Scientific Elites vs. Illiterates 689
Rackemup writes "An article at Technology Review examines how it's possible for the same education system to produce both scientific elites and illiterates. While the article is kind of hard on current Elementary school teachers (whom the author says are hostile towards the scientific studies because becoming an Elementary teacher is the only way to graduate from college without needing to take a single science course), he does raise the issue that if we gave these teaching positions the pay-level and respect they deserve it would be much easier to attract Doctoral-level people to fill them."
Not Surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
You can try to keep genius down, but you wont.
Improve public education all you want- the bell curve will always be there with a few at both ends. And the big middle has never been that smart, never will be.
Don't fight it, count on it.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
No, this guy's right. The biggest reason for the decline in what the average person learns out of high school in this country is the decline in qualified teachers.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'll agree, there probably are teachers that do not perform to standard. There are policemen that also don't. And doctors. And lawyers. And anything else that you can think of. But to carte blanche claim that teachers are the root problem is not only stupid and immature, it's also irresponsible.
What about the decline of family and social structure in America in the last fifty years? What about the incredible amount of personal freedom and power children have today (read the cover story from the 6 Aug 2001 issue of Time [time.com]). How about the comparitivly low salaries that high school and elementary teachers compared with other professionals with similar educations?
No, Rimbo, the problem is not teachers. The problems is people like you that refuse to accept responsibility for their own children, for failing to nurture and guide them, and then to quickly turn to the school teachers and blame them.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but it is generally accepted that children usually adapt the attitudes of those around them
while they are impressionable.
Yes American students perform worse on tests the children of other countries, but those countries have the some exact (well not exact) problems as us.
It's not about the Test scores, (any one will tell you they're not valid indicators of intelligence) but the fear of science itself.I mean just look at the debate going on with stem cell research. Not one piece of science has ever been brought into this debate.Some people are just afraid of science. This continues with computers. The rate at which people are getting signed up for the Internet who haven't before as greatly slowed, as people who are almost afraid of the technology.
They have kept students learning at a high level through good pay for teachers, extra school, more money for school, and a thousand other things.Teachers are better today then they were 50 years ago because of the development of better teacher methods. As anyone who has taken an intro college class knows, the professor can know every on the topic, but unless they know how to communicate that, they are worthless as teachers. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers take hundreds of hours of classes whose only point is to teach them how to communicate information.
Very true, and that is the point. Their spending so much time learning how to communicate things they're not learning what they need to be communicating.
It is one thing not to know but another to be afraid. One thing hit upon in the article is that people become under the impression that they are not able to learn the hard sciences. In elementary school, you don't necessarily need a teacher who has all of the answer but at least has the ability to look for them. So that when a child asks a question the teacher can go well I don't know, but lets find out. And then turn to a resource perhaps the 'Internet')than will allow the teacher to explain (simply) the answer to the student's question and furthermore to teach the student how to learn on their own.
Those who control the future, conquer the past.
Those who control the past, conquer the future.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Fifth, This whole separation of church and state thing. NEVER was today's situation meant to happen and our founding fathers are rolling over in thier graves. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for letting it come to this point. If you dig around, and find statistics, You will find that most of the bad features of America started right when God was removed from schools. Crime rate, Abortion, Murder, Premarital sex, The inability of the average person to keep their promises on anything. Think about it. The reason is so simple. Nobody feels like they are responsible to anyone, not even God.
Which leads us to Six. What is being taught in schools is so terribly inacurate. The driving force for most of early American history is the belief in God. Telling the American story without mentioning God is like trying to explain how a nuclear reactor works without explaining what fission is. "Oh well these rod thingies get hot and- Why? Well they just do. Trust me, I work for the govornment."
Speaking as someone who is rather fond of "This whole separation of church and state thing", I disagree. First, some of us are not Christians. Does this mean our children should be forced to learn your religion? Or perhaps "special shcools" are in order? Maybe they should just shuffle their feet and look vaguely uncomfortable everytime someone mentions religion. Heh, I was a teacher for a year. Do Wiccan teachers get to lead the children in Sabbats and Esabbats, or do only Christian teachers get to provide religous guidence to children? Public schools get paid for out of public money, and if they expouse your religious views over mine, they are creating a sitution of favoritism. Certainly you have the right (which you excercised) to teach your children your own views in your own way, but critisising the public system for trying to be as fair as possible is un reasonable. Imagine you lived in Salt Lake City where the majority of the population is Mormon. Would you want "God" to be in the schools there? Someone else's God? (I'm not knocking Mormons here, just using that as an example, since there are relativly few places in this country where "standard" Protesant Christian views are not dominant.)
As to your statement about about the the relationship of relgion to history, and the founding fathers.. I have to both agree and disagree with you. First, you are right that the history of this nation cannot be taught without mentioning God. Yes, here I am talking about the Christian God, his preceived will has been a dominatin force in outr nation's history. One point I disagree on is your implication that this has always, or even often, been a good thing. Christian sentiment in this country has been responsible for amonst other things in our history: Prohibition, the Red Scare, the Salem Witch Trials (No, I am not a rabid Wiccan who thinks that Witch trial were either common or even successful in US History, but Salem was a stand out), Slavery (Yes it was also important in abolitionist circles, I'll get to that), the near eradication of the native population of this contient, and more than one war. On the other hand it has also been responsible for the progressive movement (Which had its good and bad points, but was generally positive), abolitionism, recent movements toward Civil Rights for various respressed people, and various antiwar movements. Hardly a perfect record. I might also add that this country is far less violent than it typically has been in it's history, and you are attempting to compare today's modern "degeneration" to the imagined perfections of the late forties and the fifties. Even if they had been as beautiful as pop culture portrays them, they were an aberation in American history. And I rather doubt that too many black southerners who were alive then would pain the picture that Ozy and Harriet did.
As to the founding fathers, some 25% of the them were probably Deists, who really didn't have much to sasy on the subject of religion in the first place. As a rule, whenever people bring up the "intent" of the founding fathers, early Americanists kinda laugh. The truth is that only a small fraction of them left enough info about themselves to really get an idea what their "intent" was, and the of those that did, much of it is contradictory. The famous Jeffersonian "All men are created equal" from a slave owner is just one example. Most writings of his indicate that Jefferson KNEW slavery was wrong, but could not see a reasonable way out. The founding fathers were men of great courage certainly, but still, alas, human, and full of contradiction. While some may be turning over in their graves from the removal of Christianity from public schools, most are probably resting as well as their own deeds will allow them.
Why yes, I do have a BA in history that I hardly ever get to drag out.
Gah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yah, there's gonna be the big pile of average in the middle... but we can also ensure that the average distribution is centered on a higher value than the present system allows!
By increasing education, you raise the low, middle *and* high. We can't change the shape of the distribution, but we can certainly recenter it!
Re:Gah! (Score:2)
Step 2: Raise mean. Since your population is in control, this raises the entire population.
I think we're still working on step one, but people who don't understand statistics, and who want to see results now, are jumping the gun.
Funny =) (Score:2)
We can certainly decrease the variance to some extent, but there has to be a point of diminishing returns...
At that point I think we'll still be stuck with a distribution (gaussian, bell, whatever), with a low, median, and high value.
So how do we modify variance? There isn't a very good concept of quality control or quality assurance in our education system, is there? Throwing kids back a grade, holding them extra, etc, doesn't work to well.
Then there's the fact that different communities, regions, locales, etc, hold different values and standards...
Given we can't in good conscience homogenize our population (ethically, practically, or realistically), and we can't prune or stratify it for similar reasons... What can we do?
So why not move the whole curve up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, goody for it. Home schooling moves the bell curve up 30 percentile points, and I'm sure even that can be readily improved upon.
