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."

Comments

That's what happens

[0racle]

That's what happens when the most important part of your 'academic' life is the Football team.

Re:That's what happens

[grub]

... and outside of the Football team you learn about Intelligent Design in the Science class..

Re:That's what happens

[mctk]

Well, football has always been (and will always be?) the most important part of some students' academic life for years. But I don't think that's the main issue. To me, it's a question of two things: student work ethic and curriculum.

We Americans are very good at pointing at others and coming up with excuses. But I'll tell you, the Asian students I have aren't good at math because they're Asian, they're good because they (gasp!) actually do homework. That's an investment most students don't care to make.

And why should they? Our curriculum presents science as a static, lifeless adventure. It's a collection of worksheets and vocab lists. The teacher has all of the answers; it's simply a question of memorizing the correct response.

We need a curriculum that supports inquiry and thought. We need to give students the responsibility of choice and experimentation. We need to get them generating real results and using those in real world situations. Reasoning and problem solving skills do not come without authentic practice.

Re:That's what happens

[gardyloo]

Partially agreed with this. *HOWEVER*...

      At my high school (ten years ago, admittedly), the people most into the drugs and alcohol (openly to their fellow students, anyway) were among the smartest people in the school. That's not to disparage the other students, but it seemed to me that among the stoners and drinkers were some very smart (and very bored) kids. Very many of these students are now remarkably successful (by any metric) and happy, several with Ph.D.s.
      It seems that, at least *sometimes*, students into the drugs and alcohol are simply doing that because they're bored with the curriculum (which is, oftentimes, not challenging enough). There are exceptions to this and every human situation, but to blame drugs and alcohol might be misdirected.

Re:That's what happens

[Xzzy]

A lot of my lack of desire to do well in math/science was caused by a complete lack of understanding why any of it mattered, and how I could apply it to things I wanted to do. In general, if I couldn't make use of information I generally got bored with learning it.

Literary classes were a bit easier because it was tied closely to liesure, I liked reading, so it was easy to to do well at it.

Since finishing high school (and dropping out of college), I've gone back and self-taught myself a lot of the math skills I neglected because it is used in a number of my hobbies. It's a lot more interesting when it's a prereq for building a trebuchet or hacking on a 3D engine. ;)

Re:That's what happens

[Senjutsu]

We Americans are very good at pointing at others and coming up with excuses. But I'll tell you, the Asian students I have aren't good at math because they're Asian, they're good because they (gasp!) actually do homework. That's an investment most students don't care to make.

And why should they? Our curriculum presents science as a static, lifeless adventure. It's a collection of worksheets and vocab lists. The teacher has all of the answers; it's simply a question of memorizing the correct response.

A better question might be: why do Asian students make that investment, given that their education systems generally focuses on rote memorization and the ability to lifelessly regurgitate solutions on command? If you want to create a curriculum that supports inquiry and free though, don't look to East Asia for inspiration.

Re:That's what happens

[Ithika]

But, while claiming to be scientific, these dogmatists are little more than stubborn atheists.

Ah, so now people who don't believe in All-Saving Sky Daddies are the stubborn ones? The ones who don't believe in things for which there is no evidence and no way of attaining evidence. Those ones?

Ha, wow. That's ... wow.

Re:That's what happens

[EdwinBoyd]

Perhaps because if you're able to "regurgitate" solutions you can concentrate on the problem at hand as opposed to making sure your figures are correct?
While it's critical that a student understands the concept of multiplication it is just as important to memorize their times tables.
Calculating in your head that 6x7=42 wastes time and risks error and the only way to 'know' that 6x7=42 is to drill, repeatedly.

Re:That's what happens

[hackwrench]

What always comes to mind when I hear of "Asian performance" is the posting of scores so that students can have the fun of competing against each other. The United States is too afraid of its students getting an inferiority complex when it comes to doing well academically, which is the explanation given for why they don't do it, but that goes out the window when it comes to Sports. The high school sports scores even get published in the local paper if that don't beat all!

Re:That's what happens

[iminplaya]

We need a curriculum that supports inquiry and thought.

That would just make things like indoctrination and brainwashing more difficult. In fact, the whole idea sounds subversive. You're not a subversive, are you? How do you expect the government to operate with absolute authority if people start asking questions, instead of blindly following their lead? Ignorance is power. An educated public is difficult, if not impossible to control. This decline is no accident.

