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Scientific Elites vs. Illiterates
Rackemup writes "An article at Technology Review examines how it's possible for the same education system to produce both scientific elites and illiterates. While the article is kind of hard on current Elementary school teachers (whom the author says are hostile towards the scientific studies because becoming an Elementary teacher is the only way to graduate from college without needing to take a single science course), he does raise the issue that if we gave these teaching positions the pay-level and respect they deserve it would be much easier to attract Doctoral-level people to fill them."
"He does raise the issue that if we gave these teaching positions the pay-level and respect they deserve it would be much easier to attract Doctoral-level people to fill them."
My city of Cincinnati is far too busy building stadiums.
In the past (>20 years ago), most high-paying fields were difficult for women to get into. So lots of really smart women ended up teaching elementary school, even though the pay was pathetic.
Nowadays, teachers get paid a bit better, but still not nearly enough compared to other fields like law, medicine, or software. Some smart people go into teaching anyway because they're really dedicated, but they're a minority.
Yes, but there's nothing wrong with aiming to improve what that middle ground knows. Because the "average" is not a stupid person, just a disinterested person. And knowing how things work is interesting enough on its own merits to even people well-below average. The only reason people don't want to know is they believe a lie, that it's somehow beyond their capacity to understand.
No, this guy's right. The biggest reason for the decline in what the average person learns out of high school in this country is the decline in qualified teachers.
I don't agree with the article that teaching high school is a job for PhDs. You don't get one of those unless you've made an original contribution to the science. These people are qualified researchers, and their time ought to be spent on adding to our body of knowledge. For this they require spare time and facilities that high schools simply can't provide. But there's absolutely no reason why people with master's (or even bachelor's) degrees can't do the job of passing on the knowledge that's already been acquired. Nothing on the high school level is beyond their abilities.
And the brethren went away edified.
Unfortunately, more money isn't the answer to our educational problems. In Washington DC, the schools spend about $9000 per student per year (figures from memory, but they're close). That's a lot of jack, and Washington DC public schools are horrible.
There are many problems; money isn't one of them.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I don't think you understand something about bell curves and similarly guassian distributions...
Yah, there's gonna be the big pile of average in the middle... but we can also ensure that the average distribution is centered on a higher value than the present system allows!
By increasing education, you raise the low, middle *and* high. We can't change the shape of the distribution, but we can certainly recenter it!
GPL Deconstructed
Now on to your other point, there is no reason for everyone to know everything about physics, but they should know the basics of how the universe works and what science is about. The people making public policy decisions about science do not typically come from a scientific background. Shouldn't they at least know how progress is made in science, what the purpose of science is, and be able to distinguish between popular "scientific" fads and real science? I remember when the SSC was killed, one senator was pleased that no more money would be spent on "an esoteric toy for a small group of scientific ellites." Had she actually taken a modern physics class, she would have known how much our current economy (and entire society) depends on the discoveries made from earlier "esoteric toys." That's why people who claim to be educated should be educated in science.
That's very true.
That's also very true. BUT wishful thinking is not sufficient. My mom happens to be a primary school teacher (outside the US, BTW), so she gets to teach kids the most important basics (read, write, count). She gets definite instructions along the line of what you're suggesting -- adapt to each child, etc.
Except there are other 20 children in her class.
Well, she's tried. Bottom line: the kids learn well. They love her. Their parents love her.
But she's stepping down after only 5 years of it, because she's worked herself thin, and she's in too bad shape to continue.
So, yes, we need to find a way to teach children individually. But that's not by just telling the teachers to do so, obviously. Problem is: is it possible to fund enough teachers for all the kids? If not, then what can we do? Will it be sufficient if the parents actively take part in their kids' education, like other Slashdotters are suggesting?
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The problem is that Education is a soft science, and actually does not have a practical scientific base. Which education systems produce the best results and why? Ask that question, and you get a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
You could ask the question of Linux distributions, and eventually you would get answers depending on the user experience and the intended application, and the operational enviroment. You could determine what the best practices are. You could get expert answers that work every time.
