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How Do You Fix Education?
TaeKwonDood writes "Carl Wieman is the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics but what he cares most about is fixing science education. The real issue is, can someone who went through 20 years of science education as a student, lived his life in academia since then and even got a Nobel prize get a fair shake from bureaucrats who like education the way it is — flawed and therefore always needing more money?"
If it's a 9 to 5 job, then why do they need to do anything at home? There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about how Finland's education system is remarkably efficient considering that kids have a much smaller homework burden than in the U.S. Do things right at school, and perhaps there won't be any need to get the parents involved.
I fully agree that parents need to take more responsibility for their children; not just in relations to education. However, as you say, improving the actual organization and methods of the educational system is something that should be forever ongoing.
Seems to me that "parents need to take responsibility" is all to easy to use as an excuse for the flaws in the system. At least, easier than actually trying to fix the flaws. Further more it seems to me that the reforms the do try to push through are often based upon a perception of reality not fully bases in fact and research. There are brilliant people studying the ups and downs of various educational methods; but politicians and bureaucrats seem more interested in enforcing their party's, or their own, agenda.
Friend of mine is a teacher, 10-15ish age group; and he is very into reading up on the latest articles, papers, research, studies, etc, regarding all aspects of education. One of his greatest frustrations is the institutionalized stupidity of the system. Methods that have been proven to work are showed aside because they are in conflict with current dogma.
The Long Now Foundation
I don't think a voucher system will improve education on its' own... I do feel the to some extent it would be a very good thing, as it could/would increase competition in education, and raise standards dramatically in urban areas, where the number of students available are larger, and systems of scale become more reasonable.
On the flip side, I don't think it will help near as much in more rural communities. Also, many students don't work well in online/homeschool environments. I think having the option is a good thing overall though.
My son was home-schooled last year via an online charter school, and did very well, much better than the local school district (in a fairly rural community). However of my friends/family with children of school age, I don't think most of the children would respond nearly as well to that environment.
I think the biggest problem is too much funding is lost in bureaucracy instead of higher salaries for teachers... to be honest, I think a lot of teachers today probably don't deserve more pay, but more money needs to be offered to bring in those that may not have otherwise considered teaching. As a senior programmer, I make about 3-4x what the average the average teacher in my state makes. I honestly don't think that this is right. I feel that probably 1/5 of our teachers should be rotated out annually... have "teaching" programs for professionals, you spend 2 years as a T/A (all classes should have two instructors, one main, one TA, and a parent in daily, imho). After that year, the TA would take primary on a class, then after a couple years as the main instructor, go back into the private sector. There are some good instances of lifetime teachers... but imho these are too far and few between, and I'd rather see "fresh" teachers come in, and out in a relatively short period. And it should be an honor, to have served as an instructor for said 4 year engagement.
The problem seems to be, that the various educational systems seem to be dedicated to hiring trained "teachers" who don't have much, if any specialty, instead of people who are good at their professions who want to spend a few years teaching.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I had the privilege of taking a quantum mechanics course from Carl Weiman 2 years ago while he was teaching at the University of Colorado. It was by far the best college course I've taken, he had the perfect mix of well versed lecturing with "clicker" quizzes throughout the class, homework that was appropriate for the material, and tests which rewarded understanding of the material and not memorization.
The best part really was that by the end of the course, he gave his lecture on Bose Einstein Condensate which he won the Nobel prize for, and all the students could understand what he was talking about from learning things throughout the semester, it was incredibly rewarding.
Compare that to my next physics courses which were basically applied calculus, except they left out the important part of what the **** any of it meant and how it applied to... anything really. His course overshadowed the rest of my physics courses and in the end, because of the huge disparity in teaching styles, made the rest of my studies quite grating and rather uninteresting.
This is about as worthy of a "+5: Insightful" as a post can be.
In the 1960s, we used to have parades that celebrated astronauts. Let me say this again - we had PARADES... for... ROCKET SCIENTISTS... To become one was something that was considered the height of a child's aspirations. No wonder we were sending people to the moon with a pocket calculator and a roll of duct tape.
And what are we left with now - an utter disdain for anyone and anything that displays the traits of having even a shade of reason. Even more importantly, we've managed to "democratize" science. The "intelligent design", "vaccines and autism", and "global warming is a myth" campaigns are only the tip of the iceberg of targeted ignorance, that aims to teach the public, and especially the younger generation, that on one hand science is a mysterious black art, to be feared and distrusted, and on the other, it's little more than a game of weak, impotent men and women, that can be played by anyone... a medium where all voices are equal.
