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Science Ability Down in U.S. High Schools
An anonymous reader writes "According to the International Herald Tribune, a nationwide test has shown that the ability to reason scientifically is less well developed across the board for high schoolers. Fourth graders, ironically, are actually better at reasoning in the sciences now than they were ten years ago." From the article: "The drop in science proficiency appeared to reflect a broader trend in which some academic gains made in elementary grades and middle school have been seen to fade during the high school years. The science results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a comprehensive examination administered in early 2005 by the Department of Education to more than 300,000 students in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and on U.S. military bases around the world."
That's what happens when the most important part of your 'academic' life is the Football team.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
but I'm not sure what this article is talking about. :-(
Direct away from face when opening.
The falling average science test scores among high school students, announced Wednesday, appeared certain to increase anxiety about American academic competitiveness and to add new urgency to calls from President George W. Bush
Yes, if anyone can save science education in the US it's going to be Dubya.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
With all of the nonsense about teaching garbage like Intelligent Design as science its no wonder kids abilies are going down the tubes. It isn't just the schools either, because they are going home or going to their friends places and getting bombarded with this innane fundamentalist drivel. I mean really, theology maybe, but this stuff is absolutely not science, it is purely psuedoscience...cuz you know...we have all that evidence that the world is only 6,000 years old that those non God fearing scientists just ignore. What ever...
Personally, if I were a supreme being creditied with creating all of existance, I would be pretty offended by some hairless monkeys insisiting that I am unable to create things in a complex fashion that they aren't capable of understanding.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Despite the fact that our universities are filled with foreign nationals, as there simply aren't enough smart Americans to fill them, and as the rest of the world laughs at us for stupid things we do academically (like not adapting to the metric system, or teaching people interesting math or science), we can all take comfort in the fact that No Child Is Left Behind.
Except for all those poor kids, I guess, but who's counting?
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
Most high school seniors are lazy and blow off thier senior year. Add to that the fact that most of them don't care about tests that don't affect your grade, and you get those results. In my HS when we were given "extra" tests, a lot of my classmates would skip class or just fill in bubbles.
...I think there's a big problem with apathy. Most students just don't care about learning. There's a few of us that take honors/ap classes and go to good universities, but the majority are just going through the motions to get out of high school. I also blame a lack of competitive spirit--it gets beaten out of us so nobody can be made to feel bad, the same reason my school no longer does anything to honor academic excellence like it does for sports.
The blame really belongs with the parents, of course. My parents are why I worked to get into the computer science program at UCI.
I suppose it's true that if everyone is behind, then no one student is behind the other. Or is this a case where students must all be equal, but some can be more equal than others?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Michael Padilla, a professor at the University of Georgia who is president of the National Science Teachers Association, said that the problem is not that universities are failing to train sufficient numbers of science majors or that too few opt for classroom careers, but that about a third of those who accept teaching jobs abandon the profession within five years.
Wow! I've just finished my first year as a teacher. Only four more to go before I'm filled with apathy and burned out on my chosen profession. I can't wait.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Makes sense. After all, science plays no prominent role in hip-hop "culture," sports "culture," or Hollywood "culture." When you have a whole generation which idolizes only members of those three groups, what else should one expect?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Whether it's about global warming or Terri Schiavo's brain, science is always a big thorn in the side of conservatives. If this lack of science ability in high-schoolers can be sustained into the adult years, it will shift public opinion among voters back onto the Right where God intended it to be.
The cause is no child left behind and like action. As someone who is a senior in high school, I've watched as literally half of my science classmates had no business in my level of courses. Parents believe that their children should be able to do the top level no matter what and many times this is not the case. Worse, schools believe if a child accels at one subject then they should be in equal level classes for the rest.
The effect of this is that students potentials are limited. There are a few people in my classes who know absolutely nothing about the material at hand, and no matter how many times it is presented to them cannot grasp it. This is an honors (we don't have AP) level physics class. They slow the progression of the class, and in doing so limit people like me who grasp the concepts easily. People don't realize how it only takes a few lower people to ruin the atmosphere in a classroom. When parents strive to place their kids in classes above their abilities, they are not just jeopardizing their own child's learning, but the learning of everyone who is brought down by them. No teacher wants to fail a student, and many won't. They instead slow the class to the pace of the slowest kid. This is clearly acceptable in remedial classes, but in an accelerated class it should not happen. There should be a curriculum to follow and if someone is holding back the class, they should be let go.
Sadly the present state of education in America is to help the remedial students while squashing the advanced students' potentials. No child left behind and naive parents who believe their child is better than everyone else are two of the most detrimental things to the education system today. Schools need to stand up and say no to both of these if they want students to reach their potentials today. Fail a girl who cannot grasp a physics class she doesn't belong in if she cannot handle it. There is no other way to show that some people do not belong in advanced classes, and when they're placed in them ruin the environment.
someone finally points out the real problem concerning a topic on Slashdot! Prepare to be modded down.
However, this is only a small slice of the roughly 650 students in each class. You'll only see this trend continuing up until #100. After that, it really starts dwindling and you can see the lack of care for science as a disaster area.
The required Health class really shows students the other side of the class, or the majority, and it's a sad thing at that. I am not surprised by these statistics, but at the same time it can't be applied to everyone. There are still many willing to go the distance in my high school, and plenty on the island I live on.
Just recently I attended an awards dinner for science, where I met some 38 other students who accomplished similar feats in the various fields of science. To be honest, it was quite amazing to see all of these people in one room. I certainly felt welcome. However, it hardly represented the masses, and if they're all like the ones I've met in the aforementioned health class, then that statistic is probably doomed until there's a shift in culture as a whole.
Fun Zoid RPG
Recently, I remembered doing lab experiments in middle school and high school. I remember that if we ever got results that differed from those necessary to support the theory we were experimenting with, we were told we did the experiment wrong and either downgraded or told to redo it.
Not that we always did the experiments carefully or properly, but it is a little bit ironic to have something like that in a science class. Shoving the popularly accepted theories in our faces was the primary goal and teaching us to think and reason scientifically was a distant second.
The budget at the high school I just finished graduating from is rather telling: last year there was a ~$6 million capital campaign to enlarge the arts wing and upgrade the stadium. Building a nice arts wing is a good thing. Things are learned. But well over $1 million went into the damned football stadium. Now we've got synthetic grass and a three story press box building. This facility gets most of its use during the fall, and that's just to watch some mediocre teenagers throw a ball around and beat each other up.
If you walk through the math/science building, there is an interesting dichotomy. The teachers that teach the smart kids are awesome, but those that teach the dumb kids, particularly in the math department, absolutely suck. Instead of dumping all that money into athletics, why not pay for academics first? Maybe we could even teach something to the jocks.
You've got an administration that runs in a religious pretext... what did you expect? A push for science? Another problem is mainstream media. Just spent a day counting how many times CNN mentions God or shows "news" on religious topics. You're dumbing down the population. God is a belief, and believing is not science. What you'll end up with is a population that explains things in the pretext of God and religion. Of course, it's easier to explain natural disasters like the Indian ocean earthquake/tsunami and hurricane Katrina with God instead of the scientific reasons why they happen.
The vast majority of us wont become athletes.
The vast majority of us wont become nobel prize winning scientists
There are 10 times more indo-chinese than there are whites.
Is it really surprising that small percentages in both countries = much larger numbers for indo-chinese than whites?
Isn't this refrain really the same as saying 'omg white ppl need to have more babies or the colored will outnumber and out maneuver us all?'
If the fourth graders are better, maybe we can just wait until they make it to high school and the problem will go away.
Did they try turning it off and on again?
Yes, but the study was only given to high school seniors..
I am a high school sophmore and generally I consider myself well versed in most sciences (except more than intermediate physics, but I am taking physics courses next year) and to have rather well developed scientific reasoning ability. I have several friends, however, who are seniors, they are also almost invariably lazy. With this on-set of senioritis and the way curriculum/graduation requirements shake out many of them cop-out and take basic earth sciences, meteorology or anatomy, for example. While these sciences aren't unimportant they are a) semester courses (here at least), b) not given as much importance (and therefore the teachers hired to teach them aren't as good), and c) need less traditional scientific reasoning than the required sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.)
I am not saying that senioritis (and the thereafter self-incurred lack of reasoning neccesity) is the only cause of this lack of reasoning ability, but I think it may be a major factor. Especially depending when the test was given, I know that once my friends have gotten their college acceptence letters they work just hard enough to meet the requirements for the mid-term grade reports for their college, not to achieve their potential.
One issue, however, may be my frame of refrence.. I go to a "Math and Science Academy" school-within-a-school magnet program and mosts of my friends do as well. I know that occassionly when my "Magnet Molecular Biology" teacher got bored and lazy (granted he is busy, he just got married last summer and is moving to Poland at the end of this school year, so its partialy a function of a lack of planning time) and gave the class a lab or worksheet from the core biology curriculim I was shocked (and frankly appalled) at how easy and simple they were.
Well, it doesn't surprise me a bit. My nephew who is just 10 is obsessed with sports to the point of taping the NFL draft proceedings...several hours worth. Beyond that I have a friend whose daughter was failing math in high-school. She was already an accomplished equestrian and was trying out for the cheerleading squad. The mother actually encouraged her to drop riding in favor of cheerleading. I told her that in the first place there was no olympic medal for cheerleading and in the second place these are both EXTRA-curricular activities. Now to add insult to injury, I was driving on I-40 and saw a very large official road sign proclaiming the the town was the home of what's-her-face American Idol 2005. This sign wasn't small. It was HUGE and I'm sure it cost the taxpayers money. Hell, even people with stars on Hollywood Blvd have to pay for it themselves. And why don't we have big audacious signs proclaiming the home town of Jonas Salk or William Shockley or people who actually accomplish something intelligent?
The bottom line in this country is it's all about image and popularity. I'm reminded of an episode of the original Connections series where James Burke explains why the British blew a golden opportunity to dominate the new chemical industries because the Germans let people into universities on merit whereas in England you got accepted to a university based on your family background. Nowadays the tables have turned. Merit doesn't get you very far but if you're the star running back on some podunk high-school football team, you get a full scholarship to USC even though you can't even read your own letter of acceptance (that's a "Friday Night Lights" reference, btw). What this translates to is an inflation of the value of a college degree. A bachelor's degree doesn't carry as much weight as it used to when they're given away.
Genetics has very little to do with it. If you look at the minority groups that perform poorly academically, they have leaders and parents that constantly tell them that the man is keeping them down. If you look at the minority groups that excel, their parents tell them every day to be the best and beat the fat lazy Americans in academics -- and get rich as doctors or engineers.
Yeah, this is all obviously caused by Intelligent Design, No Child Left Behind, biased international exams, lack of competitive spirit, football, drug use, drinking and underage sex.
It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the American schools' continual failure to convince their students that school should be their raison d'etre. If students were smart enough to realize they can booze their way to a six-figure corporate job and cynical enough to believe they should stay away from science simply because adults want them in science, we wouldn't be able to do jack about it!
What does this tell us? If you believe in supply and demand, this tells us that there are MORE than enough top quality scientists being produced and that science education is not lagging in the least and that science knowledge is a commodity. This article is a bunch of hand-wringing over nothing.
Ive known this for years. Work in Customer Service, and then you will learn that People can't reason.
I agree with the problem being curriculum. In my highschool they tried a cross curiculum where we were writing papers in Math class. I really think that took away from classes. Leave papers to paper writing classes. I didn't need to know the history of math, I needed to know how to do the math. School boards try so hard to broaden are view when all they do is give us tunnel vision.