You cannot do that in education. For example you could try to teach writing. But even today, the writers on the best seller lists do not study writing for four years of college, etc. They just sit down and write, and they figure out on their own how other writers did what they did. The teach themselves. The best way to ruin a writing career is to have a college education in it.
There are many other fields which are similar to this. Even in the Tech Review article, it sounds like what happens is that the teachers spark the kids interest, and then the kids really teach themselves at a rate that far outstrips the books.
Part of this problem is the very education system that produced these teachers. How many people here said "To heck with that subject! I will never use that!"? Plenty.
The problem is that if you have a data vacuum in something, it is very easy to fill it in with junk. Does anyone here know what happens when you process with junk data? Garbage in = garbage out. (and then you get folks like GWB)
Also, if you have a data vacuum, it is very easy to try to excuse this away, to try to justify this ignorance. "It was just a stupid subject anyhow. It was not cool." and then you have greased skids to a hostile attitude.
Real expertise in education would have a fix for this type of thing. A teacher would know how to get themselves effectively educated in science, or any other subject of choice. And could do this for the students as well. The you wouldn't have parents and administrators trying to fix and cheat the scores
Don't hold you breath waiting.
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I read the article.
I then laughed.
I then cried, as I realized that the misguided views show there are by far the majority opinion of the "elites" in the University system.
Goldstein has no clue as to what it means to be an Elementary teacher, nor even a clue as to what we should be trying to aim for in our Elementary system. He's looking at it from the Ivory Tower, where all 1st graders are simply younger versions of the grad students he sees; they don't know as much, but you should obviously be able to teach them the same way.
Bullshit.
And to all the people above who post that anyone with "field" experience in a discipline should be able to go right into a teaching position without finishing a teaching certificate: knowing the subject material has very little to do with knowning how to teach the subject material.
I don't know what schools Goldstein looks at, but the vast majority of schools providing teaching certificates require several basic-level science courses to get a degree. In PA where I grew up near one of the big "teacher's colleges", a typical Elementary Education teacher would take a Biology and Physics class (about at the same level as advanced AP Physics), which should impart a really good understanding of what science is about, if not a real breadth or depth of scientific knowledge.
In reality, the type of people who have long industry experience, or many advanced degrees you would NEVER want in an Elementary teaching position. The job requirements are completely different. Being smart isn't enough: you need the proper training.
Being a Elementary teacher is primarily socio-psychological: you're attempting to impart some basic knowledge of how things work, and how to function in a society. Without a foundation of solid skills and (rather rote) knowledge to build on, there isn't any hope of producing a free-thinking, creative, explorative mind. Middle-school and high-school is where we need to focus on taking the student on new paths and move away from rote-learning. Elementary school is for making you a basically-functional citizen.
Final lesson: never let the PhDs run primary or secondary education. They have their own agenda, and have no clue as to what they're really dealing with.
If you want my opinion, the vast majority of primary and secondary school teachers are doing a good job. Sure, there are a minority of bad teachers, but the major problems don't lie with the teachers: they lie with the school boards, the administrators, and ultimately, the parents. Fix the things wrong there first, then worry about the teachers.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing 'Insightful' about claiming that teachers are the true and evil problem with the American education system today. As stated before, there are so many factors that go into America's educational decline, no one candidate can be blamed.
Yes, I'll agree, there probably are teachers that do not perform to standard. There are policemen that also don't. And doctors. And lawyers. And anything else that you can think of. But to carte blanche claim that teachers are the root problem is not only stupid and immature, it's also irresponsible.
What about the decline of family and social structure in America in the last fifty years? What about the incredible amount of personal freedom and power children have today (read the cover story from the 6 Aug 2001 issue of Time). How about the comparitivly low salaries that high school and elementary teachers compared with other professionals with similar educations?
No, Rimbo, the problem is not teachers. The problems is people like you that refuse to accept responsibility for their own children, for failing to nurture and guide them, and then to quickly turn to the school teachers and blame them.
Well, goody for it. Home schooling moves the bell curve up 30 percentile points, and I'm sure even that can be readily improved upon.
What's wrong with making the next generation's ``dummies'' better than today's ``average'' student, and the average drudge better then most of today's ``advanced'' students?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you use a derogatory term like "fuzzy" to refer to someone who majored in a non-scientific discipline, it sounds like you've made a decision that you'll never change, no matter how many scientifically adept "fuzzies" you run into.
