ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 1, 1996 TAG: 9612030146
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TOO MUCH television, not enough homework. Too many kids in a classroom, not enough individual attention. Too much poverty and despair, not enough parental care.
All factors in American schoolchildren's mediocre scores in math and science when measured against their peers worldwide?
No. Only the last - parental care - was found to be a significant factor by researchers who compared the skills of 13-year-olds from 41 countries - and ranked the United States slightly above average in science, slightly below average in math.
The other commonly assumed culprits were exonerated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. That doesn't mean they should be dismissed as factors in education generally.
But it does suggest that public, parents and education establishment need to discard preconceptions and think again about how to teach math and science.
What the top-scoring countries have that America does not are more parents who value education (providing study aids, for example, such as dictionaries and computers, at home); higher expectations (the seventh-grade curriculum in top-performing countries resembles the eighth-grade curriculum in the United States); less comprehensive but more coherent textbooks (an American math text might cover 35 topics, for example, while a German or Japanese book covers 10 in greater depth); and better teaching techniques.
Surprised? Many critics and defenders of public-school teachers are likely to be. The former worry that there isn't enough memorization or drill in U.S. classrooms, the latter that changes will weaken the nurturing of thinking skills. Apparently there isn't as much non-rote thinking going on as either camp believes.
The American view of Asian students as rote learners who are taught formulas and American students as less disciplined, but more innovative, thinkers was not borne out. Classroom videotapes showed, rather, that while American math teachers tell students the steps to take to solve routine problems, the Japanese teach mathematical concepts.
America needs to get busy upgrading science and math instruction in public schools. Scientists themselves might be enlisted to help.
They can, and should, use their status to validate science programs, fight for adequate resources, encourage teachers, and model for teacher training groups the application of good scientific skills. These, one researcher explains, are: "investigation, critical thinking, imagination, intuition, playfulness, and thinking on your feet and with your hands."
Science, moreover, must not be just for gifted students, but for everyone. In the future, everyone will need it.
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