What's wrong with making the next generation's ``dummies'' better than today's ``average'' student, and the average drudge better then most of today's ``advanced'' students?
Pay (Score:4, Insightful)
My city of Cincinnati is far too busy building stadiums.
Re:Pay (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pay (Score:4, Flamebait)
Because in the USA "fiscal conservative" is a euphemism for "spend tax money on the things that fiscal conservatives like".
Bad system (Score:2, Interesting)
Something like this, ya mean... (Score:4, Funny)
"Not only that, I'm to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages."
"I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance checkbook and how to apply for a job."
"I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential anti-social behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others and, oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of my attention."
"I'm required by my contract to be working on my own time summer and evenings at my own expense toward advance certification and a master's degree; and after school, I am to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my employment status."
"I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority. I am to pledge allegiance to supporting family values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration. I am to incorporate technology into the learning, and monitor all Web sites while providing a personal relationship with each student."
"I am to decide who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions."
"I am to make sure all students pass the state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete any of the work assigned. Plus, I am expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps are guaranteed a free and equal education, regardless of their mental or physical handicap."
"I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter, phone, newsletter and grade card. I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45 minute more-or-less plan time and a big smile, all on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states."
"And you want me to do all of this and expect me not to pray?"
Re:Bad system (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that Education is a soft science, and actually does not have a practical scientific base. Which education systems produce the best results and why? Ask that question, and you get a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
You could ask the question of Linux distributions, and eventually you would get answers depending on the user experience and the intended application, and the operational enviroment. You could determine what the best practices are. You could get expert answers that work every time.
You cannot do that in education. For example you could try to teach writing. But even today, the writers on the best seller lists do not study writing for four years of college, etc. They just sit down and write, and they figure out on their own how other writers did what they did. The teach themselves. The best way to ruin a writing career is to have a college education in it.
There are many other fields which are similar to this. Even in the Tech Review article, it sounds like what happens is that the teachers spark the kids interest, and then the kids really teach themselves at a rate that far outstrips the books.
Part of this problem is the very education system that produced these teachers. How many people here said "To heck with that subject! I will never use that!"? Plenty.
The problem is that if you have a data vacuum in something, it is very easy to fill it in with junk. Does anyone here know what happens when you process with junk data? Garbage in = garbage out. (and then you get folks like GWB)
Also, if you have a data vacuum, it is very easy to try to excuse this away, to try to justify this ignorance. "It was just a stupid subject anyhow. It was not cool." and then you have greased skids to a hostile attitude.
Real expertise in education would have a fix for this type of thing. A teacher would know how to get themselves effectively educated in science, or any other subject of choice. And could do this for the students as well. The you wouldn't have parents and administrators trying to fix and cheat the scores
Don't hold you breath waiting.
- - -
Radio Free Nation [radiofreenation.com]
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
Then make the best of the bad system... (Score:2)
This sort of grade inflation is happening almost everywhere. One of the things high-quality teachers such as your friend can do is devise a grading system that allows students to know how they are truly doing, but still maps into the inflated grades parents and administrators insist on. Sure, unmotivated students won't care that they only need to make (say) 60 out of 100 for an "A". But the motivated ones will compete for the higher score, and thus will learn more than they would if the teacher simply dumbed down the classes and his/her own grading system.
And if they haven't learned the lesson already, those students will learn the difference between real learning and accomplishment, and grades. A pity that many of them will continue to focus on the latter.
Re:Bad system - by design (Score:3, Interesting)
The government education system was established specifically to destroy the ability of students to think. It is designed to instill the habit of receiving "wisdom" uncritically and regurgitating it on demand.
The roots of the US government school system go back to a heirarchical system devised by the Prussians after their defeat at the Battle of Jena. This system divided students into an elite, to be trained to set policy (about 0.5% of the population) a class destined to implement policy (about 3%) and the remainder, destined to obey their betters.
Currently, the students which pursue an undergraduate degree in education, as a _group_, are the academically weakest on campus.
The faculty teaching these programs are the least qualified.
The credentials required to teach in government school are earned through the study of various superstitions and fads, and the credential has no value at all outside of the government school system.
Intelligent, passionate teachers who take on the challenge of teaching in the government school system are thrust into a hierarchy which fights the concept of rewarding competence, and which is seniority based. Therefore the more intelligent and capable tend to leave for greener pastures at a higher rate than the incompetent and lazy. Therefore the percentage of intelligent and energetic teachers falls as seniority increases. The incompetent are running the hierarchy, and do so to protect their perks, against demands for accountability, or the threat of differentiation by merit.
The NEA is the largest contributor to the Democratic party, and uses its power, in part, to fight the rise of such threats to their interests as charter schools, private schools, and home schooling, each of which glaringly outperforms the government school system.
The victims are the "students" languishing in the government's clutches unlucky enough to lack support, outside of the "schools", for intelligent thought.
It's the money (Score:5, Insightful)
In the past (>20 years ago), most high-paying fields were difficult for women to get into. So lots of really smart women ended up teaching elementary school, even though the pay was pathetic.
Nowadays, teachers get paid a bit better, but still not nearly enough compared to other fields like law, medicine, or software. Some smart people go into teaching anyway because they're really dedicated, but they're a minority.
Re:It's the money (Score:2)
My observations exactly.
The professions of
all benefitted from societal norms pushing women into these fields that could have earned more with their intelligence in other fields. Like many, I've seen the nurses do 90% of the MD's job at 10% of the pay, and the same thing in relation to secretaries that would effectively run 90% of the business while The Boss would schmooze over 2 hour lunches and golf in the afternoon.
All 3 of these fields are getting set to take a big hit in terms of quality of service for the money over the next few years as those 50-something women retire.
Meanwhile, in my locale, the radio call-in shows are full of complainers about "high taxes" and "poor quality of teaching". Go figure.
I know the problem is more complicated than what it seems, but I for one am apprehensive about being an doddering 85 year old in a world of the kind of people that are products of the educational system that we deserve.
Re:It's NOT the money, it's the system (Score:4, Insightful)
It tells you no such thing. Parents of public school kids run the gamut from "cares a lot about the child's education" to "doesn't care about the child's education." The set of all parents who homeschool their kids filters out the "doesn't care" end of that scale. The filter that selects your "experiment group" (homeschool families) out of the general population also selects for other factors that tend to influence a child's rate of learning. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:4, Interesting)
So basically you have to have a job to live. But the low skill jobs are being automated because it's cheaper than paying you. So you can either go on wellfare or you can try to get an education to get a better job up the food chain. In order to get the eduation, you apparently have to have money (or at the least live in an area where there is money so that the schools have decent funding). And I'm guessing that if this is a situation you find yourself in you probably don't live in a rich suburb.
I'm sorry that all the rich people aren't filthy rich enough yet, but for god's sake, why don't we fund a decent education system. I think it's reasonable to set standards that insure the school system doesn't waste its time on people who don't care. But at the same time, people who want to learn should not have to pay a dime for it.
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, more money isn't the answer to our educational problems. In Washington DC, the schools spend about $9000 per student per year (figures from memory, but they're close). That's a lot of jack, and Washington DC public schools are horrible.
There are many problems; money isn't one of them.
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
"In Washington DC, the schools spend about $9000 per student per year (figures from memory, but they're close). That's a lot of jack, and Washington DC public schools are horrible."
Please do the math. Figuring 30 hours of school per week for forty weeks (numbers should be close to fact) that's only $7.50 per student per hour. Most yuppie parents would hardly blink an eye at that kind of rate for decent daycare.
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Your misrepresentation makes my blood boil - we overspend on education by a huge quantity.