Re:That's what happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is supposed to be forming a hypothesis and then trying to disprove it via the scientific method. So "trying to knock down evolution" should be what is done on a daily basis by scientists, but instead they go to every extreme to try and prove it true.

This, of course, is total nonsense. Disproving theories is done by testing them. Each test, a priori, has the ability to either support or disprove the theory. It's not the scientists fault that all of the tests continue to support the theory.

This is not to say that nothing in evolutionary theory is ever disproven, or that nobody tries. Scientists, including evolutionary biologists, don't go to "every extreme to try to prove a theory true". (I don't even know how that's possible; as I said, anything you can do that is capable of supporting a theory is also capable of disproving it, and you don't know which is which until you've actually performed the test.) Idealism aside, the quickest way to fame and fortune in science is by taking down an accepted theory, the bigger the better.

In fact, many ideas in evolutionary biology have been overturned. Darwin had a lot of things wrong. The original "Central Dogma" of molecular biology regarding how genes are physically expressed in organisms has been modified (what with alternative splicing, etc.) However, all of the basic facts leading to evolutionary theory remain true, and no test has yet succeeded in overturning evolution as a whole; they merely induce refinements of it.

The hypothesis that all life on Earth shares common ancestry, as evidenced by the nested hierarchy of descent and many tens of thousands of experiments, is beyond all credible doubt. You can quibble about the details of it happening, but the basic fact remains. Even if some entirely new "intelligently designed" species were discovered that was unrelated to existing species by common descent, that still would not change any of the evidence for common ancestry of all of the other species.

Re:That's what happens

[Reality Master 101]

I'm not saying that a parent has to be a buddy, but if a parent can't convince their child to do something by presenting a superior argument as to why they should do that thing, maybe their position on the issue needs to be reconsidered.

You can't possibly have kids of your own.

You seem to think that kids are just little logical Spocks that require only a bit of reasonable argument. Sheesh. Kids typically do NOT see the long view.

You don't have to go to lessons, but I'd reccomend you get some knowledge or you'll be bored all your life." is infinitely better than the one who says "Go to lessons or I'll take away your phone/car/right to have fun.".

Yeah, and what if your child says to you (in a snide voice), "I DON'T WANT TO LEARN TO READ. I hate reading, it's too hard. I won't be bored, there are way more fun things to do than read."

Maybe you'll say to your kids, "That's OK, junior, I won't force you to learn to read. It's all up to you." In that case, you're one of those parents I'm referring to in my sig.

On the other hand, I tell MY kid, "Yes, you WILL learn to read, and you'll do it, even though it's hard. You don't understand it now, but almost everything else hinges on being a good reader."

And in fact, that's almost the exact conversation I've had with my kid, so it's not theoretical to me. I fully support explaining why something is good for kids, and in fact I do that. But if the explanation doesn't work, they STILL have to do it, because I'm the parent. I'm not perfect, but I'm going to damn well do my best to make sure they get a well-rounded education so that when they're adults, they'll have had a wide enough sample of everything to decide what to do on their own.

Re:That's what happens

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Our education system is designed to produce slaves, not scientists.

Our educational system is actually designed to produce reliable, highly-paid assembly line workers.

The problem is, there are no highly-paid assembly line jobs any more. But at the dawn of the 20th century, when this system was congealing into what it has become, it was actually fairly well-suited to the goals of society... and it did a decent job getting kids in shape for what people thought they would be doing.

The world is different and our conception of education hasn't caught up to it. Read "Fast Times at Fairmont High" for Vernor Vinge's take on what's going to be needed. It seems pretty likely, at least in broad outline.

Re:That's what happens

[wile_e_wonka]

I quite agree. And I have an interesting example to share with regard to some foreign exchange students at my parents' house. I'm a college student, recently graduated from undergrad. I graduated in December and lived with my parents for 8 months between the time I graduated and moved on to graduate school. My parents had two foreign exchange students during that time--one from Germany and one from Brasil. Both of these girls arrived in America the summer before the school year began barely able to speak English, but I watched them walk as Valedictorians in their high school graduation 9 months later. These are girls that were popular and went out on weekends, but right after school they did homework, and that was more important to them than whatever was going to happen that weekend. I helped them with their math homework, and I'll tell you--these girls were not inherantly smarter than most Americans. But on their own free will they worked hard to do well. So, it has always amazed me that, they were able to do better in classes that were tought in English--while they were just learning English themselves--than kids that have been speaking english from a young age.

