Always been willing to pause what I'm doing to read Roger Schank. Always. First ran into him long thanks to a DesignShare article ("Death of the Classroom") I read several years ago incorporating Roger's ideas into school design written by Randy Fielding. Continue to be inspired.
My appreciation for Roger continues to grow thanks to a recent Pulse blog entry by him entitled "Wrong Problem, Wrong Solution" in relation to the feverish need to crank up the math and science requirements in our country. So we can compete. So we can fill the top ranks of our university programs with US students. So we can make sense of logorithmic equations at dinner parties.
Roger suggests a refocus [Thanks to Assorted Stuff for the link that sent me this way]:
Do we really believe that the reason that there so many foreign applicants to US graduate programs is that they teach math and science better in other countries? China and India provide most of the applicants. They also have most of the people. And many of those people will do anything to live in the U.S. So they cram math down their own throats knowing that it is a ticket to America. Very few of these applicants are coming from Germany, Sweden, France or Italy. Is this because they teach math badly there or is it because those people aren’t desperate to move to the U.S.?
In the U.S., students are not desperate to move to the US, so when you suggest to them that they numb themselves with formulas and equations they refuse to do so. The right answer would be to make math and science actually interesting, but with those awful tests as the ultimate arbiter of success this is very difficult to do.
No change in education will ever happen in the US until the testing mentality is done away with. No average high functioning adult could pass them so why make kids do it? This makes no sense. What also makes no sense is the idea that math and science are important subjects. You can live a happy life without ever having taken a physics course or knowing what a logarithm is.
On the other hand, being able to reason on the basis of evidence actually is important. Thinking rationally and logically is important. Knowing how to function in a world that includes new technology and all kinds of health issues is important. Knowing how things work and being able to fix them and perhaps design them is important.
Lets get serious. We don’t need more math and science. We need more people who can think.
Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Or more equations that can be answered via Scantron. You decide.
I happen to have a son in a public Elementary school in China and I KNOW that the reason he is studying math like a maniac has nothing to do with a desire to immigrate or study in the States.
The competition to get ahead is fierce here. The ones that don't compete get left behind quickly. Poverty or near poverty is still a part of life in China so people are fighting hard to escape the ever present backward tug of poverty.
The number of slots in good schools is very limited and everyone in China is starkly aware of the huge numbers of people who are competing to get into limited spots.
Math is one of the most important parts of the curriculum (along with Chinese and English) in Elementary school. Moreover the tests that people take put a premium on doing well in EVERY subject on the test.
Believe me, in this environment there is no need to look to University in America until you actually get into a good Chinese University (the immediate goal). While I applaud Roger's thinking he needs to be better informed on why Chinese children study so darn hard.
Posted by: Michael Butler | December 18, 2006 at 09:51 PM