30 kids in a classroom at $7000 a spent per student each year is over $210,000.00 dollers per classroom. The money is there. It's just being wasted on administrators, unions, fancy football stadiums, unnessesary travel, and leather chairs for the high mucky-mucks.
Japan spends $4500 and europe spends $5000 per student-year. The problem isn't money.
It ain't the money. (Score:2, Informative)
BULL***T (Score:2)
A better example would perhaps be Arizona. Arizona ranks near the bottom of per-pupil spending, and has equivalent results -- near the bottom. Arizona living expenses are average for the U.S. -- less expensive than NYC or the Bay Area, more expensive than places like Iowa.
Money isn't everything. But saying that Iowa spends less per-capita than New York City is ridiculous. You can buy a 4 bedroom house for $50,000 in Iowa. The equivalent monthly payments in NYC would rent a closet, maybe.
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
Money spent on education down 4%. money spent on prisons up 17%
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
It is extremely hard to set "standards" that are fair to all people involved. If you expect certain people to get good test scores on a "standardized test", then a significant portion of the population will learn just enough to pass the tests.
If we expect people to hold a certain GPA, then parents will flip out that their "brilliant" child couldn't have gotten a C- and not made it to the next level. They will blame it on the teacher (which wouldn't be *totally* unfounded, because not everybody teaches and learns the same way...)
The easiest and most favorable solution to the problem would be to *not* limit the amount a student can learn. Too often in my High School career, we were only allowed to learn what was in the text books, and any information presented outside of that context was deemed inapporpriate for the classroom.
This isn't the first time I've mentioned this, and most people respond, "well, how do we reflect this for college admissions." First, by even implying that this is for "further" education would make people that *don't* want to learn go through these programs and ruin the enviroment for those who do.
Secondly, does going to San Diego State University (where I went to school...it is known more for its parties than its academics) make you any dumber than if you attended a school like Cal-Tech, Harvard, MIT, etc? Intellectual stimulation shouldn't be about getting into the best college or getting the best job, but just the satisfaction of understanding something that you didn't understand before...
Money is only part of the answer (Score:2)
The reason? Respect. Back then teachers were seen like very important members of society; parents treated them with utmost respect, and children looked up to them and wanted to be like them. And they did a terrific job. Nowadays all everyone can think about is money, and the respect of the masses has shifted towards more money-oriented professions. Teachers are treated like dirt by pretty much everybody, no one wants to become a teacher anymore, and the education level has declined sharply. It's not always about the money...
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
The article is correct - education majors on average are less well educated and less intelligent that most other majors. This is obvious to anyone who has spent time at a college (except perhaps in education or some other soft and fuzzy field). This certainly has a negative impact on both the attitudes and information they convey to their students.
At the same time, we have had a movement to debase grading. "Outcome based education" and other profitable fads that have emerged from our "schools of education" downplay good grades and effort. A strange new egalitarianism likewise inspires parents and others to demand equal grades for all students, or no grades at all. So students are not motivated to work. This impacts science and math more than other areas because those subjects are much harder for most students.
Most of our population, and most of our teachers, don't even realize that they are scientifically ignorant. Ask them to state an opinion on global warming or nutrition or any other scientifically related field and they will be glad do so with confidence! We need to at least educate people about what science is so they can have some idea of how to treat the results of science, and how to evaluate their own level of knowledge.
An addition problem more-or-less unique to the US is the monopoly status of the government-run schools. Because of the extremely powerful teacher unions, they essentially control the debate in this issue (not to mention the Democratic Party). This means that the standard failures of bureaucracy (see Laws of Bureaucracy [tinyvital.com] ) are applied to our educational system - at least through the secondary level. It means that teachers and administrators cannot be properly rewarded or punished for their performance. It means that powerful social activists alter the focus of schools towards their particular biases, to the detriment of education. It means that the incompetent are protected, the effective are ignored, and the students suffer.
Finally, the scientific educational establishment has hurt this area. For example, the "new mathematics" movement resulted in more purity in elementary math education - no doubt to the benefit of those who would become mathematicians, - but to the detriment of everyone else. The focus at universities of creating PhD's means that the undergraduate courses too often are aimed only at potential PhD's and scare off the rest.
There are many problems with the scientific education of Americans, and I shared the author's fear of what this ever more ignorant populace will do as they apply their lack of knowledge to daily living and, worse, voting!
Public vs. private school funding (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it's still possible to directly compare public school and private school costs. Just don't include the religious (church-subsidized) schools. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, non-religious private schools actually spent *MORE* per-pupil in 1996 (the last year I have statistics for) than public schools did. Given that Catholic schools and non-religious private schools have similar student bodies and facilities, it's reasonable to expect that Catholic schools, once you add in the subsidies, have similar costs -- i.e., more expensive than the public schools.
In other words, Rush Limbaugh is a big fat liar. But you already knew that, right?
-E
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
Some in the field of Instructional Psychology have said it would be better to burn down every school in America than continue with the status quo. Whatever springs up to take its place will be better than what's there.
While I am not that militant, I do agree with much of this point of view. I'm working on my Ph.D. in computer-enhanced language learning, and I have run into some educators who really resent the use of media/computers in the classroom. I agree that these tools cannot replace teachers, but teachers who know how to use these tool will replace teachers who don't.
I spoke with one of the creators of one of the first large-scale Computer-Based Trainning courses at a major university (Bunderson, 1978), who told me that the first semester it was in place, they saw a 5% drop in test scores. At that point, some of the faculty jumped ship.
After four semesters, the non CBT teachers had raised their average 15%, but those who had stuck with the new set of tool, and adjusted their styles and methods around these tools, saw a 30%-40% jump in scores.
Educators cannot hope to instill a desire for life-long learning in students until they themselves are life-long learners. Rejecting new technology, or refusing to relearn and stay abreast of current teaching techniques are signs of just the opposite. These are traits of the teacher who is teaching because (a) it was the easiest path out of college, and (b) they would never succeed in industry.
I must say that I do not believe that all teachers are like this. In fact, the tide is slowly turning. And I am exremely grateful for every teacher I had who did not shy away from new methods. They gave me the desire to enter academia for good.
Re:Why don't we fund schools better?? (Score:2)
That's not true. School funding has risen something like 4-fold in the last 10 years.
Money is not the problem in the least. The public school system is fundamentally broken and hopelessly mired in bureaucracy.
Basically, the compulsory government school system is one of the biggest monopolies in the world. Neither the students nor their parents have any real control over the type of education they receive, save for the opportunity to participate in shouting matches at School Board meetings. The PTA is a joke - it's basically just a bake sale club.
IMHO, we need competition in education, so that a variety of alternative methods (like the Sudbury Model [sudburynetwork.org]) can be tried, and the best can rise to the top. The authoritarian, 50's-era blackboard and memorization method simply does not prepare students for anything resembling the real world.
Big money != Quality schools (Score:2)
At one point in my career I worked for several organizations on public education advocacy issues. Since I was the resident geek at these places, my boss at the time assigned me the unenviable task of researching the relationship between education spending and test scores. He hoped to convince the legislature that increased spending on public education would result in an improvement in public education.
I looked at the average per-pupil expenditures for the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I looked at the average scores on SAT, ACT, NAEP, and other nationwide tests. What did I find?
No correlation whatsoever.
I told my boss. He referred to the statistics and asked me to find three states --three states-- that I could plot on a graph to show that more money resulted in higher test scores. He didn't want me to show causation; just correlation. And not even solid correlation. Any positive correlation was fine for his purposes.
I couldn't.
There were not (as of three years ago) three states out of 53 jurisdictions where there was a correlative, let alone causal, relationship between spending and test scores.
Don't get me wrong; I support well-funded public schools and well-paid teachers, even if it means my tax dollars are being used.