Ahem. The first thing a practicing scientist does when setting up a new experiment is to make sure the apparatus can reproduce already known results. If it can't do that, then it's miscalibrated and isn't going to discover anything new. If your lab experiments had already reproduced known results and were now probing unknown territory, you would have a point; discrepancy between theory and experiment points the way to flaws in the theory. But discrepancy between already known results and experiment points the way to flaws in the experiment.
I have a 6 year old nephew who is in the US public education system. This individual does not know what eleven looks like. When asked to add 6 to 5, he'll count six balls and another 5 balls, combine the two and then count the combination up to eleven. Because he does not know what 11 looks like, he'll use a counting board, (counting from 1 to 11) in order to figure out what eleven looks like!
He's not alone. So many students are being let down by the system they find themselves in. In this system, you cannot fire a teacher for incompetence! So these teachers do not care. No wonder we lag so far behind the even poor students from 3rd world countries. This is fact. All these students pass the US "equivalence" exams with flying colors. What betrays them is the accent, for most of us find it hard to uderstand them at first.
why bother with qualifications when i can sell crack, go to prison, get shot multiple times, rap about it, appear on MTV, have my story told on radio, make a film, be paid millions and be idolised by millions of young adults worldwide
you want to be me on MTV
I grew up in a small NJ town that used to be mostly Irish Italian Catholic. Very blue
collar, working class. We had lots of smart kids that obviously valued education
for education's sake. I still own property in that town, and most of it is now Latin
American, mostly Central American. This area is now among the lowest performing
area academically in all of NJ. The irony? I am Latin American. But I always noticed
something different about my family vs. other LA families. My family placed a great
deal of emphasis on education, on performance, and on getting ahead in life. This
was absolutely missing in most of my LA peers growing up. And now, it's completely
endemic to the LA culture here. They are too poor, and have been too poor for so long,
to give any credence to the absolute notion of absolute commitment to education.
My son attends an elite magnet high school, recently qualified as among the best in the
US. This school offers up to Differential Equations as part of its curriculum. About 70% of
the faculty has their PhD. You know what? My son is one of about 5 Hispanic or partial
Hispanic students in the entire student body of about 1200 students. Most of the
student body is Asian, lots is Eastern European or American Jew. Nearly 0 are black.
And when you go to parent meetings and see the parents interact with the kids,
when you go to math competitions and see the distributiona and character of
participants, you see it all starts in the household. Which nearly never includes
black or Latin American households.
BTW, I basically see the *rest* of the problem as very American. Many of my
American born, white friends sneer quite a bit when I mention my kid because
they think education is really over-rated. School is supposed to be about football.
So again, it's cultural.
This isn't nonsense, it's well observed data.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
Step 5 is at 34 or about that, not 44.
I you drop out after step 1, you get to live in a cubile for the rest of your life.
Either way, educated folks have a life that sounds like shit to most teenagers.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Where I'm feeling the pressure from not doing homework is from math. Back then I understood the math well enough to do well on the tests, so I didn't do the homework. I didn't understand the relationship between doing homework and eventually coming to an understanding to what I was actually doing. There is no explanation of how a grade relates to how well you understand what you are doing and there is no going back to get it right a second time so that it's reflected in the grade, so the grade falls out of sync with what you might in fact get around to understanding.
I'm not going to complain... because no one takes their high school work seriously, that just makes it easier for me to get into the college I want because there is less/no competeition.
If con is the opposite of pro. Then isn't congress the opposite of progress?
Rather than using the word to describe the process for evaluating empirical knowledge, we need to redefine "science" to mean the process for watching TV, playing videogames, getting high, and meeting up at the shopping mall food court... then we will have the very creme of the crop here in the good ol' USA.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
You teachers weren't 'shoving popularly accepted theories' in your face, they were shoving experimentally, independently proven scientific fact in your face. If you're asked to find the boiling point of water and come back with an answer that's more than a couple degrees celsius away from 100, then I sure hope your teacher tells you that you made a mistake. There are a huge number of facts that scientists over the years have comipled. Yes, they may be inaccurate, but if so it is only at a level of precision you could never achieve in a high school classroom.
The street-trash hip hop cuture pg "gangstas," pimps, drug dealers and whores strikes again. Learning stuff is for geeks and nerds.
E Proelio Veritas.
Wow, that's really neat.
I had responded here to a thread where somebody said it's genetics,
a smart Asians vs. dumb other minorities kind of argument.
I argued in my comment that this is really a cultural thing, and presented
evidence to that effect. I thought my argument was well thought
out and based on real experience, including lots of thought about
where my kid goes to school vs. where most other kids go to school.
But the thought police here must have thought this was *too non-PC*
a topic to address. Boy, no wonder we have such a dumb society.
Thanks, Slashdot, for pandering to the minima.......nice.....
Fourth graders, ironically, are actually better at reasoning in the sciences now than they were ten years ago.
I would sure hope that fourth-graders are better at reasoning in the sciences than they were ten years ago. Half of them weren't have even been born yet.
Fourth graders, ironically, are actually better at reasoning in the sciences now than they were ten years ago.
Well they better... I'd hope our 4th graders can reason better than a newborn...
because they don't read or write to well either. The problems in our schools are many, but alot of the problem, I really believe is that teaching methodologies (btw, I have an MA in Education) specifically eschew content acquisition and analytically skills. The whole shift the last 10-20 years has been towards constructivism, authentic assessments, hands-on learning, etc. I'd go on with a long post, but suffice to say the type of teaching needed for scientific mastery is a far cry from what is being done. Don't get me wrong, you still absolutely need labs, but the difference is in overall teaching methods, especially in the lower levels. You want to address the problem, go to the teacher training colleges.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
So where does this idea come from that high school science is only good for a career in science?!
It teaches you to think, to handle numbers, to comprehend difficult texts, to have a method to what you're doing, to understand how things work, etc etc etc. It's important for everybody.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Dont forget, science also does not play a role in politics (known from continuous censoring of scientific reports on such things as global warming in which "a causal relationship" becomes "could be interpreted as related.", combined with the religious bible humpers that only get into office due to their continuous gay bashing) or religion (where "God just went click.")
Thirty four characters live here.
Some interesting historical insights are provided in Mark Gottlieb's essay The Arrogance Of Ignorance, in the 2006-02-18 issue of Industry Week. A quote: A new generation of the serenely clueless is ready, willing and able to destroy your company.
The test administrators translate scores into three achievement levels: advanced, proficient and basic.
On the most recent test, 68 percent of fourth-graders achieved at or above the basic level, compared to 63 percent on the 2000 and 1996 tests.
Among high school seniors, 54 percent performed at or above the basic level in science in 2005, compared to 57 percent in 1996.
Eighth-grade scores were largely unchanged from 10 years ago, with 59 percent of students scoring at or above the basic level in 2005, while 60 percent of students were at or above basic in 1996.
To achieve at the basic level on the National Assessment, high school seniors must demonstrate knowledge of very basic concepts about the earth, physical and life sciences, and show a rudimentary understanding of scientific principles.
This is he standard by which you judge science ability in the US? A demonstration of "very basic concepts" and "rudimentary understanding"? And still less than 70% at any grade level has this bare bones knowledge? Please, tell me, what exactly are they doing in your high school classes. Because they sure as hell aren't teaching you.
I came here for a good argument
Use standardized tests as your criterion, and you will develop... students with a high ability to score well on standardized tests.
If you want the ability to reason scientifically, you will need to do something different.
Unfortunately, the ability to reason scientifically is closely correlated with the ability to reason, the ability to challenge authority, and the ability to insist that 2 and 2 make 4... whether or not that happen to be the official test answer.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I watched a multimillion dollar football/track/soccer statium go up at my High School while math and science teachers were using 4 year old books and 6-8 year old computers and software packages. there is your answer.
What I haven't understood in US school system, why everybody goes to high school? In example in Finland after the 9th grade (when you are 16), people can choose either to go to a voculabary school or go to high school. Those people who are noot good or interested on more academic subjects, or have bad grades, go to voculabary school and will learn a profession, and those with more interestest to academic subjects go to high school. I think the system in principle is better suited for all, because it lets everybody to consentrate on what they like and where they are good at.
;-)
On a note, the system we have is not perfect. Different kind of problems arrise, one is categorization of people in to two groups, and the other is letting people with too low grades to high school. Also, one can go to a collage or university after voculabary school, so having a split up of people doesn't mean that their future path are dictated then (actually I know one person who went to trade school, then got more interested and went to university to graduate to masters in marketing (University of Vaasa), and after that went to get an masters degree from electical engineering (Helsinki University of Technology), that's hardcore
And yeah, splitting people in to two groups in US would probably mean fewer headaches for those who suffer from being bullied, because usually, atleast in here, most of the bullies don't have good grades, and don't continue at high school, if at all.
Just my two euro cents
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
Who cares about science...did you see what happened on American Idol last night?! Two words: WOW!
Well, I'm off to MySpace to blog
Bye LOL
I was raised in your stereotypical conservative, evangelical Christian home. I was homeschooled through middleschool. I watched Kent Hovind videos in youth group. I went to church camps. After high school, I went to a conservative Christian leadership camp that included lectures from Duane Gish.
I also graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics. (That's a lifetime 4.0 GPA.) I just finished the first year of my Master's applied physics program in semiconductor microelectronics, and am doing an internship at AMD. I don't think I'm a genius, but I'm good at this stuff, and am told so by my classmates and professors.
To accomplish all this, there was no shift away from my upbringing. I didn't have to learn new ways of thinking. There were no shackles of dogma to throw off. I didn't have to learn that Science Isn't The Bad Guy, because I was never taught that it was. None of the creationist stuff I was taught growing up affected my scientific reasoning skills--even the arguments I've since decided are complete drivel.
I agree that there's a veritable crap-ton of idiotic drivel being shoveled out by people arguing for creationism. That stuff is accepted by people who don't know better, and it's accepted because they don't have the time or skills to trace through the logic carefully and recognize the mistakes. But the existence of the drivel doesn't cause the lack of skill--it's the other way around!
While the things that you list are true, there is one crucial difference between scientists and 99% of the rest of the working class: they love their work. They enjoy exploring new concepts and testing predictions. Unlike the guy working drive-thru at McDonald's, scientists get a real sense of joy and accomplishment out of their work, which in large part diverts their attention from mere financial gain. If scientists hated their jobs half as much as most people, they could be making as much money as the puppets in their universities' administrations.
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
Seriously, though. As an Englishman in the US, I'm extremely frustrated by the imperial system, non-standard arbitrary paper sizes (god how I miss A4), and all the other quirky things Americans seem to follow in favor of standards.
People's response? It's that way because it's always been that way and it'd cost too much to change.
It's not the metric system people fear, it's the switch.
So while tech school was supposed to be lower it actually rated slightly higher. They certainly had a better change of getting a job.
This whole system was changed and the two schools merged. The amount of practice hours was reduced forcing the kids who don't want to be in school to be in school. This leads to lots of dropouts and the kids that stick with it learn no usefull trade.
Dropouts, useless school diploma's lack of skilled workers. Great. All because all those poor tradeskill kids were not learning about arts or biology or french.
It was an experiment and it failed completly. It sounds a lot like the american "no kid left behind" idea. Stop social experiments with our schools.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is the general attitude of persons my age regarding technology, sadly.
Parents are first and formost the cause of all the school woes. Instead of blaming the teachers and/or adminstrators for Little Johnny's school problems, look in the mirror. Did you read to Johnny when he was little? Did you encourage him both at a young age and into high school to do his homework, read books, and take his schooling seriously? Or did you spend more time thinking about your career or next vacation or encouraging him to do well in sports first and then well in school? Sometimes Little Johnny will have to be failed or else he will never learn, nor will his parents.