As a result, we have a number of situations, where people's beliefs are shaped not by scientific fact, but by whoever screams the loudest. Add to that an overall atmosphere of distrust of "the system", and you have a society where scientific "rogues" that spout senile and frequently openly fallacious concepts, are treated as heroes by much of the population.
How can we hope to fix education in such circumstances?!
Not to rant further, but the other major problem we've run into, that must be resolved if our educational system is to be salvaged, is one of unrealistic expectations. When kids dreamed of being "rocket scientists" in the 60s, it was understood that not everyone was going to achieve this dream. Which was more of a reason to pursue it! Instead, we now say that everyone must go to college, and everyone must achieve an X level of educations, which is... let's face it... unrealistic. But what these expectations HAVE done, is devalue higher learning, by trying to push everyone into the same bracket. And since you certainly can't raise the expectations for people who simply cannot meet them, we just lowered the bar for everyone, most likely leading many talented kids off the right path. In terms of primary education, there have probably been few policies as harmful as "no child left behind".
If we didn't acquire this dream of equality of mental condition, and didn't fight so hard to accomplish it, perhaps we would have less problems with education, and less 2 (and even 4-) year colleges with a level of education that does not even meet high school requirements.
one of the hallmarks of that is the kneejerk reaction that every bureaucrat is by nature evil and dishonest.
I had a conversation with an insurance lobbyist on a flight to Boston a couple years ago. She has a lot of dealings with state and federal senators and congresscritters, so I asked her what were the things she discovered in her interactions with them that came as a surprise. Three of them were:
The first one is relevant here, but the last one has been on my mind since then. Slashpac, anyone?
There was a period in American education, particularly after Sputnik kicked the US government into the realization that those crazy goddamn Commies could scoop them on a major technological advancement, where a good deal of effort was put into finding and training scientists, mathematicians, technicians and so forth. Kids wanted to be rocket scientists, astronauts and atom splitters. Home chemistry and rocket kits, as well as toys like Mechanos and Legos, were seen as important ways to produce what the US needed to get ahead of the curve and stay there. But, sadly, within a relatively short period of time, the educational edifice took over, with it's unions, bureaucracies, mindless testing, endless tinkering and the new "next big thing", and now the US is faced with the reality that while domestic talent may just as often be wasted, it has to import talent from abroad.
Part of it is, I think, a consequence of the rugged individualism of America. In places like Japan and Germany, there's a pretty fiercing weeding process going on to find the best and brightest, and to some extent that sort of defies the American Dream that anyone has a chance to be the next guy on the Moon or the next President or the next Bill Gates or whatever. But the fact is that the one-size-fits-all education system favored in North America has become nothing more than a recipe for mediocrity. Coupled with ludicrous laws like No Child Left Behind, which should be restated as No Child Ever Pulls Ahead, and it's a wonder that education isn't worse off than it is.
To my mind, education should be more focuesed. By thirteen or fourteen the kids, parents and teachers ought to have some idea where the kids' talents lie. From there it should be an encouragement to go where those talents lead. Rather than basically delaying all of this until the kid is going off to college and then saying "Okay, waddya when a be when you grow up, which is about 9am this morning" start that process earlier.
The reality is, no matter how optimistic laws like No Child Left Behind are, some children will be left behind, for any number of reasons; socio-economic status, health, intelligence, disability and so forth. No system is going to catch every would-be neurologist and physicist, but at least we can try to better the odds.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is how it works in the army (the British one at least). I'm not sure about infantry, but in the 'support' trades the instructors are the top few % of soldiers who spend a 2 year posting as an instructor. It works well because as well as their professional knowledge they also teach from a broad base of experience, and always have plenty of anecdotes to back up what they're teaching. They also command much more respect from the recruits because they have real-world experience and they are the end product that the recruits are aspiring to become.
Hopefully we can keep this from devolving into a flame war, but if you're interested do search for John Stossel's "Stupid in America". Private schools in the heart of Chicago catering to poor black students spend about a third per student compared to private schools and produce standardized test scores that compare favorably with white suburban schools. Being cheap and producing results, even poor families are willing to sacrifice that second tv and fast food meals to send their kids there. Charity will also go a lot further and be better funded with the knowledge that government isn't taking care of it. Gates by himself is already giving nearly enough to k-12 to provide free education at 1/3 current costs to every family below the poverty line, and that's just one guy.
And if you think the telecom industry is an example of the free market, I can understand your confusion. Telecom more closely resembles mercantilism than capitalism.
