[regional_school] The Disciplines
- From: William Cala <wcala9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: regional <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:18:38 -0400 (EDT)
If you were at my presentation on the Regional School on September 22nd, you
heard me speak at length of the problems in which we teach the disciplines. The
article below should be a reminder that teaching the way we have been made to
teach will push students further from where we want them to go.
Bill
SCIENCE IS FAILING TO INSPIRE SOME:
PROMINENT EDITOR CALLS FOR OVERHAUL OF HOW DISCIPLINES ARE TAUGHT
Houston Chronicle -- April 10, 2009
By Eric Berger
Across the land, students in science class diligently memorize human
cell components like DNA, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. They
learn to rigidly order the natural world, from kingdom down to species.
And - most disturbingly, say a growing number of scientists - they learn
to hate science.
Advocates cite many problems with science education, such as teachers
lacking a science background. But perhaps the most critical issue, they
say, is standardized testing that forces students to memorize and
regurgitate.
"Students don't need to know what an endoplasmic reticulum is," said
Bruce Alberts, editor of the journal Science and former president of the
National Academies of Science, who has called for a "revolution" in
science education.
"Bad tests are forcing a trivialization of science education and drive
most students away from science. Real science is exciting. It's
completely different from these textbooks."
Yet change may be afoot in Texas, with some legislators calling for a
re-evaluation of the influence of TAKS testing. And some science
educators see opportunities to change science class from a dull exercise
in memorization to inquiry-based learning.
There's no shortage of smart people tackling the issue, like Nobel
Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, who argues that children should
be taught physics first in high school in order to grasp the broad
outlines of the natural world.
"I've been working at it for a long time," he said. "We're not doing
well. Meaningless testing is a bad thing. If we want scientific
literacy, then we want teachers to teach the beauty of science, the fun
in it, the humor in it, and to bring examples of modern science into the
classroom."
U.S. Falls Behind
American students finish near dead last among developed countries in
math and science testing, and they're turned off at an early age.
Foreign students now earn six out of every 10 engineering doctorates at
U.S. universities. Just one-third of U.S. undergraduates earn a degree
in science and engineering, while nearly two-thirds of Chinese and
Japanese students do so.
A recent report on U.S. economic prospects in the 21st century, /Rising
Above the Gathering Storm/, concluded that leadership in scientific
endeavors was crucial to success. By extension, the report found it was
necessary to "vastly improve" America's talent pool through science,
math and technology education.
Some schools are trying to do it differently.
At the Houston Independent School District's Cornelius Elementary
recently, groups of fifth-graders were seated around tables where one
student wore a name tag that said, "principal investigator."
Each table received a white coffee filter filled with mealworms, a type
of beetle larvae. They examined the worms with magnifying glasses, and
not a minute passed without the teacher asking a question. Hands shot up
each time in response.
Given pieces of wet and dry paper, a stopwatch and a metric ruler, the
students were then instructed to devise and conduct their own
experiment. Their choices varied, such as whether mealworms traveled
faster or slower over wet paper, or how far they could go in one minute.
This was science. It was fun and engaging.
"The science lab allows the student to have a hands-on opportunity,"
said Sandra Antalis, HISD's elementary science curriculum manager.
In 2004, HISD began spending $4 million to put science labs on all of
its 189 elementary school campuses, and fifth-graders beat the statewide
average in recent standardized testing, she said.
Problems with TAKS
But the system's still not ideal. At magnet schools like Cornelius,
there's a lab teacher for each grade providing specialized, interactive
instruction. At most schools, there's just one lab teacher for all grades.
Additionally, educators remain concerned there's only so much
inquiry-based learning that can be done in a system that rewards high
test scores.
One issue is the timing and subject matter of tests, said Michael
Baldwin, a biology teacher at Hanna High School in Brownsville and
president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. The 11th-grade
science test, which students must pass to graduate, covers a disparate
amount of material, from biology to Earth sciences. Yet students often
are taking physics during that year.
"So maybe a month before the test, or even as early as December , instead
of teaching physics class, the teachers are reviewing biology and
chemistry," Baldwin said. "It puts huge pressure on teachers to abandon
their curriculum. The students pass the TAKS test, but then don't have
enough physics for a proper foundation in college."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6367232.html
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