What Have We Done?
We have become so obsessed with integration and GPA that we have forgotten the real reason children are to come to school … to learn the basics: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
Our basics have become specialized in two ways: students are learning tougher material at lower grades and they are taking more than what is realistically important at certain stages in their education. Our basics have also been infiltrated with more subjects; such as health and second languages that could be taught at higher levels once they have obtained these basic skills.
China has been a country that has been pushing education for centuries. What has this push and importance being put on school done to its students? Have they achieved what they set out to do? At what cost? Is there a lesson for our western culture to learn from this time honored Asian expectation?
Let’s look at each in detail.
Tougher material
Using second grade math problem solving as an example. These problems are a problem in themselves. They are a play on words. Hey wait a minute; shouldn’t one have some mastery of the skills of English behind them before they attempt these? Students in third grade have a difficult time with comprehension and application (using learned materials in new situations); they are still working on basic knowledge, how can we expect a second grader to accomplish more? Maybe these concepts should be mastered before setting the wheels in motion for problem solving. Throwing such decoys in the way lead to frustration and suspension of interest. If mastery could be the goal then we would have more confident and interested students.
Multiplication, thirty years ago, this was unheard of until grade five (sometimes grade four), now students are being introduced to these concepts at the second grade level. The students haven’t even mastered addition and subtraction. How can we expect them to catch on to this concept, especially if we hand them over a calculator? Doesn’t practice make perfect? Why are we pushing these kids? What is the rush? It’s no wonder we have high cases of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder) when the information they are practicing jumps around, not giving them time to master each level of skills required.
Ninth grade students are dabbling in concepts that were considered grade ten math in the late 1980’s. Listen, grade ten was hard enough back then. How do we expect a grade nine student to cope? They’re faced with so much peer pressure and trying to fit in at this age. School is just another pressure that has gotten more difficult to handle especially when students view the material as hard and almost irrelevant. Let’s just kick them while they are down. These students feel defeated before they even begin.
All grades of math experiment with hands on, using manipulatives. What’s up with that? It doesn’t work for all math concepts; in fact, it serves to confuse many students. Many times these manipulatives are used through the use of exploration. If you can’t grasp the concept how are going to explore it through a use of blocks?
Reading and writing are essential to our world and yet we see time and again that our school systems have failed many students in this matter. Students who have difficulty in these areas tend to get frustrated and even droop out. According to Statistics Canada our drop out rate has declined from 18% in 1991 to 12% in 1999. Unfortunately, they have found that boys still have a 1.5 times higher risk of school drop out than girls. They concluded that the young men’s “assessment of reading and writing were weaker than those of women.” The Youth in Transition Survey stated that lower scores in reading literacy, lower household incomes, lower reported marks in school and lower expectations for high school completion were among factors associated with leaving school. They also reported dropouts had lower levels of self-esteem, had less confidence in their ability to achieve and were less likely to feel a sense of control over situations than were others. On average, dropouts reported much lower school marks. The red flags should be up when such results are reported; we should be more concerned about reading and writing. If we can boost the time spent on this area maybe many of our dropouts would have more confidence and instead choose to stay in school.
Our university professors are frustrated at the “quality” of the first year student’s writing abilities. They are not impressed that they have to back track and teach them how to write a paragraph or a report. This knowledge should already exist but it doesn’t. Can’t we see the threads of this intricately woven blanket unraveling? It needs to be repaired and it should begin at the elementary levels.
Are we leading our society on a trip back in time where only the “smartest” children can attend school? Let me get this straight. Aren’t we supposed to learn from our past, not repeat our mistakes? Maybe there is something to the old saying, “history repeats itself”. I thought it was just that … a saying.
Realistic Importance
Maybe it’s time we really looked at all the information these students are expected to learn and ask ourselves … why? I mean, really, how much of chemistry, biology, social studies, physics and math at the higher levels, will they use in “the Real World”? Not much and that’s not an educated guess. It is a true fact of this “educated” teacher’s life. No matter what a cockamamie story they give you in school for the repetitious questions; why do I need to take this? How will it help me in my future? It is just that, a load of poo, poo! The majority of these students, myself included, never touch the stuff again. So what message does that send? Be prepared to waste three years of the best years of your life.
Yes, a select few will actually do something with this material but for the most of us it is just floating around in the hyperspace of our brains. Save it for college or university, where it will matter.