But there is no substantive evidence that more funding than currently available will result in a superior education.
What's the solution? David Goodstein is right when he suggests that well educated teachers are required and that the teaching profession needs more respect. But that's only treating a symptom, not a root cause.
The way I see it, there are four problems:
What can we do about these problems? Get involved. Volunteer at a local school. Serve on a school site council. Run for the school board. Offer workshops for teachers. Tutor students. When the opportunity presents itself, vote in favor of reforms (no, that doesn't include school vouchers). There are many more ways, of course; you're smart (or you wouldn't be reading Slashdot!), You figure 'em out.
Did you factor in cost of living? (Score:2)
If you are going to use per-pupil numbers, you must use the local cost of living to adjust them if you wish to compare them. I would gladly go to work teaching in Iowa for $40,000/year -- that would put me in the top 10% of the population there. Teaching in the Bay Area for $40,000/year, on the other hand... what, you want me to take vows of poverty?
-E
Division of labor (Score:2)
Re:Division of labor (Score:2)
You mean, it doesn't take all that much know-how to write bad code. That, I can agree with, having had to clean up after too many of those so-called "programmers" who think they automatically become coders after reading a "for dummies" book. And don't even get me started about the notorious MCSE's we all know and love...
Who should teach (Score:2)
attracts many people who are pretty dumb. My theory is that someone
who enters college and is terrified of math and sciences reasons that
an elementary school teacher doesn't need much more than an elementary
school understanding of these topics. For elementary school, that
might well be OK. I don't really see the point of having M.Sc. and
Ph.D. level teachers in elementary school.
At high school, and maybe junior high, having this level of expertise
is wonderful. I was fortunate enough to go to a high school where my
math, chemistry, biology and physics teachers all had advanced
degrees and were dedicated, wonderful teachers. (The two are, of
course, not correlated).
At any level, the only criteria for teaching qualifications should be: ability to
teach, love of teaching, and mastery of the subject matter.
Too High Level a View (Score:2)
I think that there may be some truth to the idea that the system is flawed, but IMO the deeper flaws aren't where Goodstein thinks they are. The problem isn't that the system is focused too much on finding the scientists and ignoring others. The problem is that most science courses focus on science as knowlege, rather than science as process. The reason that people don't care about science and don't know how to apply it in their everyday lives is because they've been taught that science is about learning answers from scientists. If they were taught instead that science is about searching for answers to problems, they'd find it a much more attractive and practical subject.
Actually, though, I'm not at all surprised that Goodstein didn't notice that as a problem. Anyone who's seen The Mechanical Universe knows that it's about filling people's heads with facts, not about searching for knowledge. At least as a lecturer (and I had Goodstein for one term of introductory Physics as an undergrad) he's another one causing the problems.
Article sounds more like a rant (Score:2)
Or at least the author loses abunch of credibility with a general statement like this: because becoming an Elementary teacher is the only way to graduate from college without needing to take a single science course
I must admin I thought /. was misquoting when I first read that but it is in the article. This is a very generalized statement. The school I went to and most liberal arts school I've ever heard of makes all students take basic courses which include science. My beautiful and wonderful fiance' was an Elementary Ed major, in her major she was required to take a class for teaching science to children-- all elementary ed majors were because they would probably end up teaching it. The secondary ed people were the ones who could get out of it because in middle school and high school there is more specialization.
I'd love to see a little more proof besides just an overgenralized statement. I think the reason we have scientific illiterates is the same reason why we have illiterates in any given field-- because some people play the system, know the right people or have the right parents or the athletic scholarships all of which allow them to buy their way through school.
I agree with those other two guys (Score:2)
Pay level and respect (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't agree with the article that teaching high school is a job for PhDs. You don't get one of those unless you've made an original contribution to the science. These people are qualified researchers, and their time ought to be spent on adding to our body of knowledge. For this they require spare time and facilities that high schools simply can't provide. But there's absolutely no reason why people with master's (or even bachelor's) degrees can't do the job of passing on the knowledge that's already been acquired. Nothing on the high school level is beyond their abilities.
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:5, Insightful)
She recieved no respect whatsoever. The school treated teachers like children. Forcing them to attend 30 minute weekly meetings where nothing was accomplished. Allowing them very little input into the shape of their curriculum.
The principals she had were the most horrible managers I have ever seen. They undercut teachers authority to students, to parents, and to other teachers. After the first year she switched schools, because the enviornment at the first was retched. The second was no better. There is no support staff for teachers. Want to go on a field trip? Plan it, organize it, lead it, figure out how to pay for it, all yourself. Teachers at her school had 1 xerox machine, they would spend 20-30 minutes a day photocopying. Hours a day grading.
You want to make schools better, give each teacher access to a support staff. One full time, to help guide the kids, grade, photocopy, prepare. A pool of secretaries who can prepare some of those things. Throw out the rule that principals have to have been teachers. Let any good leader come and run a school.
Drum it into our society that teachers have authority. Make the process of overturning a teacher decision difficult. Currently teachers are powerless to fail students. The principal has to approve it. And parents know this.
What people don't realize is that salaries are not the main problem. The problem is the working enviornment. Fix that and people will be drawn to teaching. But a shitty enviornment with not extremely good pay isn't going to produce quality. That there are any good teachers is a minor miracle.
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't mind teaching at a private school, or a school full of bright kids who want to learn, but most public schools aren't even close to that.
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:2)
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:5, Insightful)
As a teacher, I can speak to this: By itself, pay is not really the deciding issue. But (most) teachers aren't dopes, and we understand this: in a society such as ours, importance is signified by money. It's the American way of keeping score. So when someone with two Masters is paid the lowest salary of nearly any profession, it sends a message about how highly the society values that person... or fails to.
Pay is a shorthand for many other issues, especially professionalism and respect. Those of us who teach understand that we'll never get rich doing it; but we'd like it to be a solid middle class career. None of my friends, all teachers under 35, expect to make teaching their full-life career or to live well doing it.
What is truly corrosive, though, is the lack of respect for the profession. You would never, ever think of telling your doctor, "Well, I could do your job if I wanted to take the time". Or, "I don't like your answer and I pay your salary, so tell me what I want." Yet teachers are often instructed to give kids the grades their parents want. I have met many blank stares -- and one or two outright laughs -- when I tell parents I can't recommend their kids for an advanced class because it would violate my professional ethics.
Pay might draw more people into teaching. Honest respect -- not "education president" lip service -- is what will keep them in the classroom. I continue because every year I manage to earn the respect of some intelligent, albeit young and inexperienced -- people.
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:2)
I'm a software engineer who is almost completely burned out. The only thing holding me back from considering a career shift to teaching is the miserable pay. I'd have to take a pay cut of at least 50%, and as the sole support of a family of four there's no way I can do that.
I think you've hit the nail right on the head. The only thing holding a LOT of highly qualified people (like you) back is the money. The wages truly are horrible, especially in comparison to the societal value of the job.
It stands to reason that the people that make the best teachers will be successful in other careers as well. If those other jobs pay more, then people will not go into teaching. Fun fact: The higher you score on standardized tests, the less likely you are to become a teacher. If you do become a teacher, the higher your scores are, the more likely that you'll leave teaching early. This isn't to bash teaching (or teachers), it's just to illustrate that the best and the brightest tend to go elsewhere.
Now, the obvious solution to me would be to offer pay commensurate with experience and ability. Higher wages all around, but especially for those with more experience/education and those that performed well. You'd be able to go teach without worrying about feeding the family, and we might actually attract "the best and the brightest" to teach our kids. The problem with that is twofold. First, our schools are sadly underfunded. Have you ever looked at an elementary school budget? It's just sad. Secondly (and possibly most important), "merit pay" has been opposed by teacher's unions and school administrators for quite a long time. There's a lot of teachers that wouldn't make the cut if we started grading them on their education/experience and job performance.