Space for rent, inquire within
Have you ever been in contact with a person of average intelligence. Wasn't pretty was it. Now realize this. Half the people in this world rank below that person.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What can you expect from american school when everything is about sports, and science is based on inteligent design. While throwing a football or sinking a basket requires skill and dedication in the end it is only entertainment and doesn't require alot for brains. While pushing inteligent design and science by the church never is going to get your far, lest you forget that the world is flat and galileo was blinded by the church for saying otherwise.
If you dare to suggest that Linux is only for people willing to spend time learning an OS then you are an Elitist.
The same is true in schools. No kids left behind CANNOT work unless you are willing to lower the passing grade so people with IQ's in the double digits can pass.
Linux is a center of excellence. Windows is no user left behind.
But saying this is elitist, your an asshole for suggesting some people just aren't smart enough to graduate. In holland we had a system for this. It seperarted schools into theory and trade. Kids who didn't want/couldn't study theory could learn a trade instead. This went so well that trade schools were actually rated higher then theory schools. Higher Trade School was a lot thougher then Higher Administrative School. The same was true for mid level and lower level. Basically you could go from MTS to HAVO but not from MAVO to MTS.
But no, we had to make everyone the same and so tradeschools were cancelled. Dropout rates have never been higher as the kids who could get rid of their energy in practice now are forced to spend all their time in theory. Those kids that get their diploma find they haven't learned anything usefull and business can no longer get qualified personel.
But hey, no kid is left behind. Well except for the dropouts. And the kids who wanted to learn a trade. But who cares about them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
By the time my sister started school, the teachers I had began to retire and a new wave fresh out of college were brought in. With them, they brought all these great new ideas on how to teach. In elementary school, I remember doing weekly tests on arithmetic tables, going up to the chalkboard to do math in front of the class, various scientific "experiments" (watching plants grow over a course of a semester and measuring it's change in height), etc. My sister never did any of that stuff. They did math in groups to "promote teamwork" and that resulted in the one or two strongest people in each group doing all of the work while everyone else goofed around and never really learned anything.
My freshman year of high school, I experienced my first wave of the changes. While the government mandates special education be provided for the learning disabled kids, it didn't mandate anything for the more advanced kids. The school had just built a new addition which meant diverting budget funds away from education and into repayment of bonds. They've since built 2 more additions when they would have been much better served by simply building an entirely new school since a new school would have cost approximately half of what they've spent expanding the current one three times (the entire expense being about 5 times the full yearly budget). All because they expected a large influx of kids coming up based on demographic changes (about 15% more than my class). Well, sure enough, this year's senior class has about 20% more students than mine (120 vs 145) and starting next year, the classes shrink again. The problem could have been solved by using the rooms more efficiently (at any given time, a large number of classrooms are empty with just a teacher sitting in them during one of their 40% of the work day break periods), but why do that when you can throw money at the problem?
The school budget for next year just went up for election... $1.2 million increase on a $28 million budget. If you pass it, you're looking at a $29.2 million budget and if you turn it down, you're looking at a $29.2 million contingency budget. It's the same budget whether it passes or fails. Looking at the numbers, they want to spend more money on two new buses ($220k) than they will spend on new books ($165k) for the entire district (K-12). Teacher salaries make up the lion share of the budget followed by teacher benefits and building maintenance/bond payments. The school mailed letters to everyone in the district during the winter bragging about how they were going to save electricity by reducing light usage and turning down the heat (because cold students learn better?). Why, it would save thousands of dollars!
Anyway, before I ramble on too long about all the problems between the "new and improved" teaching methods which promote self esteem and teaming instead of learning and how they squander millions on building new additions and remodeling sports fields every few years, lets look at the results. Remember how I said I managed a restaurant? Well, back ten years ago, people new how to make change in their heads, new general problem solving that they might encounter (what do I do when a fire starts on the grill), etc. These days, kids (we're talking 16-20, including people with diplomas and one who was valedictorian from my school a few years ago) just flat can't make change without using a calculator, don't know what to do when they encounter minor problems (some don't even know how to open cans without an electric can opener while others can't figure out how to refill hand towels in the bathroom), they don't even know how t
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Nothing flamebait. Religion makes people dumb. Is it really that hard to understand?
Indoor work with no heavy lifting.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is the sort of thing you get when conjectures such as "intelligent design" is pushed as science by people who don't even know what science is, and teachers who are bound up in their religion so much they have to give "intelligent design" a fair hearing in science class - when it's not even science.
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That arguments only holds as long as you view science as an isolated career choice. While science, as in knowledge of physics, mathemathics, logic, etc certainly are specific skill-sets, there is more to science. The ability to come up with valid arguments, follow other peoples train of thoughts, and identifying what you're actually disagreeing on when discussing (realising your own assumptions and premises, and your own priorities) are all scientific abilities. I don't think many people are really that scared of lack of physics-knowledge, but rather lack of ability for logical reasoning (given the state of TV-debates etc, I don't think blaming this on the kids is necessarily right though).
In the end, your argument is pretty much the same as claiming 'social ability' is not important and in ample supply because there are really sociable people who're unemployed. The world simply doesn't work that way.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
Here's why I think science scores are down:
The curriculum has been dumbed down over the last 10(ish) years under the thought that "math and science are so complex that students can't understand them unless we make it easier". Thus, you end up with the textbooks using sandwiches to describe how molecular compounds form, and using eggs (the food) to describe how a mole (unit of measure) ratio works.
This is meant to make it "easy" for students to learn science, but all it really does is make science as a whole seem stupid and juvenile as well as very hard to understand.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Assuming you wanted to be a professor, then yeah, the path's a bear. But then, get tenure and the world's your oyster. If, however, you want to be a scientist in industry, there's a WHOLE lot of positions in the biotech, chemical, pharmaceutical, etc. industries that pay rather well. If you're good at lab work, for example, you'll be able to work in biotech/pharma as long as you want for quite good wages. Computer work's not quite as popular, but it's way less smelly...
the ability to challenge authority
It's my experience that school children do not lack this ability.
We don't value education in this society. We tell people to "put their degree last." It's not surprising that nobody cares if they are educated.
And yes, it is the fault of business.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I don't know my multiplication or division (I can't even long divide), but I'm doing just fine in calc and physics.
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The most egregious stoners I met in high school often turned out to be bi-polar.
Maybe they should investigate the way science is being taught in schools? There could be a problem with the course, or maybe the problem is in introducing children to science. The hardest part of high/secondary school chemistry (so far) all came at the start, it nearly put me off it. I'm just glad it's over, now we can do interesting stuff!!!
The problem is that Americans have a culture that celebrates ignorance and vilifies intelligence of any kind. I make it a point to slap anyone so profoundly stupid and intolerant that they use the phrase "ivory tower" -- a situation which, fortunately, has yet to arise. Thank god/cthulhu/fsm that I live in Canada, where we at least pay lip service to book-learnin'.
Seriously though -- considr that the US has an illiterate president. What kind of message does that send? He's the LEADER of the nation. And guess what -- people follow where he leads. In fact, it's estimated that as many as 10% of Harvard graduates are functionally illiterate, which is about what you'd expect from a school whose entrance criteria are primarily based on wealth and the prestige of an applicant's family, rather than any actual intellectual merit.
nt
Incidentally, there's nothing wrong with having intelligent design being taught in school, as long as you don't try to pass it off as a scientific (eg: falsifiable) theory. It's just an idea, nothing more. It belongs in a philosophy or religion class, like all ideas that fail meet the basic criteria for scientific examination.
I am a Canadian citizen, immigrated to Canada when I was 10.
Now, even thou the article is focusing on American education, I just thought I bring Canadian and Chinese education into the mix.
First 10 years of my life, I went to school in China. In kindergarden, addition and subtraction were briefly introduced to us. We were easily able to do one digit addition/subtraction, however some parents like mine pushed us to do more, so as a result, on the first day of school in grade 1, I was able to do two digit addition and subtraction already.
School in China was hard, since the starting of grade one I had to do homework constantly from after school (around 5pm) to 8, or 9 PM. On the weekends most kids were sent to private lessons for various kinds of things like piano, English (you dont start learning English in school until grade 5, but parents send grade 1 kids to English lessons so that they can have a head start), or just for core classes like Math or Chinese.
In elementary school, there are two exams, one is midterm and the other is final. These were basicly your report cards, everything you do in the year basicly prepares you for these tests. Much is dependant on the result of your final exam each grade. I remember my teacher saying "if you got below a 90 on the final exam, it would be the equivilant of failing." She wasn't exatrating either, middle school in China accepts students based on their final exam mark in grade 6. If you did not get a good mark on that exam, too bad, you will have to go to a crappy middle school. To people living in Canada or the US, they would probably say "so what, it's just middle school." It's much more than that, if you were in a bad middle school, high school wont even take a look at your application despite your mark. Universities will do the same to bad high schools. So it was made very clear to us when we were in grade 1, that if you were to do bad on the final exam in grade 6, your whole life is ruined.
Then I moved to Canada.
Everything changed. I was living in Vancouver at the time. (I had to take a 45 min bus to my school, because all the schools near my house were "over populated", but thats another issue)I walked in a Canadian classroom for the first time and found out these kids were doing two digit addition and subtraction, the same ones I knew how to do when I started elementary school in China. All of the sudden, I became a "genius". But soon I discovered that being a genius in a Canadian school isn't all that great. you see, in China your popularity depends a lot on your marks, just like in Canada and the US, but in an opposite way. If you had the best marks in the class, everyone will want to be your friend. If you were failing, you would be that "failure", or loner that everybody stays away from. In Canada however, I found out the hard way that if you were getting good marks for classes like Math, the chances are you will be pretty unpopular.
I had another thing to discover in Canada, when I went into high school I found myself hang around people who are "gifted". I found out that kids in Canada take a test in grade 3 and 6 to see if they have a high than averge IQ. They are put into the same class and were taught harder things than the normal kids.
Now, why did I write all that? It is to give you a bit of info before I present my opinion about why the quality of education here is not as good as it could be.
First, a lot of kids in Canada and the US have this weird ideology that if they arn't born smart, there is no way in the world for them to become smarter. I was considered a genius by kids in my class when I came to Canada, but they didn't say that because they knew about all the homework I did in grade 1 in China, they said it because they thought I was born smart since I was Asian or something. They refuse to work harder to achieve things because they believe that there is no point because they are not smart to start with.
On the other side, you had many of these gif
Lets face it the last several years the country has been clouded by a culture of stupidity. And it is no wonder that children's ability to understand sciance is good at young age but drops off sharply at high school because high school is where children are exposed to the 'adult' culture and politics.
... no, the duty and repsonsibility of being as stupid as possible.
... larry the cable guy.
... it is mediocrity at every level of culture ... just like the comedians are not very funny, the younger actors are not especially good at acting, the movie directors suck at directing, the newscasters do no serious journalism, the popular writers cant write very well, the policy makers make terrible foreign policy etc. Mediocrity is being worshipped and talent, intelligence, etc. are being punished.
Lets face it everyone knows how stupidity penetrated politics, I dont have to spell it out. But from there it spread out and went everywhere. All of a sudden anyone remotely intelligent on TV was deemed to be part of the "old liberal media" even if they were not liberal at all.
Every one on television and in popular culture was pressured to show and give credit to the point of view of stupidity and complete idiocy or they risked being labeled part of the old liberal media. Half wits that specialized in entertaining complete uneducated idiots (like the various radio talk show hosts) were elevated to respected status. Don't get me started on bill oreilly.
