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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."
The problem is worse than the pay. My friend got a bachelor's in physics and taught high school. He tried to teach well, and a lot of the students appreciated it, but the parents complained about low scores because of colleges, and the administration just panders them, going over the teacher's head to change grades. The pressure of college and scholarship and the lack of highly motivated teachers is part of the problem, and I think higher pay would really solve it. Just to mention, my friend quit after a year to get his PhD, just to avoid the high school system
I just don't get how our system is supposed to work. We are cutting funding to education (or at least not expanding it to meet demand), we are cutting back on wellfare, and we are doing everything we can to automate low skill tasks.
So basically you have to have a job to live. But the low skill jobs are being automated because it's cheaper than paying you. So you can either go on wellfare or you can try to get an education to get a better job up the food chain. In order to get the eduation, you apparently have to have money (or at the least live in an area where there is money so that the schools have decent funding). And I'm guessing that if this is a situation you find yourself in you probably don't live in a rich suburb.
I'm sorry that all the rich people aren't filthy rich enough yet, but for god's sake, why don't we fund a decent education system. I think it's reasonable to set standards that insure the school system doesn't waste its time on people who don't care. But at the same time, people who want to learn should not have to pay a dime for it.
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-- Shamus
"Bleah!" -- overheard at a press conference
I know a few experts in science and mathematics who have mentioned to me that they would be more than happy to teach middle school and high school; however the requirement by my state that all teachers have a teaching certificate keeps them out of the field.
IMHO, there is no reason a person who has spend 40 years of their life teaching calculus and higher mathematics should be forced to take child psychology courses and sensitivity training in order to prove to a state agency that they can teach. Retired programmers and electrical engineers have an expertise in their fields that I'm sure more than a few of them would be glad to pass along, even on a part time basis, but the requirement of a teacher certificate--and the hasssle and expense required to obtain one once you have already graduated--precludes them from this sort of activity. Activity that a few professionals I know would be happy to do on a volunteer basis.
Low pay is absolutely a factor in keeping people out of teaching. But the certification process (and the unions that create and support them) are creating unnecessary barriers to the field of teaching that is lowering its quality as well. These barriers are keeping older professionals from entering the field in deference to providing more opportunity to younger teachers who choose to get a teaching certificate along with their four year degree. Frankly, I would have preferred to take a course in calculus from a mathematician or biology from a retired M.D. than from a newly graduated layman.
-Stridar
David Goodstein almost certainly knows a fair bit of Shakespeare. From my interactions with him back when I was a TA in his Physics 1 class at Caltech, he's a pretty well rounded guy. I doubt that the accusations you are levelling are founded at all.
More to the point, Goodstein's point is that nobody is well rounded enough in *science* any more, and that (whether you agree or not) that is nowadays perhaps the most important subject for a well-rounded person to have some basic grasp of.
-Rob
because science is boring to non-scientists. Most of us couldn't give a ripe shit about science.
Honestly, it's a little disingenuous to whine about the state of science education in America -- the same complaint can be made about literature.
Get over it -- science nerds are just like any other type of nerd. Nerds live in a Nerd Ghetto, surrounded by AOL Barbarians. Quit your whining, pick up a stick and make a few rounds around the walls unhooking grappling hooks and pushing seige ladders away from the wall and into the moat.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
A scientific degree is the only avenue towards a professional career? I disagree. The world still needs accountants, journalists, linguists, novelists (and critics), poets, historians, etc... hell we even need a few business majors and lawyers.
I agree with the idea that americans should be better versed in at least a lay understanding of certain sciences, but a decent liberal arts education provides that for many people, assuming with a lifelong curiosity and willingness to read.
"the best safety of the frontier...will be secured by total annihilation of the few remaining indians" L Frank Baum 1890
However, it's still possible to directly compare public school and private school costs. Just don't include the religious (church-subsidized) schools. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, non-religious private schools actually spent *MORE* per-pupil in 1996 (the last year I have statistics for) than public schools did. Given that Catholic schools and non-religious private schools have similar student bodies and facilities, it's reasonable to expect that Catholic schools, once you add in the subsidies, have similar costs -- i.e., more expensive than the public schools.
In other words, Rush Limbaugh is a big fat liar. But you already knew that, right?