I think that teaching is a great and noble profession. I just think it's sad that our system doesn't produce the caliber of teachers that our students deserve.
Re:Pay level and respect (Score:2)
As a teacher entering my sixth year, I think I'm insulted.
Sadly, what you say is true. We lose a lot of sharp people because they cannot handle the pay scale. A lot stay, too. In America right now, teaching is a vocation. It attracts people who feel passionately about it; and a good number of those are educated, intelligent, effective people. But their motivation is trans-rational, like faith; it doesn't make sense on a strictly rational level. And so anyone with talent but without that drive, will migrate to a more highly-rewarded career.
Value of Teaching vs. Research (Score:2)
science education... (Score:2, Insightful)
America doesn't produce scientific elites (Score:2)
This is even worse, the whole education systems are not really producing. I have the feeling, the situation of scientific illiterates are getting worse (compare to before). There weren't many teachers with well training to teach science before, yet the situation now is worse than ever.
So, pay better to teachers could help, but there may be other reasons that students know less science. It is highly possible that developing a career in science does not get you as good life as you get an MBA. When everyone tells you that you just need to be able to ride certain wave of the rising bubble in the economy to get rich, you don't care what you should have learnt.
Re:America doesn't produce scientific elites (Score:2)
we don't need no stinking taxes (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one that can see the inherit contradiction there?
All children love to learn, its in their make-up, its who we as a race do extremely well. The problem is we all don't learn the same way. we need to find a way to teach children individually.
You should see the look on peoples face when I tell them I would support a 50 cent gas tax, if 49 cents went to education, and 1 cent went into overhead to suport the implimentation of the tax.
Re:we don't need no stinking taxes (Score:3, Insightful)
That's very true.
That's also very true. BUT wishful thinking is not sufficient. My mom happens to be a primary school teacher (outside the US, BTW), so she gets to teach kids the most important basics (read, write, count). She gets definite instructions along the line of what you're suggesting -- adapt to each child, etc.
Except there are other 20 children in her class.
Well, she's tried. Bottom line: the kids learn well. They love her. Their parents love her.
But she's stepping down after only 5 years of it, because she's worked herself thin, and she's in too bad shape to continue.
So, yes, we need to find a way to teach children individually. But that's not by just telling the teachers to do so, obviously. Problem is: is it possible to fund enough teachers for all the kids? If not, then what can we do? Will it be sufficient if the parents actively take part in their kids' education, like other Slashdotters are suggesting?
Response to Your Sig (Score:3, Funny)
> And what was easy, "To advise another."
Who gives a thit what Thales thaid? Tell uth what Thupport thaid!
Virg
Schools--why? (Score:4, Interesting)
-- Shamus
"Bleah!" -- overheard at a press conference
No kidding! (Score:2)
"The United States by any conceivable measure has the finest scientists in the world."
Well DUH! Because many of the best scientific minds from around the world come here because most of the MONEY and RESOURCES are here. If there's no money to do your research, there's no research.
If you want to attract the best employees to your company, you need to provide the BEST incomes, the BEST benefits, and the BEST work environments. Compare this theory with what our public school teachers get and you will see why the overall quality of teachers is so low. The starting pay is LOWER than an equally-educated person can get an office job. School levies get voted down when they look for pay increases for the teachers, often times because teaching is seen as a cushie job that gets a lot of time off. Subtract off of their salaries the monies that many teachers spend out of their own pockets to buy supplies for their rooms, as the schools cannot afford to buy it for them.
Damnit, teachers should be some of the highest-paid professionals in the nation and not some of the lowest!
No, I'm not a teacher. I'm not even related to one, unless you count my psycho mother-in-law. Did I mention the poor quality of teachers?
Unnecessary barriers to the field (Score:2, Interesting)
I know a few experts in science and mathematics who have mentioned to me that they would be more than happy to teach middle school and high school; however the requirement by my state that all teachers have a teaching certificate keeps them out of the field.
IMHO, there is no reason a person who has spend 40 years of their life teaching calculus and higher mathematics should be forced to take child psychology courses and sensitivity training in order to prove to a state agency that they can teach. Retired programmers and electrical engineers have an expertise in their fields that I'm sure more than a few of them would be glad to pass along, even on a part time basis, but the requirement of a teacher certificate--and the hasssle and expense required to obtain one once you have already graduated--precludes them from this sort of activity. Activity that a few professionals I know would be happy to do on a volunteer basis.
Low pay is absolutely a factor in keeping people out of teaching. But the certification process (and the unions that create and support them) are creating unnecessary barriers to the field of teaching that is lowering its quality as well. These barriers are keeping older professionals from entering the field in deference to providing more opportunity to younger teachers who choose to get a teaching certificate along with their four year degree. Frankly, I would have preferred to take a course in calculus from a mathematician or biology from a retired M.D. than from a newly graduated layman.
-Stridar
The irony of a physics major (Score:2)
What's my point? It's that most of the time, college is no longer where folks go to broaden their minds. Instead, they go there to hyper-focus on their chosen field. The core requirements of most universities encourage this - there are always 'cheats' like an easy Human Sexuality class taking the place of real science course that let people avoid taking classes that would require them to broaden their perspectives (and possibly threaten their GPA's for grad school).
Real Science is Pretty Dull (Score:2)
The article made me think back to one of the engineering physics courses I took in college. I'd sometimes get in a few minutes early and catch the previous class leaving, which was the A&S Intro to Physics class. I would sit down and watch as a few students milled around afterward, talking excitedly to the professors. Around them were the remnants of whatever demonstration took place that day, usually some combination or dry ice, lasers, and pneumatics. Pretty cool looking stuff, I could see why this excited some of the A&S students there.
Then the front of the room would begin to rotate (the physics lecture halls had a turntable so the professors could prepare behind the scenes) and my professor would slide into view. He would have about half of the chalkboard filled with equations and be hurriedly working on filling in the other half.
That to me is the wall of science. You can come up with all the cool analogies and demonstrations you want and get people excited, but dig into it at all and it becomes a lot harder. Yet you really can't understand science unless you understand the math that backs it up. I don't know what the authors of that article expect, but I don't think they're being very realistic
Disagree! Chigau! (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20827&thres
You've described two things in your post: Why science is cool (the measurable, demonstrable things) and why science is hard (the explanation, the theory, the model)
Duh, it's harder. It's because you don't know it. Just like (as an example) Japanese is hard if you don't know it, or cooking tender pot roasts, or building a deck and patio, or laying a brick walkway.
Those skills are learned, and take patience, and practice, and effort.
People figure out how to cook gourmet meals. They learn the construction trade, they manage to speak Japanese. Why would it be impossible for them to understand lasers, and cavitation, and sublimation, vapor pressure, evaporation, Van Der Waals radii, or accretion disks, event horizons, etc?
We're science dummies (Score:4, Interesting)
because science is boring to non-scientists. Most of us couldn't give a ripe shit about science.
Honestly, it's a little disingenuous to whine about the state of science education in America -- the same complaint can be made about literature.
Get over it -- science nerds are just like any other type of nerd. Nerds live in a Nerd Ghetto, surrounded by AOL Barbarians. Quit your whining, pick up a stick and make a few rounds around the walls unhooking grappling hooks and pushing seige ladders away from the wall and into the moat.
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
The difference is that science has vast impact on social policy and the technology which we depend upon. Literature may give us great insights into human behavior (although I would contend history is better), but it is not particularly relevant to the major issues of the day.
I too am bothered by the grammar seen too often today, but one can learn grammar without avoiding science, and in any case, literature and poetry will do little to help in that regard.