I think this says a lot more about Americans than it does about these girls. Americans are so darn lazy!

Re:That's what happens

[1u3hr]

The number of multiplication problems that can be "instantly" solved by the times tables is such a tiny fraction of the set possible problems, that it's really negligible.

The number of REAL LIFE math problems that can be solved by times tables is, however, most of them. Maybe you just don't care how much anything costs, how long it takes to go somewhere, etc, but kindergarten arithmetic, applying your times tables, will answer most of those questions. That people are trying to make excuses for not knowing basic arithmetic is an excellent example of the dire state of science education.

Re:That's what happens

[siriuskase]

They are so important, they make it into the paper even when the home team loses, and they make it into the paper for every single game. The best you can do in other academics is perhaps the Honor roll.

It's that time of year again for the nonsensical debate about whether having validictarians and salutatorians and other academic awards is a good idea since it can cause high or low self esteem. This debate never comes up when the top football players are identified and praised in school assemblies and community newspapers. Does someone think smart kids are more at risk for developing a big head?

Remeber

[Kortec]

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?

As a high school senior...

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Re:As a high school senior...

[Kortec]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. In some respects, our cultural trend towards political correctness has really come back to bit us. There's a trend towards mediocrity, as we leave the door open for the unmotivated or unable as long as possible. The result of this is that the students that really could be doing interesting things (weither that happens to be linear algebra, or Chaucer) in their early years are kept in pretty repetative classes, or meaningless requirements, and end up joining the unmotivated masses.

That's not to say that public schooling need not be regulated -- the recent debacle over intelligent design should be suffiicent evidence of that. It's a difficult problem to administer such a large system as the public schooling of a state -- let alone 50 -- with out administering the very life out of it. The only hope is that most schools end up with a small crew of truely gifted educators, the sort of folks who know when to ignore the rules and when not to, and are actually passionate about their topics, and that makes the experiance slightly bearable.

Re:As a high school senior...

[Distinguished Hero]

In some respects, our cultural trend towards political correctness has really come back to bit us.

Who would have guessed that suppressing freedom of expression and thought so that "no one would ever get offended" would have any negative side-effects?

Re:As a high school senior...

[OffTheLip]

As a parent of a rising high school senior with AP calc and Latin on the schedule I agree. Seems like academic performance is considered genetic but the sports participants have to work or their success. My kids, the rising senior and the college junior worked very hard for what they earned. As parents we set standards and provided an environment condusive to learning but the kids did/do the work.

If your heroes don't have it, you don't need it...

[Distinguished Hero]

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?

A victory for the Right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:A victory for the Right

[Distinguished Hero]

If "The Right" wanted to shift public opinion to their side through the manipulation of the educational curriculum, they could simply mandate the teaching of basic economics (and perhaps some actual history that teaches more than just "white people oppressed everyone").

Re:A victory for the Right

[Distinguished Hero]

I recommend this book, for your "actual history" fix.

Quite humorous. Let us examine perhaps the first historical assertion made by Mr. Chomsky: "The fall of Granada in 1492, ending eight centuries of Moorish sovereignty, allowed the Spanish Inquisition to extend its barbaric sway."
What Mr. Chomsky forgets to mention is that the Moors were Muslim soldiers who had conquered and ruled most of Spain by force (link: "In 711 AD, the Moors invaded Visigoth Christian Spain. Under their leader, a Berber general named Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they brought most of Spain under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign."). Their defeat ("loss of sovereignty") was a victory for the forces of anti-colonialism, and if Mr. Chomsky was truly anti-colonial instead of anti-Western, he would have hailed the reconquest of Grenada with exuberance.