As such at college level there needs to be a way to separate the cream of the crop from the rest of the class.
The simple fact is, we are not created equal nor do we apply ourselves equally regardless of our ability.
Yet education is beset with claims of racism should one group do poorly compared to another regardless of the subject. As such schools have to dumb it down because if they did separate someone would take offense, even if they were not directly affected. Too many people are of the belief that they have the right to not be offended and that means not being called sub par compared to their fellows.
So how do you fix it? Take politics out of education. Take favoritism other than by demonstrated ability out of college. This might mean having two types of degrees for the same course. You could award a minor bonus to gpa for taking and succeeding at the harder level or grant more hours or even shorten the length of the classes.
One last area, reduce the effect of tenure even it means getting rid of it. It allows some real idiots to persist simply because they "have done their time". Professors who pontificate about politics instead of the subject at hand, provided they even bother to show for the course.
Still to fix college your going to have to fix public schools too.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The single-most important thing to "Fix Education" is to increase parental involvement and stop the mentality that school is a place where you "send" your kids "to be educated"
The school has a curriculum and it will present its content to your children whether you like it or not (unless you home school them.) You can send them to a really and truly private (thus expensive) school and perhaps avoid it, and get them a good education.
The school is a place where your children are sent to be indoctrinated. Some good teachers exist, and will try to give you information that you need rather than simply what is in the standardized test. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day. One teacher I know would need something like 45 more minutes in the school day in order to spend the amount of time required to be allocated for each task if everything went perfectly throughout the course of the day. Heh heh.
Unless you are extremely lucky and find the rare self-motivated student you simply cannot remove parents from a successful edcuation.
Unless you are extremely lucky and can either home school or send your children to a private school you simply cannot avoid having your children damaged by public education.
There is no single most important thing to do to fix education; I agree wholeheartedly that parents need to be involved in the process, whatever it is, beyond shipping their children off to school like so many cattle.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Yes, some kids do well at home school - they are the exception, not the rule"
Some? You mean MOST. Home schooled kid regularly out pace public schooled kids. It may be unpleasant for the majority of people to accept that they are not giving their kids the best education possible, but that doesn't change the reality of it.
"They also need to be informed what is going on at school, and they need to care about that. They have to avoid at all costs giving the impression that school is something to be endured until they can leave - kids that learn *that* lesson from home rarely discover their potential."
No parent that is really informed about what is going on at school is going to be able to NOT teach their kids that they will have to endure at least large parts of it. A kid that goes through public school is under the care of somewhere around 45 different teachers by the time they are done. Contrary to what some people believe, getting a job in education does not magically make you a good person. Even being unrealistically generous and the kid being really lucky, a kid is going to have half a dozen to a dozen crappy people who have control of them for large chunks of time.
To fix education here in the US we would have to completely scrap our current system. The current system is a business. There are huge sums of money being thrown around, and there are plenty of people who want it. Asking how to fix the current system is the same question as asking how we can fix corporate America to start putting the customers before profit. There certainly are ways, but you can forget about it happening. Not enough people really care to make it happen. We have become a orphanage state. Most kids start getting shuttle off to state or semi-private institution between 1 and 3 years old. By the time they are five or six, most of them spend more waking hours under the care of the state than they do their parents. It is not uncommon for half of all meals a kid eats to be supplied by the state. The numbers look even worse if you don't add together the number of hours mom and dad care for their child. Then when the kid is under the parents care, they are supposed to spend a significant portion of that time, doing work that they were instructed to do by the state.
Quite simply, what we call parents, have been relegated to the role that used to be supplied by the absentee divorced father. The state is most kids primary care giver. So, the question becomes, how do you fix a system where 98% of youth are raised in an orphanage?
This whole "engaging the kids" meme avoids the fact that there is only one acceptable outcome--study, learn, don't take the easy way out, etc. We are trying to SELL them on the idea, not involve them in the process of decision-making. That's inherently dishonest, because we're only pretending to give their preferences (which consist of sleeping, video games, and manga) equal weight in deciding what their priorities should be.
Basically I think we're too nice to our kids. I'm not saying we should beat them (much), but I remember a conversation I had with a doctor I worked with (parents were Chinese) whose siblings also all had professional degrees. On a basic level, the kids all had the feeling that if they didn't do well in school their parents wouldn't love them anymore. It was never stated, but the feeling was there. Could I do that? No. But that inability translates into, if not academic mediocrity, then definitely a mentality that makes excellence a hypothetical option for my kids. They do well enough to get by, but there is no drive. I basically feel that I've let them down by being too nice.