Furthermore, it is better that one be able to produce understandable writings than to produce elegant or even grammatically correct ones.
and this non-sentunce is ungramtikal and filled with bad spelled words, but I bet you understand what I am commmunicatin!
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
Science is fact. Learning science is learning how to determine facts and separate them from speculation.
Good Scientists Communicate Well (Score:2)
Yes, I understand you, and now I understand you to be a moron. That's undoubtedly an unfair assessment, but it's a view you cultivate in that last sentence.
Richard Feynman was scientist and a teacher [pitt.edu] of science. He used communication skills well - while his science would not have been different without them, his impact would.
Another side of the coin would be Wolfgang Goethe, most heralded and remembered as a poet, but whose work in the area of science [ensc.sfu.ca] was significant as well. To Goethe, literature and science were part of the same whole.
Most people, obviously, aren't Goethe or Feynman. And perhaps I shouldn't bite on trolling like this. But studying literature isn't any more useless than studying calculus - no subject is inherently valuable. What use you make of either one is what's important.
Bringing this back on-topic, my wife is an elementary school teacher. She has an engineering degree and a degree in education. Parents of the children she has taught over the past four years tell me she's great, and I'm not surprised.
The engineering degree doesn't make her a good teacher. The education degree doesn't make her a good teacher. She has math and science aptitude, as well as a passion for reading and history, and those things help. But what helps most of all is that she cares about the kids, and she does what she can to help them individually - to understand their interests, skills, and weaknesses enough to tailor the presentation of the material so they can absorb it.
Those soft skills are what have a "vast impact" on the society around us, because they're what connect those kids with the subjects they're supposed to be learning. Science is useful, and it's one of many things she wishes to teach, but IMO, her "liberal arts" skills are what ensure that the science gets learned.
Re:Good Scientists Communicate Well (Score:2)
In addition to your examples of Richard Feynman & Wolfgang Goethe, I'd add Albert Schweitzer (music, religion, philosophy, & medicine) and Leonardo DaVinci (scientist, inventor, & artist).
I don't think people are bored of science. (Score:2)
Science is not boring to non-scientists... Where science is defined as:
The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
People aspire to science when they think they have the market cornered and start to daytrade... they assume scientific principles and knowledge and understanding, even if lacking the training normally ascribed to scientists.
People aspire to science when they think they have the local traffic patterns down, and learn to drive within those conditions.
People aspire to science when they play with their cooking, crafting new forms of joy and pleasure with their food.
People aspire to science when they think they've figured out men, or women, or boys, or girls, or whatever. They have models, and theories, and examples, and laws, and hypotheses, proofs, and experiments.
People aspire to science when they use their own computers, figuring out what causes it to lock, to crash, to stall, to slow down, to pause, and avoid those conditions.
It isn't science people are bored with... it's the lectures, the classes, the teachers, the expectation of science, without the understanding of what science is!
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
Consider the fact that nearly every newspaper in the country prints a daily horoscope. Imagine what could be taught if they had a little "Science Fact of the Day", a paragraph or three explaining, say, why the sky is blue. Most of the science that I would consider basic literacy level is really simple stuff. You don't have to be Michael Faraday to understand how a motor works and you don't have to be Albert Einstein to understand that Isaac Newton didn't "invent" gravity.
Imagine a country where people knew enough science that Slashdot didn't keep reporting on cold fusion developments to the enthusiastic approbation of half the respondents, or where people knew why it is disingenuous to talk about Chernobyl when discussing nuclear power safety in the United States. Imagine...yew-hooo-oooohh-uh-oooh.
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
Now *MATH* instruction at the elementary school level... but even that has gotten better recently. The NCTM math curriculum reforms may have been roundly blasted by the fundies, but given the abysmal math education of most elementary school teachers, they were at least better than nothing and probably the best that could be done with the current teaching pool.
Re:We're science dummies (Score:2)
Self serving? (Score:2)
He's trying to be generous, helpful, and altruistic here!
He teaches at a school that accepts 220 students a year undergrad, maybe 200 a year grad! He's not going to get more work, or more quality, or more anything by fostering more science (except perhaps fame and reknown as the person who pushed it out)...
Even granting that amount of gain onto Prof. Goodstein, the good for society and for each individual involved more than compensates for the gain he himself gains.
As an analogy:
The guy inventing and pushing PGP for privacy and security is being self serving in trying to push the technology (so that he can gain both privacy and security in his online transactions). Granted. Fine. But what about the gain everyone else gains as well?
Don't dismiss Prof. Goodstein's motives just because he gets something out of it; it's the value of what everyone else gets out of it that makes the big difference.
Lower your nose for a minute (Score:2)
My other bone to pick is that not everyone needs to be a Ph.D. in science (I say this being a student of electrical engineering). I started out as a Physics major. I switched to engineering because it's more commercially viable. Certainly pure sciences are valuable (I'm considering getting my Masters in Physics), but we don't need everyone in the world to be a Physicist going around with an elitist attitude. In fact, I'm glad that there are carpenters and plumbers and landscapers and other people with little or no science education. A lot of those people don't want science degrees because it doesn't interest them. Just like professional carpentry or plumbing or landscaping don't interest me. Diversity is not a bad thing.
What good would a PhD do? (Score:2)
As it is, most kids just want to be entertained. A few would like to learn everything they can. A a small number just want to make a ruckus. The teacher will spend half her time keeping the first group busy, a little bit of her time marvelling at the second group, and the rest of his time trying to not be shot by the latter. Meanwhile they've got parents screaming at them to teach their dumbass kids who won't sit still for 10 minutes to be great literary masters for a pauper salary and without raising their voices. If there is a problem it's the teacher's fault. And if they ever try to shield their faces when little Johny spits at it, the parents will raise hell in court.
The only sane thing to do is give up on teaching and be what you really are...a child care manager. And that doesn't take a PhD. Just nerves of steel and a penchant for pain.
Besides, elementary school is as much about developing character as instilling knowledge, and I don't see a PhD being a credential for developing character in children (it wouldn't hurt, it just doesn't help.)
The other problem is that anyone dedicated enough to one subject to get a PhD will go insane in the topsy-turvey land of pre-college school. You don't cover one subject to understanding. You constantly jump from one to another, always disoriented. (why the hell do they have 50min classes in the US anyway?) A high school science teacher has to teach chemistry, then physics and then possibly biology. And if they try to teach with any depth, they'll immediately loose most of the class.
PhDs in classrooms == bad idea.
You will be a prison warden. Phd's need not apply. (Score:2)
Freaked out by violence, threats, and weapons in the schools, most big city high schools have backed off from the entire enterprise of education and have devolved into holding cells for teens who are increasingly violent in their protests against these institutions.
No one with a Ph.d is going to want to walk into a big city school and listen to the trash talk and threats from the students and the mindless drivel coming from the adminstration. Its a crappy job.
Goodstein (Score:2)
widely used in colleges?! hell, i've been out of college for 8 years and i still watch all 26 episodes twice a year... ya think it would have sunk in by now...
lowbrow general attitude (Score:2)
considers science difficult and mysterious.
Youngs are especially told this.
I was raised to percieve science as masculine and
exciting.
Does not surprise me in the least. (Score:2)
However, I am Canadian, and I do not know if the rules for elementary teachers are different here.
Still, it does not surprise me in the least. In the course of my life I have run into only *five* people who were not Science Professors (or my parents) who truly understand critical thinking and Science.
I am still shocked by that.
The scientific method is not that hard to grasp - I got it in grade 8. Thats when I realized that it was a powerful tool for testing falsehood. I have been using it ever since.
Carl Sagan condensed these tools further into the following rules from the Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. [xenu.net]
If you are one of the few who understands these rules and applies them then you understand what I mean. I would dearly love to see the population at large appreciate science more, but as it is which gets more viewing? The Learning Channel or Fox?