Thanks the the American public "education" "system," the typical, illiterate American would be completely unaware of Mr. Chomsky's lies of omission or his peculiar framing of the situation, and due to their gullibility would accept his dubious statements at face value. On the other hand, had Americans been taught actual history (instead of the politically motivated drivel exemplified by Mr. Chomsky's work), as well as some critical thinking skills, as I orignially suggested, they would have been capable of thinking for themselves and most would have rejected Mr. Chomsky's peculiar interpretation of the events. Of course, as things stand at the moment, the typical, illiterate American cannot locate Europe on a map, let alone Spain; to expect the typical American to have any knowledge of the history of Spain, or of the Islamic Conquests of every civilization except for China (though they did try during the Tang dynasty) and some parts of Northern Europe would extremely unreasonable.

P.S. The rest of the "book" you linked to is fully of such historical distoritions, lies by omission, pseudo-philosophy, peculiar unsubstantiated assertions, and name dropping, all without any semblance of historical context whatsoever. I truly hope you did not "learn" "history" from it.
P.P.S. Ever hears of Battle of Tours, arguably the most important event in history? No? I wonder why. What about the Siege of Vienna. Still no? I really wonder why...

The Cause

[Crussy]

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.

Seniors

[donaldGuy]

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.

Where the emphasis really is...

[RogueWarrior65]

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.

Science education scarcity concept is overblown.

[Bamafan77]

Philip Greenspun says it best and I've seen this firsthand. ---

Why does anyone think science is a good job?
The average trajectory for a successful scientist is the following:
1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college
2. age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month
3. age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year
4. age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year
5. age 44: with young children at home (if lucky), fired by the university ("denied tenure" is the
more polite term for the folks that universities discard), begins searching for a job in a market
where employers primarily wish to hire folks in their early 30s

This is how things are likely to go for the smartest kid you sat next to in college. He got into Stanford for graduate school. He got a postdoc at MIT. His experiment worked out and he was therefore fortunate to land a job at University of California, Irvine. But at the end of the day, his research wasn't quite interesting or topical enough that the university wanted to commit to paying him a salary for the rest of his life. He is now 44 years old, with a family to feed, and looking for job with a "second rate has-been" label on his forehead.

---

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.

Why Encourage Kids to go Science?

[LionKimbro]

Philip Greenspun had some interesting things to say about careers in science:

In short, some young people think that science is a good career for the same reason that they think being a musician or actor is a good career: "I can't decide if I want to be a scientist like James Watson, a musician like Britney Spears, or an actor like Harrison Ford."

Philip's argument makes good sense to me.

The article was noting that teaching Science isn't very rewarding, either:

"What happens is that the system tends to beat them down," Padilla said. "Working conditions are poor, it's a difficult job, and the pay isn't that great."

So, I would say that, on the face of it, Science just doesn't pay, and a lot of us are really interested in getting paid.

What does pay? Perhaps research, (which Vernor Vinge called "Search & Analysis," and noted was at "the heart of the economy,") perhaps technology, perhaps being a system administrator, or being a mechanic, or something like that. Perhaps being a business person or a manager. I wouldn't really know; I've not asked the question "How do I make more money?" deeply enough.

But answering the question "How does the natural world work?" doesn't seem to be where the money is at. "How do I make this better?" seems to be only a little bit closer.

I would prefer that we asked the question: "How do we make the world a more satisfying place for all people in it, and ensure that nature grows healthier and healthier?" Unfortunately, the pay isn't so good. Perhaps the questions necessary child is: "How do we make this pay?"

Re:Why Encourage Kids to go Science?

[Bamafan77]

I posted similiar comments linking to the same article exactly one minute before you. :)

Another great quote from Philip's article is that "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States." This is absolutely true.

Now a lot of people say that one shouldn't do science just for the money, a fine sentiment. However, you're not allowed to say we're coming up "short" in science education when salaries seem to indicate that there are *too many* scientists in many areas(assuming you think scientist's salaries should be higher than they are).

FIRST

[Stalyn]

Here is a online NewsHour story about FIRST founded by Dean Kamen. An excerpt..

DEAN KAMEN: In this country, we have kids who think what they want to excel at is football or basketball, what they want to do with their time is the entertainment industry, and I think the balance is so distorted that it literally leaves our country at the risk of losing its position in leadership, in technology.
 
And, as a consequence of that, we will lose our position of leadership in quality of life, standard of living, security, health care, and all of the other things that Americans somehow take for granted. And we've got to change kids' attitudes fast.

