very cool...better than I ever did.

Now this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan is one of my heroes of all time. He sits alone in India, never read any publications, derives all this stuff - send it to G.H. Hardy in England who laughs at it, saying he was just repeating what was already discovered. Then Hardy keeps reading it and, essentially, says “holy crap”, as the Indian dude continued on to open up new fields of math. From Hardy’s article, they have this quote: “Hardy was asked what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan.”.

But the other 999,999,999 (or so) Indians aren’t quite as talented and could only learn math the conventional way.

[4Liberty]

Thanks! I teach Econ. There are many ways to approach it. We’re supposed to “sell” the field as a Major (career), but I try to give the average student an overview of the benefits and basics of Free enterprise and importance of self responsibility (managing one’s own finances, don’t expect govt handouts). Most of the students leave understanding 1) Govt. isn’t Santa Claus; 2) the welfare state isn’t freedom, it’s slavery (taking from one, to give to another by force) and 3) competition (free trade) is good for society, it encourages/rewards innovation, and the taking of untried risks.

4L

[jazusamo]

Thanks for your post. The majority of your students leave with a good understanding of important principles that should benefit them throughout their lives.

[PA Engineer]

sowell is a national treasure.

Big dittos. BTTT.

[PA Engineer]

sowell is a national treasure.

Big dittos. BTTT.