And the most offensive thing is that stupidity invaded popular culture under the disguise of religion. Every complete moron that went on TV perpetuating some lowest common denominator 'theory' awlays said that he was taking directions from jesus himself and therefore one could not use logical arguments against him because that made one a godless liberal elitist that disrespects ordinary americans. As if believing in God gave everyone the right
One wonders how we never saw an intelligent promoter of Christianity on TV. I know they exist, because I have read their writings, but for some reason when you turn on your television set all you see is some half wit foaming at the mouth bible thumping neo fascist.
And dont get me started about popular culture. We worship dumb bimbos that act like sluts but assure everyone that they are good christians. Oh and where we once had comics that made us think now we have
Its not even only stupidity
Meanwhile university professors are eyed with a lot of suspicion, there are organizations being started for the purpose of spying on proffessors and reporting the "dangerous ones", think-tanks have sprung up so that no journalist ever has to ask the opinion of a university proffessor if they need an "expert".
Some kids are born smarter and some arent. But in order to learn one need not only be smart one need to want to learn. When stupidity is being worshipped and intelligent or otherwise talented people are simply embarassed of their talent, then fewer and fewer kids will want to learn.
I did steps 1-3 of Greenspan's trajectory, then unded up teaching physics at a community college. I really don't have any complaints. The pay is excellent, I get three months off every year, and I have a lot of time with my kids. I pretty much get to be my own boss, and I find the work very fulfilling.
1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college
What about state schools? I got into a PhD program at Yale with an inexpensive degree from a state school (Berkeley).
However, none of this has anything to do with what the article is talking about, which has to do with below-average high school students, and below-average high school physics and chemistry teachers. Average high school students aren't considering embarking on Greenspan's trajectory, and high school physics and chemistry teachers almost certainly were never on it. A highly qualified high school teacher is one who has a bachelor's degree in science; a less qualified one is someone who has a bachelor's degree in physical education.
The typical situation for the students they're describing on the low end of the bell curve is that they had incompetent math instruction in K-8, at lousy public schools in working-class neighborhoods, and also were socially promoted despite not learning basic math skills. Then they arrived in high school, and were taught a small amount of watered-down science by people who didn't have a college degree in science; this part of their education consisted of memorizing lists of terms and regurgitating their definitions on tests.
My solution: (1) standardized testing in math, (2) and end to social promotion, and (3) higher pay for math and science teachers who have degrees in math and science. Here in California, it looks like the high school exit exam is going to end up surviving the court challenges; I expect the quality of my students to go up over the next 5-10 years.
Find free books.
Point a radio antennae at the sky. Observe the mysterious background noise. What is that, god whispering at ya? Angels gossiping? Sorry, no, it's the afterglow of a universe-sized explosion. Evidence, right there. Next, note the substantial redshifting of all the other galaxies, demonstrating that the universe is still exploding. Either that, or god is deliberately redshifting everything just to fuck with us, which would make him quite the dickface. We conclude that either A) the universe exploded and is still exploding, or B) a magical dude hates you so much that he would perpetrate a massive, universe-sized hoax on you. I'm going with A...
I am not joking either. There have been many uber high level decisions to mold the population starting with the children into less intelligent willing complacent drones. If you want an "insiders" viewpoint, someone in on it and turned whistleblower, you can google for charlotte iserbyt(a past high level department of education official) and read her book "the delibarate dumbing down o0f america" or listen to some of her audio interviews on this subject. This effort coincided (started before in planning, then was implemented) with the formation of the federal department of education and using tax monies as the carrot and stick to "reform" the education system into a mass generations long brainwashing scheme. It has been remarkable effective, albeit with the side effects now wondered about. It was "successful" in the sense they are getting what they wanted, conformists who will kow tow to fascist big brother corporogovernment and "follow orders" and "know their places" in society without rebelling against the entrenched power structure. It's part of the global "two class" efforts by the fascists, to have a total return to the masters and slaves deal, even if they won't call it that out loud.
About 4 years ago I left a great job at Sun to become a high school mathematics teacher. At the end of this school year, I'm leaving education. I now have a great contempt for the union, my school's management, and the district offices - the amount of low-level corruption and abuse of power I've seen is truly shocking.
I've had to do a lot of personal reflection lately - and I've realized that part of why I came to loggerheads with my administrative team is due to differing beliefs: I got into this racket believing that schools should provide the best possible education for each student. Management believes that schools should provide the bare minimum (10th grade students should be able to do algebra at a certain level, possess a certain vocabulary, be able to parse sentences at a specific level of difficulty...)
I'm not sure who's correct anymore. Is school a place to challenge each student to achieve their best, or is that a role for parents? Is school just a place to make sure that students have a minimal set of skills that will enable them to live in society? (both is the idealist answer - it's what every politician/superintendent espouses, but at the end of the day, I believe they want the minimal skills option...)
Thoughts?
I've been hearing the same thing for the past 20 years. Haven't we hit the rock bottom in the scientific ability yet?
I'm a middle-aged nerd from Texas with a Master of Science in Physics.
I substitute taught a couple of years in several local ISDs while writing my thesis.
Here's the scoop. Few folk with that majored, or minored in Natural Sciences, or Mathematics, or who have earned advanced degrees said disciplines, are interested in the low pay and benefits that go with teaching in public high schools in Texas. They are still less interested in jumping through the bureaucratic hoops of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and other red tape gauchos that currently inundate the public school systems of Texas.
There are jobs that are very much less frustrating, and are an infinitely better deal on both personal, and professional levels than teaching in public high schools. With a major, minor, or advanced degree in math, and the physical sciences a person has put forth a great deal of effort, and spent much time on his/her degree. Persons that have earned such degrees have little tolerance for the intellectual laziness, and a slacker attitude. The bottom line is that 'teaching' is not an attractive career for such a person.
This being the case the persons that end up teaching the hard sciences, and mathematics in H.S. are not the brights candles on the tree, or are making, well some times, a valiant effort to teach a subject outside their mastery.
I can recall at least a half-dozen times that I went into a Jr. High math class and went through a cold turkey, non-rehearsed lecture on some aspect of intro. to algebra turned around to see students with looks of amazement on their faces. The reason for the looks was that that 'got' what I was lecturing on. Their regular teacher had gone over the material the day before to their utter confusion. In each case their teacher did not have even a reasonable math background, but had taken the job because of pay incentives for teaching math. They were regurgitating the material from the textbook. They didn't understand the material themselves.
This is why there is such problems with math and science education at the H.S. level in the U.S.
STB
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Americans put sports first, and guess what? America produces some of the world's best atheletes, while having to recruit its scientists from countries where the intellectually-gifted weren't pummeled half death on a daily basis.
It's all about who you encourage and who you disparage. When take an illiterate coke-snorting fuck-up who has had everything in life handed to him on a silver platter, and make him the leader of the entire country, it sends a clear message that trying hard in school is a waste of time.
Here's my reponse to this story: 1)Science is very difficult to get into for even the brightest kids..years of academic work, post docs for Ph.D. students and your in your mid 30s before you get possibly a decent job in the field..and of course, preference always given to those from the top schools. 2) a student who does not get a Ph.D. in Science/Engineering is looking at a very short career timeline: by the time you are 35/40 you are beginning to be considered obsolete, and over 45 forget it, no matter what you do, unless that is you are tenured with a Ph.D. or are a CEO. Thus: there is no reason for most students to go into Science/Engineering, and most are better off in other fields that cost less to enter and which offer a longer career timeline, mundane as those careers might be. To even have a chance at success in Science, you need to go to a top school...and to get a Ph.D. MS and BS degrees are worthless in science and engineering for long term careers. GET AN MBA instead.
$1800 a month for a graduate student? Where? I need to transfer! ;)
If today, you are working on perfecting data sharing in clusters, you're not just doing an engineering job. You're giving the world faster parallel computing, and the applications are many and far-reaching. You're changing the world.
Academia is not the only outlet for bright people. Actually, I'd go further and say that many bright minds are wasted in unrewarding, uninspiring academic jobs.
Embrace the dark side, work in R&D instead of teachning.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Greenspun vastly underestimates the number of tenured university professorships available. North American universities expanded dramatically after the second world war, which resulted in some highly skewed demographics; while Greenspun's comments may accurately reflect how things were 15 years ago, there are many university departments which are seeing two thirds of their faculty retire between 2000 and 2010 -- replacements are in high demand right now.
Greenspun's schedule is also a bit slow. I'd say the following is more typical (at least for the "smartest kid you sat next to at college"):
1. Age 17-21: Receiving a scholarship at an undergraduate college.
2. Age 22-27: Graduate school, funded by a scholarship, research assistantship, and/or teaching.
3. Age 28-30: Working as a post-doc.
4. Age 31-37: Tenure-track position.
5. Age 38+: Tenured professor.
Personally, I'm aiming for tenure by age 0x21.
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what the secret behind all this is...
:))))
:) so fun!!!"
No need to get all filosofikal about it LOL
Every minute our young people spend on myspace (and similar diversions) eats into their IQ. To demonstrate, please measure your IQ now, then read the following comments (taken from arbitrary members' profiles):
"I love to smile, smiling is my favorite"
Wow. That's the greatest.
"I am so glad you joined the little myspace group
OMGAWD
"yay..i popped your myspace cherry!"
LOL!!!
"LOVVEE AND MISSSS YOU TONS! LOL"
LOVVEE TOO!
"About me:
I'm on here to meet people that I feel can make me better."
Can't argue with that one. BUT.. does that include the girl at the top of your friend's list? You know, the one with the red undergarments?
IQ After reading: Debatable.
Oh, and before I go, here's one of my personal favorites:
"Heroes: My lovely parents who have done everything to get me where I am today."
Still, it's a good point. A streamed education system has a number of very desirable properties, so long as it is designed well. Why teach grade-12 literature to the guy who'll be spending the rest of his life welding? Why teach welding to the girl who'll be spending the rest of her life solving differential equations to optomize the flow of reagents in some chemical plant?
And yet, witness the stupendous popularity of such shows as CSI. Sure, the science is rather simplified (or improbably convenient) but it suggests to me that the public-at-large do indeed have both an interest and a fascination with science and scientific applications.
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
When we place more importance on self esteem then we do on whether or not children actually know anything what do you expect?
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/ 05/25/BAGO0J1C5O18.DTL
This is the story of a physics teacher who tries to sustain interest by doing interesting experiments, whosesafety is now being questioned.
Legally obligatory sig : My opinions are my own... etc etc
True to an extent, but it has to do more with societies values and than whether who gets more money - because ultimately who gets the money is a represents societies priorities.
If you're academic, it seems that in society, both in the US and in most western countries; you're chatised and become an outcase of society, as if academic achievement doesn't hold a candle to a game involving 15 people on both sides, beating the crap out of each other to get an oval ball from one end of the field to another (aka Rugby).
There needs to also be a balance as well - 50 years ago; one could be smart AND be successful at sports, one could also be smart and get praise from society, today, however, if it isn't 'sexy, hip or cool', it gets derided by the anti-intellectualism that seems to be permiating accross western society - that being dumb is cool.
Face it -- whether or not god exists, every single piece of measurable evidence implies that the universe proceeds in a manner that does not require godly intervention. I would ultimately say that such a universe is far more impressive than the broken crap-shack universe that you obviously believe in, one that breaks down constantly and requires continual divine intervention. If the universe needed constant tinkering, wouldn't that make god an enormous fuck-up? Why couldn't he get it right the first time?
