UK: Pupils ‘debating social issues in science’
6th November 2010
Traditional school science is being dumbed down as teachers focus on social issues to make lessons more “relevant” to pupils’ lives, according to a leading headmistress.
And this is a problem in the U.S. as well. The problem lies, I suspect, in the fact that the teachers and administrators aren’t really convinced that science has any intrinsic value, and they are projecting those attitudes onto their students: After all, if I the teacher have doubts, then such doubts are natural, and so of course the students will have doubts as well.
Leaving aside the problems inherent in the increasingly common tendency for teachers and administrators to project their attitudes onto their students, I suggest that the problem is one of teachers and administrators losing their grasp on what education is all about. (I know: What a shocking notion.)
Most teachers would really rather be going on intellectual spelunking expeditions with college students than drilling pre-pubescent children, and so sort of reflexively try to intrude pedagogical methods suitable for semi-mature young people into what they’re doing with kiddies. This is always a mistake, and one that I am convinced is behind much of the deterioration of our ‘educational’ systems today.
Fortunately, we are increasingly gaining access to technology that can correct this problem. Prior to about age 12, most kids need facts and skills, not intellectual adventure (look at how schools a hundred years ago did things–and at what they, and their students, accomplished), and the best way to impart facts and skills is repetitive memorization, drilling, and testing–activities for which computers are ideal. When the time comes that automated processes are no longer appropriate, then the teachers can take over and play coach. Until we get such a system in place, our schools will continue to suck.
I am convinced that such a system will eventually arise, if for no other reason than that some desperate group of parents somewhere will try it because they’ve tried everything else, and it will be so successful that everyone else will either adopt it or lose the competition for educational excellence. But getting there will be painful, and a large part of that is the unfortunate fact that teachers as a profession are more ignorant about what they ought to be doing than almost every other field of endeavor.
November 8th, 2010 at 12:39
If you’re having trouble in your major in college, the easiest way to graduate is to change to an education major. For example, the credit hours required to TEACH chemistry is about 1/3 the number of hours of chemistry needed to get a B.S. degree. And you get to disguard those other silly requirements like foreign language, substituting modern education theory.
(Kids, if you memorize this, you can pass all of those education classes: “pre-test, post-test” – because you only want to measure the positive change and not how far the kid is from learning the subject, “positive reinforcement” – because there is no punishment for not learning until the kid ends up in prison, “passive discipline” – so the parents won’t sue the school district, “positive education experience” – i.e., it’s more important that the child ‘feels positive’ than that he/she/it actually learns something, and “gender neutrality” – because there are no differences between boys and girls except in reality.)
Beyond that, one must keep in mind that the school board for your district has absolutely nothing to do with education, except that sometimes education happens during the course of the operation of the system. School boards are all about spending money. A big district can handle hundreds of millions of dollars awarded to contractors and suppliers. Superintendents are hired to make sure principals stay in line and principals are directed to operate the schools in such a way that no parents go to the school board and interrupt them while they are letting out contracts to their friends and relatives.
Parents MIGHT stand up and change this public nightmare, but they won’t. They’ve been just as dumbed down by public schools and the media as the kids. There are powerful forces at work to keep the system the way it is: money, unions, politicians. Worried about your kids? Then you have to take it upon yourself to make sure they learn discipline and facts. And, no, I don’t think home schooling is a good alternative. One of the most important things kids need to learn is how to deal with other people. They won’t learn that on your kitchen table.
I guess it’s too late to keep this short, but I’ll stop typing.