Studying tools instead of using tools
From a Columbus Dispatch article:
A new survey made public today found that 71 percent of public schools have cut back on at least one subject in favor of reading and math. One-third of the 299 districts surveyed in 50 states have cut back social studies time this school year, 29 percent have reduced science, and 22 percent have shrunk time for art and music. Most reported that students are getting better at reading and math.
The thing about reading and math (except for some very high-level math) is that they are tools. Reading allows you to learn things, identify things, follow instructions, and of course, be entertained. Math allows you to handle finances, understand science, and make plans for things like vegetable gardens or birdhouses. They're tools. Studying math and reading as ends in themselves is like having classes on hammers and measuring cups and charcoal pencils without actually building, cooking, or drawing anything.
Although most Americans read every day (even if it's food labels or the TV guide), we don't use math beyond simple arithmetic. We would have fuller lives and be better informed if we'd spent more time in school learning about other countries, about trees, about insects, about nutrition and cooking, about politics and lobbying, about mortgages and credit cards, about basic car repair, about CPR and first aid, about early child development. When we just teach math and reading, we aren't informing kids of anything.
So this is yet another way in which NCLB is resulting in a more ignorant populace.
posted by Production Is Wealth | 1:56 PM
2 Comments:
There was a line in the movie Peggy Sue Got Married that has stuck with me all these years. She was back in time, in her algebra class, and told her teacher something along the lines that, "I know for a fact I will never use algebra in my future life." Something like that. It rings true for me.
I think it is very sad that math and reading are taught at the exclusion of other subjects.
When my son was in kindergarten at the local public school, my husband and I were talking with his teacher one day. She was telling us that when she taught in Texas, she was not allowed to teach other fun stuff such as science because she had to stress reading. She said her lesson plans were always being rejected.
So some teachers try. It is sad indeed.
I had forgotten that line in Peggy Sue Got Married! That's hilarious.
When they do teach math, it would be far more useful to teach basic probability and a touch of data analysis (e.g. what they do with the results from clinical trials, how to interpret poll numbers and their margins of error, etc). Trigonometry might be helpful to some engineers, but data analysis is helpful to anyone in the social sciences... so I can't see much rhyme or reason to the math curriculum. If anything it's like they're trying to prevent us from being critical thinkers, because we can't interpret many research papers without understanding data analysis; we just have to believe "the experts".
Also, I seem to be ignorant about this, but I had no idea teachers had to have lesson plans approved by administrators! That's terrible.
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