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
True, but it is generally accepted that children usually adapt the attitudes of those around them
while they are impressionable.
Yes American students perform worse on tests the children of other countries, but those countries have the some exact (well not exact) problems as us.
It's not about the Test scores, (any one will tell you they're not valid indicators of intelligence) but the fear of science itself.I mean just look at the debate going on with stem cell research. Not one piece of science has ever been brought into this debate.Some people are just afraid of science. This continues with computers. The rate at which people are getting signed up for the Internet who haven't before as greatly slowed, as people who are almost afraid of the technology.
They have kept students learning at a high level through good pay for teachers, extra school, more money for school, and a thousand other things.Teachers are better today then they were 50 years ago because of the development of better teacher methods. As anyone who has taken an intro college class knows, the professor can know every on the topic, but unless they know how to communicate that, they are worthless as teachers. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers take hundreds of hours of classes whose only point is to teach them how to communicate information.
Very true, and that is the point. Their spending so much time learning how to communicate things they're not learning what they need to be communicating.
It is one thing not to know but another to be afraid. One thing hit upon in the article is that people become under the impression that they are not able to learn the hard sciences. In elementary school, you don't necessarily need a teacher who has all of the answer but at least has the ability to look for them. So that when a child asks a question the teacher can go well I don't know, but lets find out. And then turn to a resource perhaps the 'Internet')than will allow the teacher to explain (simply) the answer to the student's question and furthermore to teach the student how to learn on their own.
Those who control the future, conquer the past.
Those who control the past, conquer the future.
One simple example; in this city as part of the treatment process the tap water passes through six feet of sand. Many people won't drink this water until they've passed it through a filter of a couple of inches of small stones, then somehow it is safer. For some reason "they" (technical or qualifed medical people of any type) can't be trusted to provide safe water (or medicine or whatever) "for the children". A survey of bottled water in Australia a few years ago found surprising amounts of biological material, far more than you would find in any town with an adequate water supply.
A more divisive example; the debate over genetic modification of crops - it is assumed by many that they can be geneticly modified by eating these crops. Any technical argument for or against is ignored in favour of the emotive argument, fed by moralistic disater movies that tell us "Don't mess with mother nature." The ironic thing is that the people who will rush out to trample a crop that may be a secretly modified test crop eat "natural" vegetables, grown indoors to keep the insects off, and grown hydroponically in a cocktail of chemical fertilizers, because somehow that is trendier than growing them in the ground and using less fertilizer. This perception has scuttled projects like one to produce vaccines from geneticly engineered bananas. Somehow, growing your medicine is less desirable than the enormous number of pharmacuetical plants that would be required to match what you do with such a crop. Being able to breed food crops have a high yeild and require less nutrients is also a good thing. Many will argue that these crops will never get to the nations that need them, but that's a way to feel better about opposing something that could help millions.
A lot of the "folklore" that people believe is of very recent origin. My grandmother was in her thirties before the term "Ley Line" was thought of, and that was used to describe the sites of old road. The zinc=virility thing comes from the story of Cassanova (not the most reliable of info!) eating lots of oysters. Oysters are filter feeders and pick up a lot of heavy metals such as zinc in areas where mining and industry puts it in the water. Therfore, with a dab of fiction and a stroke of sympathetic magic, zinc=virility. Zinc is important for other reasons, but it comes in every green plant.
Herbs: Many are useful and have been known about for some time, but a lot of people believe (by the magical law of sympathy perhaps?) that all herbs are good, and many are superior to medical technology. I suppose that I'm lucky that I know that there is a lot of flora that will kill things that try to eat it, or sting and scratch things that get close to it. Natural != good. Strychnine is natural.
This is only a general rule and of course varies tremendously in individuals, but I have seen it borne out well during the fifteen years I've been thinking about it. Science and engineering types are well aware of literature, art, music. Many work consciously to improve their appreciation of same. But very few of my English Lit friends read Scientific American, much less Q.E.D.. Their eyes glaze over at even the most elementary science or technical discussion.
Look at it this way: When I was in college, as a physics major, I had to take
Note that the school differentiate among philosophy, social science, and humanities. But for non-tech majors, all of physics, chemistry, biology, mech engineering, chem engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer science, continuous mathematics, and discrete mathematics were lumped together as the undifferentiated blob "math/sci". And fuzzies only had to take a total of two math/sci courses.