What do you expect when you've got a President who's proud to be a "C" student, and entire states where children learn IN SCIENCE CLASS that the world is 6000 years old? Or an Administration that hires captive "scientists" to pretend that the real science is wrong, in climatology, biology, reproductive science, geology and energy science? The anti-intellectual bent of the neoconservative and religious fundamentalist groups in this country is on its way to making the U.S. a third-world country. And all because having middle-class Americans steeped in superstition and fear makes them easier to govern. It's going to be like the days when Pol Pot killed anyone who wore glasses because it meant that they had been educated and thus were dangerous. Hopefully, the people that read Slashdot will resist this nonsense as long as possible, and create a front against the anti-truth brigades.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Did you every study logic? Picking the lowest paying job you can get that actually uses a science education in order to illustrate a general point that science doesn't pay well doesn't work well as an argument. I use my science education (up to PhD level) every day in writing software for movie visual effects. It pays over 3 times what you claim I'd get as an academic. And the reason why academics are paid less isn't about excessive supply in the marketplace as a whole - it's a result of academics being prepared to accept low salaries in exchange for job satisfaction and recognition - something you appear to have left out of your computation. Oh...and I forgot to mention the consultancy fees that many academics earn.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Take that, developing countries: even when we're fat and stupid, we still... Hm? What falling dollar, outsourcing, and trade deficit are you talking about? Could you ask me this pop quiz stuff after American Idol?
MON - Review last week (by going over last Friday's test)
TUE - Cover this week's new chapter in one day
WED - Lab
THU - Lab
FRI - Test
Assuming that students read the new chapter before Tuesday's class...
the teacher has 50 minutes each week to expand on dry written material
before performing or watching labs with little correlation to the book.
In reality, those 50 minutes a week (ten minutes per day) are presenting
information right from a book to students hearing it for the first time.
The real news in this article is that they're not continually analyzing student performance. Instead of one examination every year or every 2 years, this is the first one for 5 years.
Only to the extent that they regard scientists and engineers as modern-day seers and sorcerers.
After all, science plays no prominent role in hip-hop "culture,"
I think you're forgetting a certain astrophysicist MC. Fo shizzle.
my pet machine
What I find most interesting about the attacking of evolutionary theory by ID proponents is that even if evolution were proven 100% incorrect, it would provide zero evidence that ID is true.
There are an infinite number of theories one could devise for how life and man appeared on earth, proving any of them wrong isn't going to be evidence in favor of another unless they are exact logical opposites. This is not the case with evolution and ID.
and people have been saying that math and science in the US is horrible for my entire life. If this is true why should I trust these studies? They are performed by the same slackers who couldn't handle math or science 10-15 years ago.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
We've never had a very clear distinction between traditional high schools and trade (what we call Vocational/Technical or vo-tech in the US) schools in the US. A district or region might have a vo-tech school, but people were never forced into it or assigned to it, like in some other countries (don't know if that's the case in Holland). If we did have a system like that, or even a system where vo-tech was more emphasized, the my father-in-law would have ended up in one. He was educated in Catholic schools, and was, by all accounts, a very poor student (only ever did well in Theology). Got into college (mainly because it was a small Catholic college), and ended up going to Europe to get his PhD in philosophy, and in the process became fluent in German, French, and Italian. His book apart from making my head feel like it's going to explode is held to be a very important piece of Heidegger scholarship. Of course, none of that would have happened if he'd been forced into a trade school.
my pet machine
Only to the extent that they regard scientists and engineers as modern-day seers and sorcerers.
But perhaps it will inspire a few would-be "seers and sorcerers" to explore the sciences. Some will doubtless turn away upon learning about real science/engineering (but at least having learned something!) while others will be further inspired. I don't see shows such as CSI as a bad thing (despite the jury-DNA complaints) but rather as an avenue to counteract the idea that science is for the special few who can handle it.
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
The US comparative advantage is less and less related to science and physics over time. It is cheaper to do math and science overseas because of the lower labor rates, and that is where it has been moving.
For good or bad, wheeling and deeling is the US comparative advantage, and one learns that from goofin' around with their friends at school.
Most people do not do science work in the work place. Some argue that math/sci. "expands general reasoning" skills. However, marketing is not based on formal reasoning, and further there are probably better ways to teach general reasoning if that is really what is needed.
I am just the messenger.
Table-ized A.I.
Why does anyone think science is a good job?
:).
[...boring, low-paid academic ladder...]
Hmmm something's a little off in that schedule. Here, let me fix it up:
2. age 22-30: move to California and work for a tech startup
3. age 25-35: you are fully vested and post-IPO
4. age 35-??: figure out what to do now that you don't need to work anymore
Granted, not everyone gets into that IPO situation, but my point is that there are plenty of places in private industry for people with degrees in science and engineering to work. If you are smart, private industry is really eager to have you. My company can't hire smart, qualified people fast enough!
(Greenspun makes it sounds like private industry jobs are all dull and isolating, and that I'd be better off selling mortgages. However, I love my private industry job. It's interesting, and I still get to meet plenty of people. I don't think I would enjoy selling mortgages, so, sorry, Phil.)
The problem that people worry about with science education is not in finding people to apply for tenured academic positions. Of course there are tons of applicants for tenured positions, and there always will be -- it's a job for life!
So when you comment:
If you believe in supply and demand, this tells us that there are MORE than enough top quality scientists being produced
You're missing the distinction between academic and industry demand.
The problem people are worried about is getting enough smart, highly-educated people for companies like mine to hire, or to go off and form their own startups (sometimes after companies like mine lay them off
Like it or not, America has to compete with all the other countries when it comes to this, so the worry is that the next Dupont or Genentech or Google or Lockheed will come out of Shanghai or Bangalore rather than Silicon Valley.
These companies are the engine that drives our economy. Thus, the worry is that if America loses its leadership position in technological innovation, it will be the start of a long, slow downward slide that will result in a lower standard of living for all Americans than if we had kept that leadership position. You just have to look at the latest models from Ford and GM to see what people are worried about.
(Dr.) Bemopolis
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
It's been quite a few years since I was in school, but my experience was exactly the same...
Through Elementary School, you are really learning. They go through and teach you the major concepts of everything... Science, Math, History, English, etc. That's the first 7 years.
Then in middle and high school, you go through and pretty much just re-learn everything once again.
I was doing basic single-digit algebra in elementary school. Then, every year of middle and high school I was taught algebra again, and again, and again, and again, and again. It was unbelievably ridiculous. To anybody that wasn't in the lower 20% or so, it was just pure busy-work for 3/4 of the year.
I really had a low tolerance for that sort of thing. I really wouldn't have made it through, except I was usually lucky enough to have teachers that based ~70% of your grade on the tests.
Science was exactly the same... Spend 90% of the time drawing diagrams, memorizing the periodic table (how does that help ANYONE?), re-learning how electricity works (GAH! I was building rather complex circuits on my own at that point), memorizing the names of important people, etc.
English was mostly just writing and writing nonsense until your hand turns blue. It didn't matter what you write, just that you turn in a page full of words, spelled correctly.
History was more memorization and recitation of dates and names, as well as memorizing the "lesson" you're supposed to learn from the actions of each famous person: Hilter, Bad. FDR, Good. Blah, blah, blah.
Not only was all of this unbelievable repetitive, year after year, but it really didn't involve any though at all. You repeat what you're told, use the formula out of the book, say that you've learned exactly what the instructor says you're supposed to learn, etc.
Not only is there no room for independant though; you will be failed for it. If you work out math problems via some other method, and still get the correct answer, you fail. If your opinion of a historic figure is different than the text-book opinion of a historic figure, you fail. If you think some writer used a specific wording, not because of some deep meaning and imagery, but because he was paid by the word, and on a deadline, you fail. etc. etc.
Not only does the school system waste your time, teach you nothing, and fail to encourage independant though... The single thing it does is to PREVENT you from exercising independent thinking on any subject. It will take the independent thinkers, and go to great lengths to change them into memorizing and reciting machines.
I don't know how people can be surprised by this. It's not like they've been trying, and fallen short... Fostering thought is the absolute opposite of what 7th-12th grade is aiming to do.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I couldn't agree more. I've witnessed the effect first-hand. Not to detract from anything you had to say there, but hopefully instead to underscore and amplify it...
The truly sad thing is that politicians are not doing the math. The only thing that even allows this ridiculous fantasy that it's appropriate to focus resources on those left behind is that we haven't quite run out of money yet. But just wait...
Dollars invested at the high end (of achievers, I mean, not dollars invested on the well-to-do) pays back because those people will be able to get and keep jobs that will pay for whatever welfare we can afford. So that money is not wasted. What is wasted is failing to invest in making sure that those who could easily succeed really can, because that's leaving easily affordable productivity on the table. As more and more US students can't cut it in college, our colleges turn to teaching more and more people from abroad... for now... until we have no one left in the US with the knowledge needed to do the teaching. Then that, too, will collapse.
Education is supposed to be an investment, and it is not being treated as our largest strategic asset. It's being wasted as if it were non-threatening to do that.
And please note: I'm not saying to spend no money on the disadvantaged. I'm saying that there's a difference between "spending a modest amount to make sure that people who are within striking distance of succeeding can really succeed" and "spending every last dollar to make give those with really no hope of ever succeeding have the illusion that they got the same chance as everyone else".
(And note, I don't think we do as well as we could in helping to teach those who "no matter how many times it is presented to them cannot grasp it". I put a lot of that on the teachers and the school system, not just the students. But "just money" nor "catchy slogans" will fix it. There may be too few good teachers for all the school districts, and maybe a heap of bad ones protected here and there under tenure, but debating that seems to get us nowhere. There is an Internet now and we could be experimenting more with centralizing the creation of good lectures (not just lecture materials, but actual presentations, assignments, and even grading) such that everyone could have access to a substantial amount of help at very low incremental cost. Just as colleges have a professor do the teaching and then grad students handle the questions/answers, I think the public schools could invest a bit more in such tools. Yes, some teaching has to be personally dealt with, but if teacher prep time were reduced, and grading were centralized, the human teachers in the classroom would have more time to deal with special needs of Those Left Behind as well as those with extra questions trying to get ahead. Right now that time is frittered away replicating the basics (what will I say tomorrow? when will I get time to grade this?) in ways that the programmers among us would never permit programs we write to fritter away time in a production application... Also, those students who didn't "get it" on the first pass could watch again that evening with their parents instead of complaining they didn't hear what the teacher said and parents having no recourse. There is a lot we don't do technologically. But none of that will get done by just throwing money at the lower end and calling it by the catchy but misguided and misleading title No Child Left Behind.)
Realistic choices need to be made because the math of national economics will ultimately not lie. Some might argue that it's already not lying and that already the finances of this are hopelessly out of control. But whether we can turn around this particular unbelievable deficit/debt bubble or not, it's clear that if we continue to give away all that we have to people who are not putting back their fair share and we continue not to invest in people who can pay for the extravagance of that gift-giving, a reckoning will come.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
This means I'll be still making good money when I'm 50 because there won't be any "fresh blood" to replace me with. Let 'em wash the dishes and dream about Hollywood and hip-hop.
Yours is perhaps the best post of the entire thread. Very nicely done. I don't have any mod points, but you are going on my friends list.
I partly disagree with you on the paragraph containing: "As appose to some teachers I had in Canada that did not even bother to explain the lesson to the students, and expected us to read the text book/hand out without the help of a teacher."
I view bad teachers as another challenge to be overcome; a truly good student will persevere no matter the quality of the teacher. Furthermore, it is important that students learn to learn by themselves, instead of having information constantly spoon-fed to them. That being said, this society construct binds us all together and all those stupid people walking around who could have been a bit smarter if they had had better teachers are not a positive thing, and do have a negative impact (through all the social programs I have to fund from them, and through their performance, which is below their peak).