Re:Is anyone really surprised?

[Mr. Vandemar]

Intelligent Design is a symptom, not the cause.

Re:Science education scarcity concept is overblown

[Scarblac]

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.

This is the expected result of standarized testing

[dpbsmith]

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.

What unthoughtful, knee-jerk crap.

[JeanPaulBob]

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!

Re:What unthoughtful, knee-jerk crap.

[Geminii]

Teaching incorrect axioms and/or reasoning skills, or failing to teach the correct ones, will mean that the student has to:

(a) realise that they were not given correct information;

(b) discover for themselves what the correct information is; and

(c) then catch up on the years of instruction and information they were originally denied

before they will be at the same learning level as students who were initially taught correctly. It follows that the skill levels of students exposed to drivel may very well be depressed compared to those of students who weren't.

Drivel causes low skill levels which in turn leads to more drivel. It's a self-perpetuating cycle which only the brightest individuals break out of, because they're the only ones who actively question what they were taught.

We can see the cause right here on slashdot

[SmallFurryCreature]

How many times have we seen articles that claim that Linux is too complex to learn? That is should be simpler so the average joe can use it?

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.

ID

[Alioth]

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.

Self medicating

[moultano]

The most egregious stoners I met in high school often turned out to be bi-polar.

Drugs

[Mark_MF-WN]

High school kids in virtuall ALL countries experiment heavily with drugs and alcohol, and have for as long as there have been universities. Back during the renaissance, many European cities had laws forbidding students from entering -- they were that rowdy and destructive.

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.

A Comparison

[clragon]

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

Re:A Comparison

[clragon]

People like Einstein would have slipped through the Chinese system of education completely. Einstein had a pretty lacklustre academic record at school, from what you've said, that would've been it for him in China.

Einstein failed his non-math subjects in school, the German education system was to blame for that because it placed such a importance on math, and nothing else. He was learning calculus at 12, which is amazing. In the 1890s, the system of grading was reversed so Einstein's 1, which ment for perfect, became a "fail". thats how the rumour started.

When was the last time you heard of a Chinese genius and when was the last time you heard of an American genius? I'm not intending to put the Chinese system down or anything, maybe the reason I've never heard of a Chinese genius is due to the language or the government not releasing research or something along those lines.

China was always had top technology (at least in the field of warfare ;) ) before the industrial revolution. Since the Chinese only faced threats from the Mongolians in the north, they never bothered to improved their technology, as oppose to European countries who HAD to embrace the new technology or be wiped off the map. Starting then, China declined. To the point where it had to give Taiwan away to Japan in the first Sino-Japanses war, and then almost loose itself completely during the second Sino-Japanese war. Then the communist came into power, the cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward plunged the nation backwards. It was only until recently did the education system in China became good. My dad's generation was not even allowed to go to university because the communist government considered it to be "useless". So the real reason you dont see a lot of famous Chinese scientists, is because only my generation of Chinese were educated properly. Those before us had to suffer through war or be forced to NOT learn.

The American system of picking "gifted" students out based on IQ does have it's problems but on the other hand it will rarely let a gifted student slip (if the system is working).

See, thats the problem, what defines a "gifted student"? The American system rely on the IQ, but a survey done on the richest 200 Americans showed that the IQ affects little of what people can achieve in life. There are various studdies (just search in google) that shows how IQ will not be as big a factor as dedication when achieving things in life. Americans, especialy the youth are very caught up in this IQ hype, thinking that high IQ = smart regardless of anything else. This also have social impacts as well because now the students realize if they have a lower IQ, they are counted as stupid, despite what they do in their life. This is the wrong approach to take if you want your students to do well.
The Chinese, on the other hand, picks their "gifted" students based on what the student had achieved. So when I saw people going into the Fast track class, I said to myself "I will be in it next year because I will work harder this year", as oppose to the IQ system where the students can't do anything to improve their self-esteem about their intelligence. PS: sorry for the grammar/spelling mistakes, typing this in a hurry.

Re:From the article

[phantomlord]

Is it at all suprising that people are less interested in science and teaching when a man like Bush is in charge?