If students could focus on what is important to them and not have all this extra fluff added into the mixture then the odds may be better success rates and less wasting of time. The German Education System takes into account such individual differences and interests in the students. They all begin school at the same level but then when they reach grade five, they are placed into one of three streams (excerpt taken from An Overview of the German Education System):
Testing
Teachers at grade three, six, nine and twelve are budgeting for time and it’s a fight against the clock. They teach for the test. Why? It is supposed to be an indicator of how well the students know the required curriculum but what the public never hears is why School X had a 40% failure rate. For example, if there are only five students in the class and two failed then the failure rate looks phenomenal. Small schools are doomed because of this.
What about those students who have test anxiety and bomb the test? This isn’t shown on the results that are tabulated for the newspapers. The newspapers just flash the results and rank the schools from best to worst, no explanations. For the public this tells them only two things, the teachers aren’t doing their jobs and that the schools on the bottom of the list are a place where you don’t send your kid.
Most of these tests are multiple choice. Here we go again, multiple choice is a play on words and you are, in most cases, to choose the BEST answer. How unfair! So someone actually sits and figures out all the ways you can get the answer and they’re all right but you choose the BEST. If you have a hard time with the reading and comprehension then you will also have a hard time with these tests. In fact some students don’t even need to study, if they can understand the game being played then they just have to participate. These tests are not good indicators of what the children know but rather how well they can write a test.
We are so wrapped up in this competition even on a world level that we are missing the point. While we forge ahead with our high expectations the BASICS are getting left in the dust.
By grade nine students should be able to read proficiently, handwrite legibly and form proper paragraphs (using special writing techniques). For example, answering a question in complete sentence format used to be something that was required and expected for all subjects. Now, many students can barely put these down in point form, much is left up to the markers imagination. Students have a difficult time writing sentences unless they copy and paste them from an Internet website. In fact, they feel that this is their work, not plagiarism. Students require this basic information and practice as it is expected of them when they enter the workforce; bosses don’t intend to have to teach them such things. It needs to be done and mastered before they enter the workforce.
In comparison, Earnest Pinson states in A Letter from China: Education that students in China are required to take two national exams, one at grade 6 and another at grade 12. These exams are important because they can make or break a life career by determining not only the schools one can get into, but the career and social standards as well. Although statistics are not publicized, China, like Japan, has an extremely high suicide rate among teenagers because the pressures from parents, grandparents, peers, and finances are so intense. As one Chinese student said in her English speech contest, "why is it we study so hard and long, live such intense school lives, and still China has no Nobel Prize winners?" The answer to me is simple, too often they teach to the national exams and that means "rote memory."
Does this reflect our education system? I think it does. We try to avoid this truth but most teachers do just that, teach to the materials that will be on the test. If we could get rid of these pressures put on students and teachers alike I think the teaching and eventually the learning will become interesting and fun all at once. As it stands, with all these pressures there is not much time left over for “fun” learning. Do we want to end up with a system like China’s? Yes, they have incredibly smart students coming out of school but the demands and pressures are high. It is a dishonor to the family if they don’t complete their education with top-notch marks, as the top-notch marks get them into prestigious schools and well paying jobs of their choice.
Let’s get back to the BASICS and leave this trivial/difficult material for people at higher levels. We need to be reminded of the “olden days”, the times of the one room schoolhouse; they weren’t all that bad. Students learned at their own pace and didn’t move forward until they mastered the skills at each level; so you could be 16 and completing grade 9 Math but working at a grade three level in English. This is the way it should be; students should not be categorized by grades but rather on achieving mastery at each level before moving on.
The three R’s are quintessential to students surviving in this world. Our school system needs to focus more on the mastery of these skills than to cram more and more information into student’s brains at lower grades. With the mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic comes confidence and higher success rates. These should be the focal point of our education system. Let’s learn from our past and our world neighbors, take what works and throw away what doesn’t.
Resources:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub , “Where the Boys Are: The gap in achievement between boys and girls Oct ‘04” and “Learning Resources: Civics and society: Emerging Issues, June ‘04” Youth in Transition Survey, The Daily, April 5, 2004
www.theage.com.au/articles
www.theharbinger.org/xix/00091
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/GermanCaseStudy/chapter1a.html, “An Overview of the German System of Education”, June 1998.
Our basics have become specialized in two ways: students are learning tougher material at lower grades and they are taking more than what is realistically important at certain stages in their education. Our basics have also been infiltrated with more subjects; such as health and second languages that could be taught at higher levels once they have obtained these basic skills.
China has been a country that has been pushing education for centuries. What has this push and importance being put on school done to its students? Have they achieved what they set out to do? At what cost? Is there a lesson for our western culture to learn from this time honored Asian expectation?