P.S. If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been living in Canada, and what do you think of the concept of multiculturalism, which is very popular in Canada?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
The top scores for eighth grade are North Dakota, Montana, Vermont and New Hampshire. Something must be leaking over the Canadian border (which they all share). What are the requirements for becoming a province?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I find the disinterest in the humanities and the slow removal and reduction of humanities courses in schools disturbing. Art doesn't matter; music doesn't matter; English is only good for reading math and science texts. Being able to do math and science eefectively is a great thing to strive for, but not at the expense of everything else.
I would say the lack of scientific reason in HSers goes hand-in-hand with today's emphasis upon standards. I will be getting my teaching credential in physics and chemistry in the state of California and the standards, California State Science Content Standards, to which I have to teach make no mention of teaching scientific reasoning. It's all about learing the facts, ideas, and concepts of the subjects I will teach. How are you to continue to reinforce scientific reasoning in this climate?
Oh I'd say the Right has done it's share of screwing public eduation as well. ID vs Evolution fiasco?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
I graduated from a US high school three years ago and this should be no surprise to anyone. Education in general is declining sharply. Standarized testing is killing the education system. When I was in school they focused all their effort on "preparing" us for the FCAT. This amounted to teachers only teaching for us to pass that test, not to learn. I barely ever went a day without doing some pointless FCAT exercise. What's even worse is that teachers have no choice over what they teach. Either they prepare their students for the FCAT or risk their reputation, salary, and I'm sure even their job when a student scores badly. From what I understand, since I've graduated teachers are now paid depending on their students FCAT scores. This is a horrible system and many children are doomed for failure. No longer is free thinking embraced. We need a change, fast...
I will forever be a student.
As a Ph.D in physics I can tell you this is spot on. Of course, the science programs are all geared toward producing graduates who go on to professorships in academia. They lose interest in you pretty quick if you say you are thinking about a position in a commercial research lab or something similiar. An just try and take a computer science course or something to futher those ends. They'll tell you the need one more student in some obscure physics course or they'll have to cancel it.
They need to get rid of the Post-Doc and the teaching assitantships. Departments just use these as a source of cheap labor. In the teaching assistantships, they get far more first year students than will ever graduate. Most stick around for a few years. They will however end up having taught a few years worth of undergraduate labs and relieve the department of having to hire someone competatively to do it instead.
I saw a lot of really gifted American students who after a just a couple of years saw the writing on the wall and left to far more lucritive positions instead of put in 10 years as a grad student/post doc. The graduate schools should only admit as many students as the successfully graduate last year and try to ensure it doesn't take 10 years to graduate. The Post-Doc position has also outlived its usefullness. It was born during the Sputnick-era in a effort to train lots of physicists, but is now used by professors who want to juggle 10 grants instead of 1 or 2. In the mean time there are plenty of foreign grad students, for whom $1200/mon is many times what they could make back home, and so its a great deal for them. That American tax payers should be paying for their education rather than retool the system for America students is beyond me.
And know wonder there are so few professorships availible. Everytime the want to recruit some hot-shot researcher, they almost always hire his/her spouse into some other professorship.
It's not that I don't believe in competition, it just that the people who manage these programs are immune from it and have set up graduate programs that do not do a very good job of graduating American students.
My experience is that they most certainly do. Listen to "antiauthoritarian" music, smoke dope and draw Anarchy A's on the bathroom wall? Of course kids can. Organize and participate in protests, fight a decision made by an administrator, or even consider themselves able to make decisions about such things (like voting)? They've shown no ability to me.
All the think tanks I know of are actually made of college professors, not to act against them. Of which think tanks do you speak?
Just to give you a little hope, it's not the entire generation that's like this. Speaking as a junior in a Chicago college prep, I'd have to say that everyone coming out of my school goes into law, medicine, the arts, the sciences, or engineering. The interest in science classes is palpable, and it is because teachers have found ways to make science interesting. Whether it's potassium in water, a standing wave in a spring, or a Van de Graf generator, almost every topic has a safe way of interacting with and seeing the process in action. My friends actually enjoy science classes, and think they're fun. On the other hand, one of my close friends also happens to be very near to the top of the class, is taking AP Physics and multi-variable calculus, and he likes hip-hop. Beware generalization.
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
Plus, you know, the Universe revolves around the Earth. Even the Sun Herald says so.
That's why we don't need science. Especially in Kansas.
DT (with tongue firmly planted in cheek)
Is this thing on? Hello?
$1800 a month for a graduate student? Where? I need to transfer! ;)
Indeed. You'd be lucky to get over $1,000 a month stipend at most universities, at least back when I was a grad student. And that also means no money during the summer months.
Firstly, to some degree, there are public vocational programs in the US. In some cases, students go to specialized vocational high schools, which teach a minimum scholarly curriculum combined with vocational classes. In other cases, students will attend the same school, but take a different courseload.
The reason the division is not more pronounced speaks to complex social issues in the US.
Firstly, there is a sense that nobody has the right to decide how a minor will earn a living. Even if such a decision can be reversed later in life, there is a sense that it should only be made by an individual once he or she reaches the age of majority. (18 in the US, so that only pushes it back two years vs. your example.)
Related to this is the worry that minorities and the poor will be shunted into trade schools without regard to their individual abilities and desires. To some degree, this is a well-founded fear: even well-meaning people have unconscious stereotypes.
Underlying these concerns is the notion that a vocational education is a second-class education. Whether or not this is the case, it certainly carries that stigma in the minds of many parents--especially when disproportionate numbers of blacks, hispanics, and poor students fill those classes.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
But I don't have the freedom to read the academics section. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Why doesn't it exist? Because society values sports over academics. Or rather to be more precise, society doesn't value academics very much.
Plus you have to pay tuition.
I was all excited when my salary started to approach the poverty level. Then I realized that I still had to pay a quarter of it in tuition.
C'mon, must we write so ambiguously?
"Fourth graders, ironically, are actually better at reasoning in the sciences now than they were ten years ago."
If the typical fourth grader is 9 to 10 years old, it seems obvious that they would be better now.
Oh, wait. I get it. Fourth graders today are better at scientific reasoning than fourth graders were ten years ago... Did the International Herald Tribune do any studies on it's editors abilities to properly use the English language?
Forced education today is to sell you junk like dumbing down. A liqour store owner does not want smart kids, instead stupid and dumb workers are best. Forced education, gotta love it.
Free education of 200 years ago had 100% literacy.
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
And don't forget about Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics
thats what they get for takin Mr. Wizard off the air
cucking focksuckers
I think the public should stop anaylzing the way kids think these days, and their lives and take a long hard look at the teachers. Up until the 5th grade I was an all A's student, honor roll every year. For some reason when I got to junior high it seemed as though the teachers were no longer enthused about being there, interacting with the kids, or getting involved in the lessons at all. This apathy directly carries over onto the kids. It sure did to me. I was like, "this isn't challenging anymore, I don't even care anymore, why should I keep going." I feared the worst for college being the same way... to this day I still haven't attended college... I'm 22. So where did this apathy come from? I asked a few people my age and they all said that's when the kids start not 'being cute anymore.' It is true that during this age kids start puberty and they can be really cruel to the teachers. But I say to that, the teachers' job is to shape the way these kids think, and it can be done through certain [use your imagination here] motivational techniques. I blame the teachers 100%.
"It's a time machine Napoleon, I bought it online."
Blame the system, and the way "education" works today.
...and get a big, fat F for it.
A "scientific approach" would be to take the problem, analyze it, think about it, research the reasons and background that led to it, if possible find samples for yourself, try to match those samples with the results of your research, find a possible explanation, test that explanation against the results and if possible with a test sample and then write a conclusion about it.
Why? Because your answer doesn't match the answer in the teacher's book.
So the most successful approach to good grades is by far not scientific. It's either getting the teacher's edition of the book and copying the results or you find out what the teacher wants to hear, then find samples that match the teacher's idea how it should be and use those samples to fuel your teacher's theory.
This is a great preparation if you plan to do studies for pharma or tobacco industries, but it's anything but scientific.
The main reason why students are so crappy with "scientific approach" is simply that it would harm their chances to get good grades if they actually DID take that approach.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The best term I've encountered is 'Wholesale rebellion'. Children at that age feel a need to find their own identity and place in society. Some choose to begin that process by attempting to reject a society they don't believe they 'fit' in.
The fastest way to achieve that particular end? $50 pants at 'hot topic' are a start -- for a few hundred dollars you too can deny societal norms!
Yes, It's here folks! Instant rebellion, at wholesale prices! Get the look, the attitudes and values (buttons and stickers in-stock) all pre-packaged for your convenience! Be exactly like your friends and you can stop caring what other people think! Feel sad? Alone? Show the world with a new faux-leather Anarchy(tm) vest! Cash or Credit. No Personal Checks Accepted.
Required reading for internet skeptics
i think in lower grades you are more receptive to new things and you still learn in a "playful" way. this scheme rapidly decreases in the latter years and you are just stuffed full with information, you should keep in your brain without puking. not only in schools. life is getting quite complex and i think the brain is starting reflect that more and more. it's not developing as fast, as our surrounding, since artificial evolution is a lot faster now than our own, this will be getting more of a problem in a few years, when most of us will be some mindless zombies due to synaptic overload.
It would appear to us outsiders, that in the USA today it is considered more important for students to become indoctrinated into the ways of Christian Fundamentalism and unquestioning belief in authority than to actually have an education.
Intelligent Design and Blind Patriotism.
Stick Men
This is however not that big a deal. Yes some kids will learn they have what it takes to become doctors or engineers (first is theory, second is trade) and other will learn they are barely fit for special needs schools (retards)
But the largest group will fall somewhere in between and will just go to the school that fits the proffesion they want to be in the future.
Trade schools are by no means lightweight. They just focus more on practice but in a way this forces kids to learn the theory in fewer hours.
In practice it seemed to me that kids who knew what they wanted to be ended up getting the education they needed while kids with no future plan could go get the type of education that fitted best with their personality.
Yes it does sounds like your father in law benefitted from being forced into theory BUT the sad daily effect is that while forcing everyone to learn theory may work for the rare exception for a lot of kids it means they cannot keep up or dropout.
Saying everyone should study social sciences to be a fully rounded human being sounds nasty. As if somehow you can't be a proper member of society unless you can quote shakespeare. That sounds Elitist to me. Not accepting that people want to do different things with their lives.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I am not sure that there is an actual correlation between decreasing scientific ability and the unquestioning surrender of civil rights, but since both are occuring simultaneously in the USA, well, perhaps this needs to be studied.
Although I would dispute that the surrender of civil rights has been "unquestioning" (there are lots of people who oppose the Patriot Act and stuff like the NSA surveillance program), I find both problems worrying.
That said, to connect them is completely ludicrous. The restrictions on civil liberties are a part of the government's attempt to prevent further terrorism following 9/11. The reasons for problems in American science education are not as clear, but they might have more to do with things like teachers not being paid very well, lack of emphasis of science (or academics for that matter) inside schools, and lack of accountability for performance. The problems in American education go back much further than the 9/11. The relationship between these two issues is about as strong as that between pirates and global warming.
I also dispute that we "must decide between having an intelligent, capable population, and a population that is easily lead." There are plenty of examples of very controlled populations that were extremely intelligent. Lots of very good scientists worked to develop technology like the first jet fighter and the V2 rocket in Nazi Germany; they were so good that we got many of them to work on our own space projects. Soviet scientists were also top-notch, good enough that they beat us to putting a satellite and a human in orbit.
But even environments that are just strict, though not oppressive like my previous examples, have often proven to be conducive to education. The few poor, inner city schools that succeed typically have students wear uniforms and emphasize respect for the school and teachers over the student's individuality and expression.