The sad truth is not the teachers - but the population at large. Some people just don't want or care to know the answers, they just don't have the fundamental curiosity.
Maybe the article is correct. Children do have the fundamental curiosity - and that would be the best time to teach them.
Still - culturally we are left with statements like this from our leaders:
"Why should we subsidize intelectual curiosity?"
-- Ronald Regan
All geeks start out seeking approval (Score:2)
The problem is not science education which frankly most people, even bright young people care about. It's that young scientists, those in physics, math, chem and engineering in particular who get pissed off and disillusioned later in life because no matter how much they achieve the dumbbot who used to swirl his head in the toilet or burn off her hair with a Bunsen burner still hates them, is probably their boss and is more successful anyhow. Teachers are angry because of the lousy teachers that give the good ones a bad rep. Plain and simple.
Once again the Ivory Tower speaks... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article.
I then laughed.
I then cried, as I realized that the misguided views show there are by far the majority opinion of the "elites" in the University system.
Goldstein has no clue as to what it means to be an Elementary teacher, nor even a clue as to what we should be trying to aim for in our Elementary system. He's looking at it from the Ivory Tower, where all 1st graders are simply younger versions of the grad students he sees; they don't know as much, but you should obviously be able to teach them the same way.
Bullshit.
And to all the people above who post that anyone with "field" experience in a discipline should be able to go right into a teaching position without finishing a teaching certificate: knowing the subject material has very little to do with knowning how to teach the subject material.
I don't know what schools Goldstein looks at, but the vast majority of schools providing teaching certificates require several basic-level science courses to get a degree. In PA where I grew up near one of the big "teacher's colleges", a typical Elementary Education teacher would take a Biology and Physics class (about at the same level as advanced AP Physics), which should impart a really good understanding of what science is about, if not a real breadth or depth of scientific knowledge.
In reality, the type of people who have long industry experience, or many advanced degrees you would NEVER want in an Elementary teaching position. The job requirements are completely different. Being smart isn't enough: you need the proper training.
Being a Elementary teacher is primarily socio-psychological: you're attempting to impart some basic knowledge of how things work, and how to function in a society. Without a foundation of solid skills and (rather rote) knowledge to build on, there isn't any hope of producing a free-thinking, creative, explorative mind. Middle-school and high-school is where we need to focus on taking the student on new paths and move away from rote-learning. Elementary school is for making you a basically-functional citizen.
Final lesson: never let the PhDs run primary or secondary education. They have their own agenda, and have no clue as to what they're really dealing with.
If you want my opinion, the vast majority of primary and secondary school teachers are doing a good job. Sure, there are a minority of bad teachers, but the major problems don't lie with the teachers: they lie with the school boards, the administrators, and ultimately, the parents. Fix the things wrong there first, then worry about the teachers.
-Erik
Superstition is as rife as it ever was (Score:4, Interesting)
One simple example; in this city as part of the treatment process the tap water passes through six feet of sand. Many people won't drink this water until they've passed it through a filter of a couple of inches of small stones, then somehow it is safer. For some reason "they" (technical or qualifed medical people of any type) can't be trusted to provide safe water (or medicine or whatever) "for the children". A survey of bottled water in Australia a few years ago found surprising amounts of biological material, far more than you would find in any town with an adequate water supply.
A more divisive example; the debate over genetic modification of crops - it is assumed by many that they can be geneticly modified by eating these crops. Any technical argument for or against is ignored in favour of the emotive argument, fed by moralistic disater movies that tell us "Don't mess with mother nature." The ironic thing is that the people who will rush out to trample a crop that may be a secretly modified test crop eat "natural" vegetables, grown indoors to keep the insects off, and grown hydroponically in a cocktail of chemical fertilizers, because somehow that is trendier than growing them in the ground and using less fertilizer. This perception has scuttled projects like one to produce vaccines from geneticly engineered bananas. Somehow, growing your medicine is less desirable than the enormous number of pharmacuetical plants that would be required to match what you do with such a crop. Being able to breed food crops have a high yeild and require less nutrients is also a good thing. Many will argue that these crops will never get to the nations that need them, but that's a way to feel better about opposing something that could help millions.
A lot of the "folklore" that people believe is of very recent origin. My grandmother was in her thirties before the term "Ley Line" was thought of, and that was used to describe the sites of old road. The zinc=virility thing comes from the story of Cassanova (not the most reliable of info!) eating lots of oysters. Oysters are filter feeders and pick up a lot of heavy metals such as zinc in areas where mining and industry puts it in the water. Therfore, with a dab of fiction and a stroke of sympathetic magic, zinc=virility. Zinc is important for other reasons, but it comes in every green plant.
Herbs: Many are useful and have been known about for some time, but a lot of people believe (by the magical law of sympathy perhaps?) that all herbs are good, and many are superior to medical technology. I suppose that I'm lucky that I know that there is a lot of flora that will kill things that try to eat it, or sting and scratch things that get close to it. Natural != good. Strychnine is natural.
IAAP (Score:2)
attractive. To put my estimate on numbers,
I think that if teachers in schools earned
$100K per year there'd be a significant
increase of people striving to be teachers.
You make that number $70K and you get a small
extra trickle of teachers. At current levels
you get a drying supply.
Overall, social elites would have to do more than
pay teachers more. Politicians would have to
influence Hollywood to make science cool. Then
I think a certain code of professionalism and
pride in one's work would grow among teachers,
because they'd be paid well and duly admired.
Within a generation we could have good schools.
That's like putting lipstick on a hippopotamus ... (Score:3, Interesting)
True, elevating the status of the teaching profession will attract better and more qualified teachers. But have you heard the cliche, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!"? Providing great teachers will help the kids who want to learn. Of course, the kids who want to learn have many places to get information today, namely the library, internet and cable channels like TLC and Discovery.
But the root problem is that most kids don't want to learn. They're more concerned about their clothes, hair and coolness factor than acids, bases and ph levels. "What do I need to know that for?", is the battle cry I've heard so many times from young and old who choose to live a life of ignorance. They then proceed to tell you how they don't care to know this or that detail because it is a waste of time and they'll never need to use the information. To these people, scientific knowledge is an affliction which fills their precious memory cells with
"useless" information. These cells might otherwise be more valuable by containing information on which hollywood actor is doing which actress this week.
You won't make science interesting to these kids until you can relate it to their base drives: food, fashion, sex and the quest for being cool. Relate Newton's laws of motion to how women's breasts move, both with and without a bra, and you'll have a standing room audience for your class. Speak about the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate, while relating it to dopamine and pleasure centers in the brain and you'll have students begging to take your class. Show them a probability distribution that shows their chance of having a nice salary and pretty wife based on their years of education completed and you'll keep them in school far better than any other method.
If none of that works, skip the Phd's -- hire strippers.
Sex, Cars or Computers? [sexcarsorcomputers.com] or Should We Be Together? [shouldwebetogether.com] - you choose
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:2)
In my experience, people who study science are much more broadly educated than people who don't (which seems obvious). But physics majors I've known have non-science interests (frequently music, interestingly) at a much higher rate than English majors have science-related interests. (Actually, have you ever noticed that many non-scientists consider technical stuff to be beneath them?)
As for myself, I studied biology, physics, and electrical engineering as an undergrad; I'm getting an MD and a PhD in neuroscience. As an undergrad, I took classes in history, political science, writing, and American literature. By coincidence, I was also heavily concentrated as an undergrad in theatre arts, so I do happen to know a little Shakespeare. And I still maintain an interest in almost all of those things, and regularly read about them.