Let’s look at each in detail.
Tougher material
Using second grade math problem solving as an example. These problems are a problem in themselves. They are a play on words. Hey wait a minute; shouldn’t one have some mastery of the skills of English behind them before they attempt these? Students in third grade have a difficult time with comprehension and application (using learned materials in new situations); they are still working on basic knowledge, how can we expect a second grader to accomplish more? Maybe these concepts should be mastered before setting the wheels in motion for problem solving. Throwing such decoys in the way lead to frustration and suspension of interest. If mastery could be the goal then we would have more confident and interested students.
Multiplication, thirty years ago, this was unheard of until grade five (sometimes grade four), now students are being introduced to these concepts at the second grade level. The students haven’t even mastered addition and subtraction. How can we expect them to catch on to this concept, especially if we hand them over a calculator? Doesn’t practice make perfect? Why are we pushing these kids? What is the rush? It’s no wonder we have high cases of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder) when the information they are practicing jumps around, not giving them time to master each level of skills required.
Ninth grade students are dabbling in concepts that were considered grade ten math in the late 1980’s. Listen, grade ten was hard enough back then. How do we expect a grade nine student to cope? They’re faced with so much peer pressure and trying to fit in at this age. School is just another pressure that has gotten more difficult to handle especially when students view the material as hard and almost irrelevant. Let’s just kick them while they are down. These students feel defeated before they even begin.
All grades of math experiment with hands on, using manipulatives. What’s up with that? It doesn’t work for all math concepts; in fact, it serves to confuse many students. Many times these manipulatives are used through the use of exploration. If you can’t grasp the concept how are going to explore it through a use of blocks?
Reading and writing are essential to our world and yet we see time and again that our school systems have failed many students in this matter. Students who have difficulty in these areas tend to get frustrated and even droop out. According to Statistics Canada our drop out rate has declined from 18% in 1991 to 12% in 1999. Unfortunately, they have found that boys still have a 1.5 times higher risk of school drop out than girls. They concluded that the young men’s “assessment of reading and writing were weaker than those of women.” The Youth in Transition Survey stated that lower scores in reading literacy, lower household incomes, lower reported marks in school and lower expectations for high school completion were among factors associated with leaving school. They also reported dropouts had lower levels of self-esteem, had less confidence in their ability to achieve and were less likely to feel a sense of control over situations than were others. On average, dropouts reported much lower school marks. The red flags should be up when such results are reported; we should be more concerned about reading and writing. If we can boost the time spent on this area maybe many of our dropouts would have more confidence and instead choose to stay in school.
Our university professors are frustrated at the “quality” of the first year student’s writing abilities. They are not impressed that they have to back track and teach them how to write a paragraph or a report. This knowledge should already exist but it doesn’t. Can’t we see the threads of this intricately woven blanket unraveling? It needs to be repaired and it should begin at the elementary levels.
Are we leading our society on a trip back in time where only the “smartest” children can attend school? Let me get this straight. Aren’t we supposed to learn from our past, not repeat our mistakes? Maybe there is something to the old saying, “history repeats itself”. I thought it was just that … a saying.
Realistic Importance
Maybe it’s time we really looked at all the information these students are expected to learn and ask ourselves … why? I mean, really, how much of chemistry, biology, social studies, physics and math at the higher levels, will they use in “the Real World”? Not much and that’s not an educated guess. It is a true fact of this “educated” teacher’s life. No matter what a cockamamie story they give you in school for the repetitious questions; why do I need to take this? How will it help me in my future? It is just that, a load of poo, poo! The majority of these students, myself included, never touch the stuff again. So what message does that send? Be prepared to waste three years of the best years of your life.
Yes, a select few will actually do something with this material but for the most of us it is just floating around in the hyperspace of our brains. Save it for college or university, where it will matter.
If students could focus on what is important to them and not have all this extra fluff added into the mixture then the odds may be better success rates and less wasting of time. The German Education System takes into account such individual differences and interests in the students. They all begin school at the same level but then when they reach grade five, they are placed into one of three streams (excerpt taken from An Overview of the German Education System):
- The Hauptschule (grades 5-9 in most states) leads to receipt of the Hauptschule certificate and then to part-time enrollment in a vocational school combined with apprenticeship training until the age of 18. The lowest-achieving students attend the Hauptschule, where they receive slower paced and more basic instruction in the same primary academic subjects taught at the Realschule and Gymnasium. Additional subjects at the Hauptschule have a vocational orientation.