I personally don't enjoy such environments, and I'm not arguing that we should be giving up civil liberties. I'm just saying that being more free doesn't mean you know more science.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
Maybe the observed phenomenon is simply a by-product of affluence. The USA is still, on average, the world's richest nation. If you look at the ways in which people become wealthy, and climb near the top of American society, I think you will find that very few of them have anything to do with scientific thinking.Instead, they have to do with manipulating people (usually en masse).
Scientific thinking is very useful, but the discovery has been made that you can be a PHB and hire dozens of Alices and Dilberts to work for you. Or even a shareholder in the company. That way the benefits of scientific thinking reach many, many people who are quite incapable of it (or disinclined, or both).
How often have you heard a politician or a PHB holding forth about how wonderful "our" technology is? Ever wondered if that person could wire an electric plug or tune a car engine, let alone build (or even explain) a PC or a mobile phone? When the benefits of technology are widely distributed, many deeply ignorant people get the illusion that they are somehow technically advanced - just because they have learned to use the stuff.
It's not enough to show that you can get rich by building on a scientific education. You have to compare the likelihood of doing so with that of playing sport, singing, dancing, talking amusingly, selling, marketing, or sitting in meetings. As society gets richer, there is more leisure and more people are able to specialise in these roles. More of the money gravitates to the amusement industry, and technology gets by with fewer and fewer people and less and less investment (relatively). Farming was the first example of a technology that used to dominate people's lives, and now occupies a tiny minority.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Well I'd gues they'd learn something after spending the last ten years in fourth grade.
The comments on this thread are like a pendulum swinging back and forth between an over-reliance on either hardwork or innate talent. It takes both.
Using the ever popular sports analogy: Lance Armstrong was a Tour de France cyclist before he was diagnosed with and recovered from testicular cancer. But he never won one until after. He credited this to plumbing the depths of his physical, emotional, and mental limits during chemotherapy and recovery. By coming to a better understanding of his limits, he was subsequently able to push himself closer to them during his training. And that has made all the difference between and excellent cyclist and a singularly exceptional one.
It takes both talent and dedication. I agree with the original poster, that the USA and apparently Canada tend to ignore dedication and hardwork in favor of innate talent. I find it disturbing that people think it is a good thing for a "gifted" student to be able to get through their education without having to develop a work ethic, time management, organization, and prioritization skills. So what if they get A's, get into the good college, and find a stable job with a good income. Think of what they could have become if they'd learned to apply themselves.
I'd like to draw attention to some bad assumptions about IQ testing:
Giving an Generalized IQ score (Full Scale Intelligence Quotient) without specifying which test was given isn't very useful.
IQ testing is a closed loop
In Summary: Different cultures and countries around the world have different ideas of how to define and test for intelligence. The basket of talents reflected in intelligence tests varies accordingly. The kids who well match the particular cocktail of talents valued by their culture find themselves tracked for success, and are subsequently more likely to be successful.
Sidenotes:
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
By and large, I agree with the previous poster. But on one point, I cannot:
"I view bad teachers as another challenge to be overcome; a truly good student will persevere no matter the quality of the teacher."
This is simply not true. Some kids will persevere, many will not.
There have been psychological studies that have used children previously identified through intelligence testing and catagorized them by their exceptional strengths: creative, analytical, etc. In the study I read, the groups of students were placed into classrooms with a teacher that taught the cirriculum with a particular emphasis on one perspective: creative, analytical, etc.
The kids whose exceptional strength matched the one emphasized by the teacher did best.
It is unfortunate that the education system in the USA emphasizes the analytical and memorization talents. A lot of kids' talents are never recognized or encouraged. Many subsequently come to feel that they are failures because they don't excel in sports or academics.
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
Jesus Christ, go back to school and learn some basic written English. Your lengthy and no doubt well considered point is lost on your audience when their eyes start bleeding after two sentences (if what you wrote can be said to contain "sentences").
Take a look at what is happening in the NBA. More and more players are coming abroad. Even in an all-American sport such as basketball, our home-grown players are falling into a culture that elevates self-glorification and hot-dogging over teamwork and hard work.
I'm making over $1400/month in a science department at a large state Research I university. Though that's a 35% increase over my salary 7 years ago when I was a TA instead of an RA; I think there have been some cost-of-living increases over that time as well.
You forget that this is Slashdot, where "liberal" and "evil" are synonymous and both used to describe people that often are neither...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
i think soemthign that affects the performance greatly is the puberty, and social issues.
:P
they're mind is growing into their adult one, they are battling a whole new barrage of emotions without getting the main emotion reasoning piece till the very end of development.
add to that the school issues such as popularity, trends, bullying, etc it can be very hard on a emotion filled teen.
there is also the great emphasis on sporting achievements , doesn't leave much incentive to do good, i know at my school (in australia) everyone thought the sports was cool. academics kinda led the back shelf, no one cared, and would even go as far as to outcast you if you achieved good.
the mental issues like depression come into effect more, and people just give up, they lose their strive to do better, not to mention a lazy worth ethic to boot
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
It's not sports. It's sexual promiscuity. Back when teen sex was more mental that actual (post Sputnik 1950's and 1960's), science education in secondary schools was rising, the quality that education high and the subsequent advances from US scientists and engineers brought us the technologies without which I couldn't write this comment or even have the place to comment. Now even nerdy kids get laid. Why focus on science?
The problem is the government is in the business of educating. The government has no place there. If education were open and in the free market there would be more choice, higher grades, and a better quality of education.
We need to abolish all government schools, and no I am not a troll.
Libertas in infinitum
This is why they should seek to work in the private sector, and NOT in government education.
If more and more people were owning their own firms and not working for someone else, they could potentially make a lot more money. With more and more people making money that means a draw from educators. To respond universities would have to offer better working conditions/higher paying jobs in order to compete with the private sector.
I can NEVER understand people who want to be professional educators.
Libertas in infinitum
Many great scientists of the past were motivated greatly by religion: Einstien, Pascal, Newton, and Boyle to name a few. But now that religion is out of the schools and separated in many ways from science what do we have for motivation.. Sure science does not pay well....But Boyle, Einstien, Pascal, and Newton were not looking for wealth. When James Gleick writes about butterflies flapping their wings and affecting the weather: concluding that nature is chaotic and non-linear; when evolution claims that every living thing is the result of chance; when Scientific American claims that the constants of nature are changing; and when quantum mechanics is based on probability what is there to inspire students? Certainly not the order and beauty other great scientists searched for. If there is no order in the universe, what is the difference between science and a game of dice? Maybe as a scientist you will discover a great law by accident (if there are laws any more) and maybe you won't. Similarily maybe you will win the game of dice (if you can win) and a million dollars and maybe you won't. I am convinced that God does not play dice with the universe--- Einstien
Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. --Richard Feynman
Well, I can tell you that the University of Texas bio PhD program pays in the mid $20's. That's on top of free tuition and health insurance. Plus, Austin is fairly cheap to live in. (new 3 bedroom houses rent for just over $1k a month if you're willing to take a 20min drive into campus.)
So this 'better' pay does exist. Just look around the top-50 or so of graduate programs...
what kind of a cheap excuse is this supposed to be?
alright, we're dumb, but it's sciences fault, because its to complicated?
you are just too plain lazy to learn! you watch tv, go skating, playing basketball, drinking and f***ing bitches...
I study theoretical computer science and mathematics at an elite university and it's not so hard if you work enough. two weeks of learning 4-8 hours a day per test got me and my friends through almost all tests so far...
we go drinking about once a week (thats enough) and have enough time for our girlfriends. thats because we don't waste our time in front of the dumbening box, skateboarding or playing basketball
to your knowledge: the subject matters at school are mostly 5000-150 years old! understanding them has nothing to do with the speed of the world around you!
also in the USA you have to learn almost nothing! friends of mine were there for a year therefore I know that the subject matters you have in the 11th grade, we have in the 9th grade, so stop crying about how complicated the stuff was, that you have to learn! you have no clue, what "complicated" means! you just think the easy stuff you have to learn WAS complicated because you're to lazy!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The biggest problem in education is the lack of educators and teachers. We employ too many people who think they need only instruct people and let them learn on their own. I was ADD back before anyone knew what it was, and I totally lost interest in school because I ran into teachers who said I wasn't trying, that I needed to memorize stuff and quit trying to understand "why". These people work for 180 days a year for way over 30K, and don't try to do what is expected of them.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
it sends a clear message that trying hard in school is a waste of time.
Its has more to the fact that schoool IS
a waste of time.There no alternative at present that society accepts instead of Schools.
They DO exist,homeschooling,internet education,remote education etc.They just don't get accepted mainstream.Its product of today society.
cf. telecommuting and work
21st century
without any advances in education methods and facilities.Religious schools flourish,even usual schools indoctrinate their old values.When it all changes?
The "culture of stupidity" has been present in america since at least the early 1900's.
Intelligence is associated with terrible things like elitism, moral reletivism, the "rich people who hold the working man down"...
It has been like this for a while, and is only more visible now because the people who support such ways of thought are represented more now than any time since the 1950's. These people need to get over this and stop stigmatizing and impeding the development of curiosity, fresh thought, and intelligence.. but this is something which will need a long term movement to change.. we're talking on the level of the civil rights or women's movement.
So let's get to it.. start a "nerds" movement.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I'm complaining on behalf of my fellow students. I've got a federal scholarship that makes me better paid than rookie professors but I did a couple of years at $20k (Canadian) minus $4600 tuition. That's in a field that pays pretty well too. My roommates have to fight for their $16k (minus tuition).
Housing prices here have kind of exploded too. You can't buy a condo for less than $300,000 and $400k is more realistic. Forget a house unless you want to drive more than an hour and still pay over a quarter million. They're going to have a big problem pretty soon -- maybe as early as September. Rental property vacancy rates are at about 1% and that's with no undergrads around.
A couple of months ago, when I was picking her up after school, she told me they were learning about different kinds of animals. I asked her what kinds, and she replied with "vertebrates and invertebrates". I asked her for an example of vertebrates, and she told me about mammals which "have hard bones, give live birth, and breathe air through their lungs".
Kindergarten.
There are some very, very bright points in our future - even within the public school system.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It has become impolite in the USA to tell people that they are wrong. In fact, in some states now it is required to teach creationism alongside evolution as an equal theory. The point of science is to determine fact, not truth. Truth is down the hall in philosophy class.
See, it is hard to think scientifically when person A says to you "There are eight colors in the spectrum of visible light: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and octarine."
And you respond "Octarine is fiction!"
And the other in this dialog responds "No it is NOT! I really, really believe in magic! It's my religion so you cannot tell me it's wrong!" And then goes and gets thier legislature to pass a law that requires the teaching of "Octarine Theory".
See, we cannot allow religion, faith, belief, and etiquette to prevent us from pointing at what is wrong and calling it out and then explaining why something else is right. If feelings get hurt and values systems get shaken so be it, but if we want to promote science then we must not let fantasy get in the way.
I think you're the one generalizing, not me. You go to one of the elite schools in the nation (one of the Chicago lab schools), where yes, people from all backgrounds generally succeed, go to elite universities, etc. Don't think for a minute that this happens much outside the confines of your schools though. There's a reason people like you and your friends go there, because you have talent and drive. There will hopefully always be schools available for people like you. But, in general, schools aren't like yours. Being in Chicago, I'm sure you know this.
