How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement

Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"

Comments

Recognition

[N3Roaster]

Back when I was in high school, several times each year quite a bit of time was wasted in school assemblies. These always recognized the various sports teams, even the ones that were really not that good. It wasn't until my senior year that any academic achievement was recognized at an assembly. We had two students who (one that year, one the year before) had gotten perfect scores on the SAT and the academic decathlon team brought back a trophy. The two who had gotten the perfect SAT scores later told me that they would have rather not been singled out at the assembly. Never mind students who were going to various math and science competitions and bringing back awards. Who cares about that? (Not that any of the students really cared about anything at the assemblies. All it did was shorten the classes so that nothing meaningful could be done in any of them.)

This is news?

[AnalogyShark]

As a just recently out of highschool into college student, I can tell you that anyone with a head on their shoulders has known this for awhile now. In America being smart in young culture has often led to downfalls. I know that throughout my high school career I often had to dumb myself down to fit in with my peers in my non-Advanced Placement classes. A peer who can't understand your vocabulary tends to start to shun you rather quickly.

The main cause of all this is that academic achievement gives you no social status amongst your peers until later years in your life. Hours spent increasing your knowledge and academics are hours wasted improving your social standing, and can lead to complete cuts from social communities, ie, how 'geeks' are truly born. The sad fact is that in most young cultures the driving force are the most 'mature' (in a twisted sense of the word) ones. The ones that go out, party, and experience the darker sides of the world the fastest, are usually the ones who take up the reign as the popular crowd. And are usually the least inclined to diligent study.

Re:Sorry right wing but I have to do it...

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Umm... Not to rain on your parade, but David Brooks is an archetypal neoconservative. His opinion pieces have nothing to do with the political leanings of the New York Times. Secondly, the New York Times, with few exceptions, is still one of the most reliable and trustworthy sources of new out there. While it may have a liberal bent, and the Jayson Blair scandal tarnished it's reputation, it is still a far better source of news than any of the 24 hour news networks.

Some things that might be good on an edu TODO list

[jd]

• Differential test scores. Rating/paying schools by an absolute score just means schools get students who know the end result. Rating/paying schools by how much they've improved, relative to how much you'd expect them to improve given where they were at the start of the year, would tell you how much you've actually taught them versus expectation. Expect the results to be very different.
• Teach maths and science as interesting subjects. People can be enthused with these, but not if they're taught as if they're dead.
• Stream the kids by subject. I'd suggest 5 or even 7 streams, to prevent over-broad grouping. Also, don't just use absolute rate of learning. If a kid works better with the support of a peer-group, and the peer-group is in a different stream than the one the kid would otherwise be in, put the kid in the other stream or see if there's a workable compromise. Age should not be a factor - if we go by typical UK figures (and the UK has a lousy system too), there should be a Ruth Lawrence-like figure in the US each year, minimum. You can probably assume a properly-tuned system could achieve 3-4 such people a year in a country of the size of the US, and multiply up the graduates from Masters or PhD programs by a comparable factor.
• Improve student/teacher ratios. This doesn't necessarily mean over-small classes. A couple of assistant teachers improves the ratio without dividing up the class unnecessarily.
• DO NOT teach to the exam, teach the subject. Teaching to the exam just tells you how good students are at tests, and any student who is any good doesn't give a damn about what the exam needs you to know, they want to know what the subject requires you to know. The exam is merely a device to let you progress further or get a better job. The crap students want you to teach to the exam, because it means they don't need to understand anything, they just need to be able to recite the day after they pull an all-night crammer.
• Teach the subjects accurately and honestly. If a book is wrong or out-of-date on a topic, don't use that book for that topic. Kids can access the Internet and if they begin to suspect they're being fed bullshit on one thing, they'll regard everything you say as probably bullshit.
• DO NOT insist that something is beyond question unless there are sound reasons for contending that it is, and (most importantly) you're willing to present those reasons to any student that asks. Arrogance and ignorance are the hallmarks of a poor lecturer. If you don't know, don't insist.
• Students should WANT to spend as much time out of class doing their own research as they spend in class on that subject, above and beyond the time they spend on assignments. This places two additional requirements:
  • You need to tell them HOW to do research (including how to spot bogus claims and frauds) and suggest places to look
  • They need to be given a better reason than "because I say so" to do so - such as finding something that might be otherwise utterly trivial that is fascinating to them

This does not guarantee you'll actually get significantly better results, it merely guarantees that the more obvious bugs are fixed and that exceptional minds are not destroyed by tedium and an abusive environment. There are likely many other bugs that will prevent maximal gains.