Contemporary Problems Of Education / A P SHARMA

Without well-defined criteria for success, all radical innovations are doomed to failure. To facilitate successful experimentation the following are necessary: an outside agency to conduct evaluation; criteria of success acceptable to innovators and critics; and, in control and comparison groups, assessment and accounting of the initial versus final status of students, equation of the student-teacher ratio and education cost per student, and a similar high level teacher competency. These criteria will help to produce standards for decision-making by potential users of the innovation. (The opportunity to evaluate the integrated classroom as a radical innovation is available in Berkeley.) The following hypotheses about traditional programs should also be tested for comparative purposes: the most effective programs are those which assess the child's status and then devise applicable instruction; programs emphasizing intellectual abilities improve convergent, analytical thinking better than unguided discovery; effective remediation efforts require ability groupings or customized tutoring. A healthy educational environment depends upon educators who communicate meaningfully and know their subject matter, can behave rationally, value self-assertion and independence in children, and practice authoritative rather than authoritarian control or permissiveness. (JH)

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