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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
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.
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 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!
Greenspun further describes the typical scienst in his article :
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.
The most egregious stoners I met in high school often turned out to be bi-polar.
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'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.
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.
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?
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.