I graduated 11 years ago and Bill Clinton didn't inspire me to do anything with science either. The reason why you got modded down, I'm sure, is simply because you just had to throw a Bush attack into something he isn't remotely responsible for. Science and math education have been sliding for years before he even thought about running for President.

The way science and math are taught these days aren't conducive to learning science and math, much less making kids inspired enough to seriously considering a future with them. More cool stuff in science class, make sure the kids get the basics at an early age in math and then do fun stuff as they get older with it.

In 6th grade, we spent the whole year working on the biology of whales, learning how an ecosystem worked, etc and that culminated in a weekend fieldtrip for anyone who got a passing grade to the Atlantic Ocean three states away to go on a whale watch. THAT was fun and we all learned a lot that year. The same year, we took a few days and built our own model rockets, launched them and used a protractor with plumb string from a fixed distance to measure how high they went (we didn't even know what trig was yet but we were already having a blast using it to see who's rocket went the highest). We also learned how to develop (black and white) film, made our own prints and did all kinds of great stuff that year without even knowing that we were learning about math and science until we look back on it.

I guess I'll have to thank Reagan and Bush41 for their inspiring leadership in 1988 instead of the very talented teachers who creatively taught us by making it interesting.

From the been around the block many times dept.

[Spock the Baptist]

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

Asians

[Mark_MF-WN]

Probably because the teachers and parents don't encourage wide-spread abuse of anyone who demonstrates a shred of intellect or individuality.

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.

Re:Big Bang

[Mark_MF-WN]

Reproducability isn't a necessary criteria of science. The ability to make verifiable predictions is. The big-bang theory makes predictions that you can verify for yourself with the right equipment. It's consistent with past observations, and makes consistently accurate predictions about future observations. That makes it a good scientific theory.

Now, let's pretend that you actually know something about science: what predictions does creationism make? Oh, that's right, none. None at all. Unless you count the predictions that the world will end soon, which keeps not happening. In fact, nearly every predictiont that creationists and ID-advocates make FAILS to realize. That makes it an interesting philosophical idea at best, or a huge load of bullshit at worst.

But prove me wrong: make a prediction about the distribution of the cosmic background radiation using the bible, and have the WMAP satellite test it. Then we'll compare your predictions with the big-bang+inflation theory predictions, and see who actually knows something about science.

Re:From the article

[tsotha]

...after I had a friend fired in New York for mentioning the existence of evolution in a class.

I don't believe you. Do you have some kind of link or documentation to support that assertion? You can barely fire a teacher for committing a felony - there's no way the mere mention of evolution could get you fired in one of the bluest states in America. Bullshit. Your friend certainly left part of the story out, like how he slept with one of his students, or something like that.

In any event, cirriculum selection is a state and local matter - it really has nothing to do with the feds. The Department of Education mostly gives out grants to teachers colleges, to the extent it does anything at all. Thank you Jimmy Carter.

I read lots of this kind of garbage on slashdot, but before you scream "theocracy", remember the school system has been in a forty year slide, and it actually was illegal to teach evolution in most states when the US had unchallenged scientific preeminence.

By the way, if you're interested in learning critical thinking, you couldn't do better than a traditionl Jesuit university.

Hardly

[Mark_MF-WN]

Hardly. If you flip a coin a thousand times, I can make a verifiable prediction that the results will be about within 50 heads/tails of 500 heads and 500 tails 95% of the time. You can test that, and see that it's true (actually, those particular numbers may not be accurate; I don't remember the details of the binomial distribution off the top of my head). Yet the process is clearly quite random and involves nothing even resembling intelligence. And yet there is some process "selecting" either heads or tails each time -- it's just not an intelligent process.

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?

Re:Hardly

[msuarezalvarez]

Well, you know, except for the whole flipping of the coin and the coin itself. LOL I guess the evolutionist believes the coin made itself or is descended from some lower monetary form. And then the coin flips itself to give you your probability. [...]

I was waiting to see what response you could have for his example. I have to say that you were very, very much below my expectations, and they were not exactly flattering to begin with.

It is quite sad that an adult cannot perceive the distinction between a pattern and the origin of a pattern. It is quite unreasonable to expect to be able to carry on any kind of epistemological discussion with anyone which has not reached that level of abstract reasoning. Do come back in a few years.