But I don't consider myself unusualy well-rounded among others in science I encounter; on the contrary, I'm frequently impressed by the other interesting things that they do.
Why not? (Score:2)
As an example from my history (bad argument, to extrapolate from a single case to a trend, but it's an illustration and not a generalization)
Took physics: Relativistic, Quantum, Statistical, Mechanical, Electrical. Sucked at most of them
Took math: Multivariate calculus, statistics, differential equations, etc. Sucked at most of them.
Took liberal arts: Philosophy of Science (reductionist thought, atomic thought, etc), Art History, Japanese, Creative writing, Ethics in Science, American History of the firs Settlers, Survey of Chinese Culture, Chinese Literature and Culture, etc.
Given how long people live, how much leisure time there is, how much the world is expected to change within someone's lifetime, now, why *shouldn't* we expect people to be brought up well rounded in everything? Why not give non-science majors backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, and statistical physics? Yeah, it's hard... but pretty soon that should become commonplace and then we can all reserve quantum, string, and unified physics for the physics majors...
I'm have a good 50, 60 years ahead of me. Why should I be ignorant of culture and literature and philosophy?
My neighbor, similarly, should have a grounding the in the science, computing, and maths that will shape his life too.
Duh! (Score:2)
Not only that, he's famous for his Mechanical Universe text/videos =)
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:3, Interesting)
David Goodstein almost certainly knows a fair bit of Shakespeare. From my interactions with him back when I was a TA in his Physics 1 class at Caltech, he's a pretty well rounded guy. I doubt that the accusations you are levelling are founded at all.
More to the point, Goodstein's point is that nobody is well rounded enough in *science* any more, and that (whether you agree or not) that is nowadays perhaps the most important subject for a well-rounded person to have some basic grasp of.
-Rob
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now on to your other point, there is no reason for everyone to know everything about physics, but they should know the basics of how the universe works and what science is about. The people making public policy decisions about science do not typically come from a scientific background. Shouldn't they at least know how progress is made in science, what the purpose of science is, and be able to distinguish between popular "scientific" fads and real science? I remember when the SSC was killed, one senator was pleased that no more money would be spent on "an esoteric toy for a small group of scientific ellites." Had she actually taken a modern physics class, she would have known how much our current economy (and entire society) depends on the discoveries made from earlier "esoteric toys." That's why people who claim to be educated should be educated in science.
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:2, Funny)
Professor Goodstein happens to be very active with the Caltech drama club and the Pasadena Playhouse. (Or at least he was when I was there a few years back.)
I actually saw him performing Shakespeare.
I attended Caltech, where Professor Goodstein taught freshman physics. He was one of those rarities: a tenured professor that still loved to teach. I believe that he is honestly motivated by reaching out to people and watching the spark of knowledge kindle.
At that time, he was also active with the L.A. county school system, trying to improve science education for the entire system. (And that's in addition to being Vice-Provost.)
You might consider learning something about an individual before you stereotype them.
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:2)
One correction: "What did he take in the liberal arts field?" was supposed to read "What did we take"... I didn't mean to attack him... mea culpa.
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is only a general rule and of course varies tremendously in individuals, but I have seen it borne out well during the fifteen years I've been thinking about it. Science and engineering types are well aware of literature, art, music. Many work consciously to improve their appreciation of same. But very few of my English Lit friends read Scientific American, much less Q.E.D.. Their eyes glaze over at even the most elementary science or technical discussion.
Look at it this way: When I was in college, as a physics major, I had to take
Note that the school differentiate among philosophy, social science, and humanities. But for non-tech majors, all of physics, chemistry, biology, mech engineering, chem engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer science, continuous mathematics, and discrete mathematics were lumped together as the undifferentiated blob "math/sci". And fuzzies only had to take a total of two math/sci courses.
Techies are more well-rounded because the current system forces them to be. And I like it. Don't compromise the techies; force the fuzzies to the same depth and breadth in the sciences as we were expected to have in the humanities.
Re:Umm... how much shakespeare does this guy know? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the point? (Score:2, Funny)
Stars in other galaxies can have influence upon our lives.
John Edwards talks to the dead.
Fire, Earth, Air and Water are elements(in addition to the periodic table elements)
A heavy object will fall faster than a light one.
The earth is 6000 years old.
People don't know how the world works and sadly a lot can't be bothered to find out. And even sadder, you've got people who want to foist their ignorance on the rest of us as fact.
Washington state just authorized a college offering a degree in astrology. I kid you not. I took a community college course in parapsychology my senior year of high school. Encouragingly enough, the UW didn't award me credit for the class when I transfered there.
Check out how prevalent Urban Legends are and how easily people believe them, not to mention how difficult it is to shake people free of their belief.
Conclusion: People are stupid. Avoid contact with them at all costs.
Unless they're cute and good in bed.
Re:Public education didn't produce the few geniuse (Score:2, Insightful)
For me though, my love of math's and science came about because my father got me interested in it from an early age, and I do wonder whether or not I would have discovered it to the same extent if I had been left to my own devices. I somehow get a feeling that I wouldn't have...
Re:Public education didn't produce the few geniuse (Score:3, Insightful)
other cultures value scientific education (Score:2)
education. Education is a means to money.
In many other cultural traditions- east Asian,
south Asian, Jewish, etc., education is
valued in its own right.
Re:Missing letters. (Score:2)
Re:Class divisions between educators.. (Score:2)
Erm, excuse-me, but where the heck did you pull that out from? My mom is a primary school teacher, in a country where the government gives this kind of orders to schools (let's all be an utopian crowd and hope children will pull grammar rules out of their rear end!), and the result is a freaking disaster. My mom sometimes get 10 or 11 years old kids that can barely read, write or count, because so far what they've done is mostly draw and sing and play with so-called educational tools. Because she believes in her job, she works herself thin to help EACH of them catch up. And the kids love her, and the parents love her, but her school is giving her a HARD time because she goes against the (lefty) government's will. She's going to have to step down, because she's in no physical and mental shape to continue.
Now don't take me wrong. It IS necessary to give kids a chance to do their own things, to learn their way, etc. But to expect them to learn arbitrary things such as grammar and arithmetic without actively teaching them, well, excuse-me, but this is bullshit. A teacher is here to 1) teach the kids the arbitrary stuff, 2) give them the taste to explore their own fields of interest (which my mother makes sure to do). Without BOTH those points, elementary school education is crap.
Re:Doctoral-level Elementary teachers (Score:2)
Case in point. My daughter turns four in September. She'll be starting JK. She can read, she can count (including by basic multiples,) she can identify and differentiate between such things as similies and metaphors. She can use computers better than half the people in my office. We take her to the park, and somebody says "How old is she?" We tell them, and they say "oh, so is MY daughter!" who is invariably some blank eyed kid sucking on a pacifier.
The difference? My child wasn't raised by Jerry Springer and Maury Povich. My child didn't go 'potty,' didn't want a 'baba.' My child used the toilet, and asked for a bottle. Guess what? Treat your kids like adults, and you get adults. Treat them like retarted babies, you get retarded babies.
Re:A PhD may not guarantee, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Competence in one very specific area. I knew a PhD who could tell you all you wanted to know about physical vapor deposition, but ask him to find the position of a ball dropped from a roof (typical physics question) and he didn't even know where to start.
On the other hand, my high school physics teacher could answer almost any question you threw at him. If he didn't know, he'd look it up and get back to you. Wanna know what his qualifications were? He was an EMT who got tired of dealing with highway fatalities all the time.
More than anything else, teachers need to be able to relate to the people they are teaching. If they cannot communicate with their students, then any level of competence is not going to help. Teachers need to be able to present the information in a way that their pupils can digest. I have often found that the most brilliant practitioners are the worst teachers because they assume that their students are on their level.