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The creative student finds a way to apply and make interesting a stubject of study *in spite of* any apparent focus on memorization. Perhaps the issue isn't that the TEACHING is "unimaginative" , but perhaps the LEARNER who is unimaginative. What SOME people (read: college students) forget is that in the REAL WORLD, they are going to be asked to learn things under many different "teaching styles" (or NO TEACHER). I have learned a lot POST-PHD just by reading and doing things myself and I had plenty of "boring" teachers during my undergraduate and graduate educations. Out system now emphasizes (because of a business model that has pervaded academia) "student as customer" and that to retain we need to 'make the customer happy." Many schools are letting in people with little more than a heartbeat and working subcortical brain structures. They end up graduating and having kids that they want to get a college degree (or HELL IF MY TAX DOLLARS ARE GOING TO EDUCATION), so colleges appease and we let poorer and poorer students "succeed." There are A LOT of people in college that DO NOT BELONG in college; they are bored because they have been bored with school since 1st grade; their disinterest feeds poor learning; they don't apply themselves and they aren't creative even though they think they are.

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I won't comment on your heinous grammar, lack of idea structure and overuse of CAPITALIZATION (oops! I guess I just did), but how does one teach creativity in school? I doubt it's school- creative people who make use out of knowledge used to be the ones who succeeded and went to college, as it used to be a privilege. Now it's a requirement by parents and businesses. I think the big problem now is that EVERYONE goes to college. The standards haven't changed much, I don't think. Just the clientele.And those of you who say that teaching is better in places like Japan need to sit through classes in Japan. They are literally by the book- the teaching style is minimalist at best, and the curriculum is centered solely around tests, especially in high school There is even less emphasis on creativity there. A lot of the schools are pretty godawful- it's the students who make the schools look good. Most of the students are obsessed with getting into top colleges, as that is the only real guarantee of a good career- a sign of the power and business structure in Japan.

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"The science establishment explains these defections as part of a natural "weeding out", a view flatly rejected by U.M.B.C. and a few other campuses where administrators are getting top performance from students who would ordinarily have become demoralized and jumped ship."I call bulls**t. Weeding out is exactly what UMBC does, and it uses science courses to do it. As part of a cs major, you're required to take any two science courses. Why? To weed you out and keep the science professors occupied. Intro physics 1 and 2 were the hardest courses i took in my 4 years there. Whats more, the CS program put two hard courses in the first two semesters, and you needed a B in them (among other things) to meet the 'gateway requirements'. That's weeding out.Plus, i didn't see an iota of this 'laboratory approach'. Just the same indicipherable lectures and sadistic tests.not that UMBC doesn't kick your school's ass, but jesus christ, physics is terrible here. and i hear chemistry is worse.an interesting note about the meyerhoff program is i'm willing to bet that there are more africans than african americans. they levitate around on their mind rays, and take six courses a semester. there are also no caucasians in the library. the school is diverse as hell.

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I teach AP physics in high school. I tried my best to keep EVERYBODY interested in physics. If I succeeded I will be happy. Physics is fascinating, one thing we need to do is keep students away from mind numbing drilling sessions, and do lots of experiments. Next year I will do more experiments.

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I am only 27, i wouldn't consider that old, so in around 40 years I can collect that social security you speak of; if social security is still around. Depending on where you look, gen-x stops in '78, others claim it ends in '80. So I guess you *could* claim I am a different generation, but you could also claim that I am the same generation. Basically I don't see the current college students to be that different than I am age wise.

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"Average salary scales for professors show the marketplace value of different disciplines: law, $109,478; business, $79,931; biological and biomedical sciences, $63,988; mathematics, $61,761. The failure of more Americans to pursue science studies can in part be attributed to poor high school and college programs for nurturing scientific talent. But the much-lamented turn away from science also reflects sound economic calculation. The post-college route to a science PhD usually takes five to seven years. Postdoctoral fellowships, now a commonplace requirement for most academic and many industrial jobs, run for two to three years. Postdoctoral wages average around $35,000 a year, without benefits. At the postdoctoral stage, fledgling scientists are well into their thirties, some in their early forties. With good luck, the next step will be a tenure-track academic appointment, which, after seven years, may or may not result in a secure job. No wonder fewer and fewer Americans opt for a career in science. Even so, jobs remain scarce." <a class="user" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38006-2004May18.html&quot;&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38006-2004May18.html&lt;/a&gt;

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I don't think the link to the previous nature article worked. Try this one:"US postdocs: Young, gifted ... and broke"<a class="user" href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6984/full/428690a.html&quot;&gt;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6984/full/428690a.html&lt;/a&gt;

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