I have seen a lot about schools lately on these internets, and it causes me to reflect on my medical and pre-medical education.
Unlike today, when I went to medical school there were a few Asians, lots of Jewish boys, only about 20% girls, and almost no black kids. That was not very long ago, either.
My medical college expected a 20% flunk-out, wash-out, or drop-out rate. In pre-med, of course, it's much worse than that: most quit after their first B or B+ in college (there was no grade inflation then) and went off to do other things. In med school, one lousy grade, or one lousy report from a prof, and you were outta there. Packing your bags with profound humiliation. People who couldn't take the pressure just disappeared without a trace, like somebody falling off a ship.
For each course or clinical rotation, we had both written and oral exams. The oral exams, maybe, were the toughest, because the profs sought the limits of your knowledge, which they could only do by pushing past your limits, making you painfully aware of your ignorance (the oral exams were administered by panels of senior docs who were checking to make sure the junior profs were doing their jobs).
Interest and fear were the motivations. Especially fear, because we all wanted to be docs of some sort. At the same time, we enjoyed acquiring the priestly expertise. Nuns with rulers were not required.
There is an optimal level of anxiety at which a person learns best - high, but not so high as to short-circuit the synapses. The problem is, that point varies for every individual. For doctors, pilots, ship captains, and the like, you need people with high anxiety tolerance who do not lose it or get confused when the anxiety level ramps up and the sh-t hits the fan.
My point, however, was to raise the topic of fear in education. I believe it to be a great motivator, even for those highly self-motivated students but especially for those who are not. Most kids in most schools are the latter.
Do we really know how kids would learn if, instead of having mandatory education, we threw them out of school if they did not measure up or take advantage of the incredible opportunities for learning we offer everybody in America? I mean, from High School and on. Problem is, they need those warm bodies to get the dollars.