Fifth, This whole separation of church and state thing. NEVER was today's situation meant to happen and our founding fathers are rolling over in thier graves. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for letting it come to this point. If you dig around, and find statistics, You will find that most of the bad features of America started right when God was removed from schools. Crime rate, Abortion, Murder, Premarital sex, The inability of the average person to keep their promises on anything. Think about it. The reason is so simple. Nobody feels like they are responsible to anyone, not even God.
Which leads us to Six. What is being taught in schools is so terribly inacurate. The driving force for most of early American history is the belief in God. Telling the American story without mentioning God is like trying to explain how a nuclear reactor works without explaining what fission is. "Oh well these rod thingies get hot and- Why? Well they just do. Trust me, I work for the govornment."
Speaking as someone who is rather fond of "This whole separation of church and state thing", I disagree. First, some of us are not Christians. Does this mean our children should be forced to learn your religion? Or perhaps "special shcools" are in order? Maybe they should just shuffle their feet and look vaguely uncomfortable everytime someone mentions religion. Heh, I was a teacher for a year. Do Wiccan teachers get to lead the children in Sabbats and Esabbats, or do only Christian teachers get to provide religous guidence to children? Public schools get paid for out of public money, and if they expouse your religious views over mine, they are creating a sitution of favoritism. Certainly you have the right (which you excercised) to teach your children your own views in your own way, but critisising the public system for trying to be as fair as possible is un reasonable. Imagine you lived in Salt Lake City where the majority of the population is Mormon. Would you want "God" to be in the schools there? Someone else's God? (I'm not knocking Mormons here, just using that as an example, since there are relativly few places in this country where "standard" Protesant Christian views are not dominant.)
As to your statement about about the the relationship of relgion to history, and the founding fathers.. I have to both agree and disagree with you. First, you are right that the history of this nation cannot be taught without mentioning God. Yes, here I am talking about the Christian God, his preceived will has been a dominatin force in outr nation's history. One point I disagree on is your implication that this has always, or even often, been a good thing. Christian sentiment in this country has been responsible for amonst other things in our history: Prohibition, the Red Scare, the Salem Witch Trials (No, I am not a rabid Wiccan who thinks that Witch trial were either common or even successful in US History, but Salem was a stand out), Slavery (Yes it was also important in abolitionist circles, I'll get to that), the near eradication of the native population of this contient, and more than one war. On the other hand it has also been responsible for the progressive movement (Which had its good and bad points, but was generally positive), abolitionism, recent movements toward Civil Rights for various respressed people, and various antiwar movements. Hardly a perfect record. I might also add that this country is far less violent than it typically has been in it's history, and you are attempting to compare today's modern "degeneration" to the imagined perfections of the late forties and the fifties. Even if they had been as beautiful as pop culture portrays them, they were an aberation in American history. And I rather doubt that too many black southerners who were alive then would pain the picture that Ozy and Harriet did.
As to the founding fathers, some 25% of the them were probably Deists, who really didn't have much to sasy on the subject of religion in the first place. As a rule, whenever people bring up the "intent" of the founding fathers, early Americanists kinda laugh. The truth is that only a small fraction of them left enough info about themselves to really get an idea what their "intent" was, and the of those that did, much of it is contradictory. The famous Jeffersonian "All men are created equal" from a slave owner is just one example. Most writings of his indicate that Jefferson KNEW slavery was wrong, but could not see a reasonable way out. The founding fathers were men of great courage certainly, but still, alas, human, and full of contradiction. While some may be turning over in their graves from the removal of Christianity from public schools, most are probably resting as well as their own deeds will allow them.
Why yes, I do have a BA in history that I hardly ever get to drag out.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
It tells you no such thing. Parents of public school kids run the gamut from "cares a lot about the child's education" to "doesn't care about the child's education." The set of all parents who homeschool their kids filters out the "doesn't care" end of that scale. The filter that selects your "experiment group" (homeschool families) out of the general population also selects for other factors that tend to influence a child's rate of learning. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.