- The Realschule (grades 5-10 in most states) leads to receipt of the Realschule certificate and then to part-time vocational schools, higher vocational schools or continuation of study at a Gymnasium. The Realschule provides students with an education which combines both liberal and practical education from the 5th through the 10th grade, but the emphasis is on liberal education.
- The Gymnasium (grades 5-13 in most states) leads to the Abitur and prepares students for university study or for a dual academic and vocational credential. The Gymnasium provides students with a liberal education and traditionally leads to study at the university.
Testing
Teachers at grade three, six, nine and twelve are budgeting for time and it’s a fight against the clock. They teach for the test. Why? It is supposed to be an indicator of how well the students know the required curriculum but what the public never hears is why School X had a 40% failure rate. For example, if there are only five students in the class and two failed then the failure rate looks phenomenal. Small schools are doomed because of this.
What about those students who have test anxiety and bomb the test? This isn’t shown on the results that are tabulated for the newspapers. The newspapers just flash the results and rank the schools from best to worst, no explanations. For the public this tells them only two things, the teachers aren’t doing their jobs and that the schools on the bottom of the list are a place where you don’t send your kid.
Most of these tests are multiple choice. Here we go again, multiple choice is a play on words and you are, in most cases, to choose the BEST answer. How unfair! So someone actually sits and figures out all the ways you can get the answer and they’re all right but you choose the BEST. If you have a hard time with the reading and comprehension then you will also have a hard time with these tests. In fact some students don’t even need to study, if they can understand the game being played then they just have to participate. These tests are not good indicators of what the children know but rather how well they can write a test.
We are so wrapped up in this competition even on a world level that we are missing the point. While we forge ahead with our high expectations the BASICS are getting left in the dust.
By grade nine students should be able to read proficiently, handwrite legibly and form proper paragraphs (using special writing techniques). For example, answering a question in complete sentence format used to be something that was required and expected for all subjects. Now, many students can barely put these down in point form, much is left up to the markers imagination. Students have a difficult time writing sentences unless they copy and paste them from an Internet website. In fact, they feel that this is their work, not plagiarism. Students require this basic information and practice as it is expected of them when they enter the workforce; bosses don’t intend to have to teach them such things. It needs to be done and mastered before they enter the workforce.
In comparison, Earnest Pinson states in A Letter from China: Education that students in China are required to take two national exams, one at grade 6 and another at grade 12. These exams are important because they can make or break a life career by determining not only the schools one can get into, but the career and social standards as well. Although statistics are not publicized, China, like Japan, has an extremely high suicide rate among teenagers because the pressures from parents, grandparents, peers, and finances are so intense. As one Chinese student said in her English speech contest, "why is it we study so hard and long, live such intense school lives, and still China has no Nobel Prize winners?" The answer to me is simple, too often they teach to the national exams and that means "rote memory."
Does this reflect our education system? I think it does. We try to avoid this truth but most teachers do just that, teach to the materials that will be on the test. If we could get rid of these pressures put on students and teachers alike I think the teaching and eventually the learning will become interesting and fun all at once. As it stands, with all these pressures there is not much time left over for “fun” learning. Do we want to end up with a system like China’s? Yes, they have incredibly smart students coming out of school but the demands and pressures are high. It is a dishonor to the family if they don’t complete their education with top-notch marks, as the top-notch marks get them into prestigious schools and well paying jobs of their choice.
Let’s get back to the BASICS and leave this trivial/difficult material for people at higher levels. We need to be reminded of the “olden days”, the times of the one room schoolhouse; they weren’t all that bad. Students learned at their own pace and didn’t move forward until they mastered the skills at each level; so you could be 16 and completing grade 9 Math but working at a grade three level in English. This is the way it should be; students should not be categorized by grades but rather on achieving mastery at each level before moving on.
The three R’s are quintessential to students surviving in this world. Our school system needs to focus more on the mastery of these skills than to cram more and more information into student’s brains at lower grades. With the mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic comes confidence and higher success rates. These should be the focal point of our education system. Let’s learn from our past and our world neighbors, take what works and throw away what doesn’t.
Resources:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub , “Where the Boys Are: The gap in achievement between boys and girls Oct ‘04” and “Learning Resources: Civics and society: Emerging Issues, June ‘04” Youth in Transition Survey, The Daily, April 5, 2004
www.theage.com.au/articles
www.theharbinger.org/xix/00091
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/GermanCaseStudy/chapter1a.html, “An Overview of the German System of Education”, June 1998.