Techies are more well-rounded because the current system forces them to be. And I like it. Don't compromise the techies; force the fuzzies to the same depth and breadth in the sciences as we were expected to have in the humanities.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
We homeschool our children for several reasons:
First, The education system in the U.S. is inadequate. Both my wife and myself have learned more since leaving high school than when we were in gradeschool. Everything I really needed to learn, I learned by 6th grade. Homeschoolers almost ALL score in the 80th to 90th percentile compared to public schooled children. That really is giving your child the advantage. In fact, ivy league colleges specifically seek out homeschooled children because of thier ability to excel above publicly educated students!
Second, the public school system spends a great deal of time corralling the herd. Homeschooling, we spend around 3 to 4 hours a day working on school, the rest, the kids get to be kids. It makes for an easier day for everyone.
Third, (and this is an important one) No Homework. Why, please tell me, would I send my child to learn for 7 hours a day, then have them come home and spend another 5 hours doing what should have been done at school(learning)? Like I said, we spend 3 to 4 hours a day on lessons. In the past half year my oldest son has jumped from 2nd grade reading level to 6th. And thats just one area of learning.
Fourth, Why would I send my children to some place where they are to be raised by thier peers? Lets face it. Kids learn from watching each other. There are far too few "diamonds in the rough" out there to be positive influence on my children, both in the student body AND on the faculty. So just leaves a lot of bad influence, and not much good at all.
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."
I used to think that being a single parent was the only good excuse not to homeschool. But think about it. You spend that much time every day doing homework anyway. And you can afford to shut off that boob-tube for 3 to 5 hours and spend it on your kids. You will not only be investing in your kid's future, but the future of America.
But the short answer is: Yep, it the parents fault. You really cannot blame the govornment for screwing up raising YOUR kids.
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True, elevating the status of the teaching profession will attract better and more qualified teachers. But have you heard the cliche, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!"? Providing great teachers will help the kids who want to learn. Of course, the kids who want to learn have many places to get information today, namely the library, internet and cable channels like TLC and Discovery.
But the root problem is that most kids don't want to learn. They're more concerned about their clothes, hair and coolness factor than acids, bases and ph levels. "What do I need to know that for?", is the battle cry I've heard so many times from young and old who choose to live a life of ignorance. They then proceed to tell you how they don't care to know this or that detail because it is a waste of time and they'll never need to use the information. To these people, scientific knowledge is an affliction which fills their precious memory cells with
"useless" information. These cells might otherwise be more valuable by containing information on which hollywood actor is doing which actress this week.
You won't make science interesting to these kids until you can relate it to their base drives: food, fashion, sex and the quest for being cool. Relate Newton's laws of motion to how women's breasts move, both with and without a bra, and you'll have a standing room audience for your class. Speak about the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate, while relating it to dopamine and pleasure centers in the brain and you'll have students begging to take your class. Show them a probability distribution that shows their chance of having a nice salary and pretty wife based on their years of education completed and you'll keep them in school far better than any other method.
If none of that works, skip the Phd's -- hire strippers.
Sex, Cars or Computers? or Should We Be Together? - you choose
An outline of the causes of the problem:
The government education system was established specifically to destroy the ability of students to think. It is designed to instill the habit of receiving "wisdom" uncritically and regurgitating it on demand.
The roots of the US government school system go back to a heirarchical system devised by the Prussians after their defeat at the Battle of Jena. This system divided students into an elite, to be trained to set policy (about 0.5% of the population) a class destined to implement policy (about 3%) and the remainder, destined to obey their betters.
Currently, the students which pursue an undergraduate degree in education, as a _group_, are the academically weakest on campus.
The faculty teaching these programs are the least qualified.
The credentials required to teach in government school are earned through the study of various superstitions and fads, and the credential has no value at all outside of the government school system.
Intelligent, passionate teachers who take on the challenge of teaching in the government school system are thrust into a hierarchy which fights the concept of rewarding competence, and which is seniority based. Therefore the more intelligent and capable tend to leave for greener pastures at a higher rate than the incompetent and lazy. Therefore the percentage of intelligent and energetic teachers falls as seniority increases. The incompetent are running the hierarchy, and do so to protect their perks, against demands for accountability, or the threat of differentiation by merit.