I think that people need to remember that their high school experience is going to be way different than anyone elses. Some people will have the partying schools where the overwhelming majority of the school drinks and does drugs all the time, while the "nerds" and smart people are frowned upon. Other people have mentioned schools where the drug-users are the "losers" and the clean people dominate (Isn't that how California mostly is?) Anyways, I don't think it's easy to say in general that math and science are failing in the US. I just graduated from high school as a pretty well-decorated student. Outstanding achievement awards in math, science, and physics. I won multiple awards for 1st and 2nd in the state Science Olympiad meet. My school took 1st place in the state math competition. Good teachers all around for my science and math classes. But I will say that if you're not in Honors or AP level classes in my school, you'll generally get shit teachers. The ones who fit the "those who can't do, teach" mantra. That's what I think hurts education the most, that the students who aren't the "best" get shoddy teachers and nobody really pays attention to them. Hell, even I'm guilty of it. When it comes down to it, the teachers are what matter the most, and good teachers are getting harder and harder to come by.
This is true. I was trying to make the point that not everyone in our generation is apathetic. And it's not one of the lab schools.
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
Suppose the universe did proceed in a manner that required godly intervention. How would you measure such an intervention? After all, a supernatural being is "beyond nature." So, what sort of observations, taken in a controlled, reproducible, scientific manner, could possibly demonstrate the existence of a supernatural being?
Answer: none, by definition.
So you're faced with this problem. Either (a) the universe does not require God's intervention, and the lack of measurable evidence is consistent with this truth, or (b) the universe does require God's intervention, and the lack of measurable evidence is consistent with this truth.
Hence, "lack of measurable evidence" doesn't prove anything, except that you don't have sensors able to measure God's intervention.
With regard to random processes, you're incorrect at the level of the most basic and truly "random" event: the collapse of wavefunctions into one of multiple possible states. It is true that a group of photons placed in a superposition of two equally likely states will, when measured, collapse to one state or the other with a binomial distribution. It is *false* -- as far as we know -- that some underlying physical process acts as a decision-maker for the photons. Such an underlying physical process would imply the existence of hidden variables, which are generally considered not a valid explanation of quantum phenomena.
If the universe needed constant tinkering, wouldn't that make god an enormous fuck-up? Why couldn't he get it right the first time?
Or an artist who likes to be personally involved with His creation. The problem with that is ...?
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
That's why we thought "Why work our asses off in high school when we could ace the SAT or ACT and get into college that way (with an okay-but-not-stellar high school GPA)?"
:-)
Folks we knew who had already been to college told us (and it was true) that your high school GPA typically isn't relevant after you've been accepted into a college or university of some sort.
Of course, I realize NOW that it's the actual education in high school which is important, and I was lucky enough to have absorbed there to be of lage benefit regardless of my questionable attitude at the time (taking some AP classes helped in that regard as well), but back then it was mostly a joke for me. I wanted to go to college!
The only thing I regret is not taking a second language in high school. I did in college for a while, but I had a lot of time and brain power that I could have pointed in a more useful direction during my high school years. Earlier, even. But I had no idea that such a thing would have any meaning. The probability of meeting someone in a Minneapolis suburb in the late 70's who spoke another language was fairly low, especially in the areas of the working world I had been exposed to. Because of the internet and other factors, though, that has changed quite a bit!
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Here in Europe such surveys just aren't available...
Herve S.
Reminds me of a quote from Friedman's "The World is Flat" that sums it up pretty well:
"In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears; in America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears."
And an artist who keeps revising his works is called a hack. Think George Lucas...
But you DON'T use science. Unless you can say the words "the bible may be wrong", you're not a scientist, because scientists question the accuracy of EVERYTHING. On the very first day of my first science class in college, my professor said that every scientific theory is wrong. We'll always find a flaw, and replace the theory with a better one. If you can't acknowledge the possibility of replacing your assumptions (which are the bible) with better ones (say... the Quran? Maybe it's claims about the cosmic background radiation are more accurate than the bible's? :P ), then you are not a scientist. Read that again: YOU ARE NOT A SCIENTIST. Scientists question everything and are prepared to revise any and all theories. Religious zealots never question their myths, and never revise their stance. They are the opposite of scientists.
Well, I am a scientist, working in Europe not the USA, and my wages after (very steep) taxes are about $45,000 year, not including bonuses, employer's contributions to pensions and insurance, and other perks. For someone with my function that is below the market rate, but I am recently promoted to it. But I work in the private sector, not in an university.
I think that of my fellow employees, nearly one third are PhD scientists. For new positions, we head-hunt globally; the only continent from which we do not (yet) employ anybody is Antartica. In general we find it quite difficult to find people who are qualified for the jobs we are seeking to fill, and we often have to fall back to hiring people in the hope that they will grow into it. But oddly enough, although we have plenty of directors, marketing managers, and assorted business people from the USA (we are not based there, but are US owned), only a small minority of our research scientists was born and educated there.
It is not as if we have a filter in place to reject American candidates. We could not afford to. But they are just not there. Living standards here are considered slightly above what the USA has to offer, and certainly the food and the beer are a lot better, so in principle there is no reason why we should be unable to attract US scientists. As a matter of fact we do attract scientists from the USA -- they are just not American. Many of us have worked in the USA at one time. Personally, I have spent only a brief time there -- and characteristically, my US co-workers were immigrants themselves.
The truth is that there is a real shortage of US scientists, and there are many reasons for it. A low level appreciation by the public in general is certainly a factor; if you want to make money and be respected in the USA, becoming a scientist is somewhere well below lawyer and rap artist on your lists of options.
Another element, admittedly part of the former, is the pervasive anti-scientific climate in the USA. I agree with other posters that president Bush is not personally to blame for this. However, his plainly hostile attitude to science whenever it interferes with personal prejudice (or political expediency), is symptomatic for the disparagement of science that is festering in the circles that brought him forth, and has been so for quite a long time. This is a real enough phenomenon; America has been breeding a strange brand of religo-political conservatism that belongs more to the 18th century than the 21st. I am not sure whether it is an actual leftover from the revolution, or a new invention. Whatever its origin, it must be discouraging a lot of potentially great scientists, and it certainly has a harmful influence on scientific education.
The final factor, I think, is cultural. American science was flourishing in the 1960s, when there was a real spirit of discovery and advancement. Today, the country has become materialistic to the bone (even in its religion), and as a cultural motivation discovery has been entirely replaced by profit and practicality. Talk to an average American about what makes America great, and sooner rather than later he or she will say that Americans have fatter wallets than everybody else. Especially conservative Americans are standing every-ready to defend the USA's track record in terms of high GDP. It is a sad state for a country to end up in.
What is probably not a big factor is high school education. For what it is worth, US students are regarded as active and questioning by global standards; maybe they are a bit on the lazy side but they are respected for having probing minds and a willingness to ask questions. Such students should make excellent material for a university education in science; but too few of them choose to have it.
Congratulations!
You have just been accepted to the Tin Hat Club for the Delusional Paranoid.
Your Deluxe Foil Hat will arrive shortly.
I agree that a streamed education system CAN be a terrible, monstrous way of pigeon-holing people and forcing them into lives that they may not want. But a good streamed education system helps students receive exactly the education they want. After all, isn't that precisely why universities and colleges are totally streamed? People taking pre-law and people taking accounting are in completely different classes for the most part, even though an introduction to law would probably benefit many accountants, and most lawyers will benefit greatly from knowing how to keep their books balanced. And if they want, the students in those programs can take elective courses to learn those things. That's the beauty of a streamed system -- it provides specialization, with as much generalization as one has a taste for.
that most scientists are "cooks and bottle washers".
Tech Public Policy stuff
I put it that way because the credibility of technology companies in terms of their interest in providing jobs to Americans who take the science and technology careers they demand isn't zero, it's negative.
Students already know that if they spend 4+ years studying for a sci-tech career, that employers will basically be cherry-picking a handful of top graduates and everyone else on those career paths will be going to work at McDonald's, with educational debts their fellow burger-flippers won't have. They also know that if they get cherry-picked, their jobs will last as long as it takes the company to find cheaper replacements in India and China.
What else? If it's shown that people who create salable important intellectual property for corporations are rewarded on the scale of rock stars, kids will seek to emulate Edison, not Eminem.
Society shows what it really values by the scale of rewards that go with specific professions. What it has shown in this case that the ability to make good science or new technology is considered basically worthless.
People like Dean Kamen and Bill Gates can either step up to the plate on this or STFU. If the young people of America are expected to create the new inventions that'll keep America a First World nation, they can damned well have a reasonable expectation of getting paid for their time.
Tech Public Policy stuff
An ‘all-American’ sport that was invented by a Canadian; James Naismith was born in Ontario and went to University at McGill in Montreal.
Yes, science as a career is painful.
But engineering as a career isn't. And often the skills needed are the same. If people will be poor scientists, they'll probably be poor engineers. And as far as salaries go, there's much to look forward to (and at a younger age).
The other point you missed is that a well trained scientist is fairly good at leaving science and getting a well paying job. In my office in my grad school, I've seen a bunch of engineers/physics majors get their PhD's and run off to work on financial models and simulations at financial institutions for salaries that exceed 100K. Those wonderful math and simulation skills they learned in their disciplines paid off big time.
For some reason, those who go straight into finance rather than the sciences never get these jobs, because finance/economics programs at most universities dummy down the math. And so they're not very good at doing Monte Carlo simulations for nasty integrals arising in stochastic calculus.
Oh, and physicist PhD's who work in industry (as physicists) get paid about as well as engineers - there's no law that states they have to go into academia and be a post doc.
Beetle B.
It's entirely reasonable to call a belief "anti-science" if it is fundamentally incompatible with the tenets of science. The belief that the bible is accurate, especially despite vast evidence to the contrary, runs contrary to the need for scientists to remain critical of every assumption. Good scientists start questioning their assumptions as soon as there is ANY evidence contradicting them. A group that endorses a belief that is incompatible with the tenets of science is an anti-science group (especially if they spend all their time attacking the work of scientists and preaching the truth of ludicrous stories). By way of analogy, wouldn't you agree that I'm "anti-religious" if I claim that worship of any kind is a sin? Well, maybe not anti-religious since Buddhism doesn't require any worship whatsoever. But at least anti-christian. It's not an ad-hominem attack, since I really am encouraging an attitude that opposes christianity.
The problem here is that you either don't understand science and it's basis in critical thinking, or are deliberating trying to pass off blind zealotry as rational thought.
Scientists, on the other hand, build theories that correspond to existing data. Then, they make predictions ("hypotheses") based on the new theories, and collect additional data. The data itself will either support or refute the theories, or it will do neither.
Regardless, science does not "prove" things with absolute certainty.
http://outcampaign.org/
Wow, smart and humble too.
Yes, it's more difficult to design a test that tests scientific reasoning skills than it is to come up with one that tests math skills, but I seriously doubt that it's impossible. If a test is flawed, point out its flaws and fix them. Don't complain about standardized testing in general, because if the test properly reflects the skills you're trying to teach, "teaching for the test" is exactly what we want to do!
What do I think is a good solution? As great as it is for students to know the boiling point of water, we should do more written exams that involve posing a problem and a list of observations. Ask the student to write hypotheses and explain how the hypotheses fit the observations. Then ask the student to design an experiment that would test the hypotheses and distinguish which ones fit the data better. Ask them to justify their answers all along the way. Yes, you can't have a machine grade it, but the AP exam board seems to be able to grade piles of written exams every year. We just need to spend the money on administering a proper exam so that "teaching for the exam" can become a virtue rather than a sin.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
In a country where there is still a large percentage of people who don't believe in evolution - a large enough percentage to have nearly frozen any teaching of evolution in the public schools - we have no right to expect anything better. Americans, by and large, are stupid. Not because we like big sport utes, not because we like cheap energy, not because we don't cut CO2 emissions, but because we don't care to educate our students. Yes, we do very well at indoctrinating them. Practically every product of the American public school system is a dyed-in-the-wool, true blue liberal. But they are dumb as posts and their eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the word "science." The US is gripped with a national desire to be a third-world nation. We don't have far to go.