October 4, 2016 Tuesday

Bedtime Story


Education in the United States of 1900s was probably close to the present Indian scenario (few elite colleges with rest 80% taking garbage in and dumping garbage out)

Flexner in his book “The American College” was against lectures as a medium of imparting education.

He felt that lectures were a short cut for teachers to manage large bunch of students which were otherwise impossible to handle.

Flexner was strongly inclined in coaching students in small groups.

In essence, it came down to the issue of optimal ratio of teachers and students.

Flexner’s ideas still hold good today and also explains why in overpopulated and underpaid (teachers) nations such as India private tuitions are so ubiquitous.

The classes in schools and colleges having lost both their sanctity and utility have been almost universally replaced with private coaching centers.

Something similar is also widespread in healthcare too.

Flexner’s book also strongly criticized the undergraduate syllabus in American colleges which to his consideration was haphazard and chaotic.      

His criticism would have remained just that with no solutions to be offered.

Fortunately for him, someone significant and powerful happened to read this book and was very impressed with its conclusions.

It was the astronomer, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard and president of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) Henry Pritchett.

Henry Pritchett invited Flexner to have a meeting with the President of the Johns Hopkins University Ira Remsen (Co-discoverer of the artificial sweetener saccharine).

Both Remsen and Pritchett like Flexner shared a passion for education and teaching.

Like Flexner, they also agreed that education system in America is broken and something must be done about it.

For starters, Pritchett targeted the medical education.

In fact, the AMA or the American Medical Association itself was unhappy with the existing structure of medical education and hence they created in 1904 CME or the Council of Medical Education to look into the matter.

CME in turn had approached the CFAT whose president happened to be Henry Pritchett.

Interestingly enough, Flexner was neither a scientist, or a doctor or a medical teacher.

In fact, he had never even stepped inside a medical college before this.

Yet in 1908 Pritchett chose Flexner to survey all the existing 155 medical colleges of North America because Flexner had that rare mix of passion for education, criticism for the current system and the ability to write clearly and succinctly.

In 2 years, Flexner visited as many medical colleges he could.

Two years later in 1910, he published now what is famously known as the Flexner Report.  

Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

Another great educator and teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, he actually does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com

Abraham Flexner - a vocal critic of American education system in late 1800s and early 1900s

Henry Pritchett - President of both the MIT and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) was looking for someone like Abraham Flexner who could help with bringing education reforms in the United States.

The book "The American College" immediately struck him out as outlining exactly what he had in his mind. 

Ira Remsen - the 2nd president of Johns Hopkins University, my alma mater. Both an M.D. physician and a Ph.D. chemist was the co-discovered of the artificial sweetener saccharine.