The NEA is the largest contributor to the Democratic party, and uses its power, in part, to fight the rise of such threats to their interests as charter schools, private schools, and home schooling, each of which glaringly outperforms the government school system.
The victims are the "students" languishing in the government's clutches unlucky enough to lack support, outside of the "schools", for intelligent thought.
The American students complained the whole time that the class was too difficult, while the foreign students, also taking a class in advanced microbiology the same semester, hated it.
The same applies to basic math - you have ElEd students getting tutored by math majors so they can figure out enough about fractions and long division to pass an Ed class. How are they going to teach it if they don't get it themselves???? This is the American "education system" propogating itself over and over. Uneducated teachers can't explain "hard stuff" to their students, who then never learn it, some of whom grow up to be teachers.
Children are inquisitive; they want to know everything about everything, and if you put them in a room for 6 to 8 hours a day with someone who doesn't know anything, what's going to happen? They'll stop asking questions (becuase they know they won't get answers) and then it's all over.
The whole public school system in this country is a horrible disgrace and will continue to be without something radical (hell, the cold war wasn't radical enough to persuade schools to turn out better science students) happening.
Of course, most parents are products of the same half-a$$ed education system as the teachers, so they aren't really in any place to say anything to anyone about how smart their kid is. Every parent thinks their kid is the smartest kid on the block. Only one kid is the smartest, and your kid is probably stealing his or her lunch money.
When my parents (one a mathematician, the other a historian) attended Keele University in the UK, it had a unique approach to teaching its undergraduates. Everyone did the same first year, and it contained a brief course from pretty much every department in the university. As a result, everyone had some exposure to degree-level mathematics, English, history, and so on. For the remaining three years (unusually for the time, Keele ran a four year course) people studied two principal subjects and a third subsidiary. For example, my father studied maths and physics, with subsidiary French.
Something that has always impressed me is how well-informed my parents and their friends from university always seem to be. They are all both literate and numerate, aware of issues from many fields, and generally interesting people. When friends visit for dinner, the conversation might go from a scientific development in the news last week to a philosophical book someone read recently to the state of the environment and contemporary politics, to... The unusual thing is that no one "expert" on each field is explaining all the time; everyone understands the ideas in question.
It's really too bad that we specialise so early in the UK these days. Most people take a broad range of GCSEs at 16, but then drop to specialising in perhaps 3 or 4 subjects (usually related) if they continue to A levels at 18, and a single subject at degree level and beyond. Fortunately, the powers-that-be seem to be wise to this, and the system is evolving, slowly but surely, toward keeping a broader approach later (but still specialising enough to be useful in the end). There's hope for us yet. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yeah, a PhD doesn't guarantee good teaching, but it does at least guarantee competence.
Competence in one very specific area. I knew a PhD who could tell you all you wanted to know about physical vapor deposition, but ask him to find the position of a ball dropped from a roof (typical physics question) and he didn't even know where to start.
On the other hand, my high school physics teacher could answer almost any question you threw at him. If he didn't know, he'd look it up and get back to you. Wanna know what his qualifications were? He was an EMT who got tired of dealing with highway fatalities all the time.
More than anything else, teachers need to be able to relate to the people they are teaching. If they cannot communicate with their students, then any level of competence is not going to help. Teachers need to be able to present the information in a way that their pupils can digest. I have often found that the most brilliant practitioners are the worst teachers because they assume that their students are on their level.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
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.
A parent's care for their child's education is no simple factor in this system. Having a care doesn't necessarily mean they are capable of helping, and I've personally seen more than a typical number of situations where it was this very care that caused the learning deficit.
You are comparing [apples, oranges] to beef.
The source of the implications raised by the article can be traced by simply asking: "are these people indeed receiving education from the same place, or simply going to the same buildings?"
I can speak from personal experience and say I educated myself, regardless of what government-owned structure I was legally required to walk into every weekday. I don't imply that I'm the quintessential case here, but consider: Is it logical to reason that those that are more apt to learn also have the extra initiative to learn on their own, while those future illiterates do not?
I think if parents play a role in this, the time period to consider is the infancy of the child in question, not his/her school-faring years.