We all use the same science.

Nope. In fact, what you have in mind is not even science.

We all have the same facts, we interpret them differently according to our presuppositions. The presuppositions are unavoidable. How is believing the universe to be orderly and designed anti-science, exactly?

Actually, the critical analysis of the presuppositions is quite important. There are an abundant history of precisely that, and quite a bit of classical science was born precisely out of that.

One of the biggest problems with an "ordered and intelligently designed" universe is that no one really knows what "ordered" means, what "intelligent" means, what "designed" means nor what "intelligently designed" means. All those pseudo-concepts really carry huge dark areas. At the very LEAST, if you want to base any kind of reasonable (leave "scientific" for later...) discourse, you have to make sure those pseudo-concepts mean something. Well. I'm sorry to break this for you: they do not.

Re:Big Bang

[Anonymous Coward]

Responding to several posts:

So, as an evolutionist, you have reproducible proof that an insanely dense ball of matter about the size of my fingernail exploded and the results from this explosion were planets, stars, galaxies and, evidently background noise?

Yes. See here. P.S. Evolution is a theory of biology, not of physics.

What laboratory was this reproduced in?

You are confused about the role of reproducibility in science. See here.

"This new information may undo all that has been claimed by the proponents of the big bang. The high-precision resolution of many parameters of the standard hot big bang (BB) inflationary model of the origin of the universe may be all wrong."

Uncertainty in galactic cluster distribution is modeled in the statistical analysis and controlled for. If we knew better what the distribution was, we could pin down the parameters more precisely. However, the uncertainty in the parameters is nowhere near close enough to invalidate the general LambdaCDM model itself. In short, it's like saying that incorrectly taking wind resistence into account when predict the trajectory of a bomb may suddenly reveal that bombs fall up instead of down. But don't take my word for it. Read the paper. Note that this only effects the positions of the acoustic peaks in the fine structure of the CMBR spectrum which has implications for inflation, but not the basic Big Bang model. Moreover, the work is several years old and followup work by an independent group failed to confirm their claims.

So not only are the claims suspect, but they don't even invalidate Big Bang theory if they were true; they only affect the precision with which we can measure the expansion of the universe.

I think you greatly underestimate and misrepresent the scientists who are a part of Answers in Genesis. We are talking about legitimate scientists, not "snake handlers."

Many of them are incompetent, and the few who are competent are usually speaking in fields outside their area of expertise. See, for instance, the ludicrous cosmology of "physicist" Richard Gentry, debunked here; I wonder if AiG still links to his work?

The article, after all, is quoting directly from a Royal Astronomical Society article.

Yes, however it badly misinterprets the work, as I said, and as the other poster said: the work, even if valid (doubtful), doesn't cast doubt on the Big Bang, but merely some parameters of a particular inflationary model of it.

And wouldn't predictability imply design?

No. It just implies that the universe obeys laws. It doesn't say anything about the origin of those laws.

It certainly doesn't imply chance or randomness as required by the Big-Bang theory.

I don't know what "chance" or "randomness" you think is implied by the Big Bang, but even in "random" quantum mechanics, the universe still obeys laws: they're just probabilistic instead of deterministic.

I have eyewitness accounts as written in the Bible attesting to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and his other miracles.

You have no way of knowing whether those accounts are true, however, and there is no independent evidence of their truth. Thus, they are useless.

Creationists invite debate, it is the evolutionists that cannot defend any challenges against their faulty theory and therefore refuse to debate

Snicker. Go over to talk.origins and post some claims. Not vague insults like "evolution is stupid and

That's GREAT!!!

[melted]

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.

Re:I don't usually do this, but...

[clragon]

what do you think of the concept of multiculturalism, which is very popular in Canada?

I think it is a step towards the right direction. It is great to see different people with different culture living in the same society. I love how many people who were born in Canada, despite their racial backgrounds, can come out and say "I am proud that we have people all around the world living here". From the racial aspect, Canada most definitly ahead of the world.

Despite the sucess, I dont think we as Canadians should elude ourselves the problems that are present in a multicultural society. There are often clashes between groups of people (Natives, people of Quebec, etc), but with time and good policies, Canada will be a great example to the world about how different people can live together.

A point of disagreement...

[ggoebel]

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.