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There are four major problems with education in the US (and some other Western countries). In my opinion all four are equally important.
1) Lack of common, standardized, continuously improving, research and trial based curriculum. Every state, every district, every school, every teacher are free to do whatever they can come up with, as long as they meet some poorly developed, basic state standards that are targeted at the lowest common denominator and are test based rather than knowledge based.
2) Lack of repetition and general lack of emphasis on remembering the things learned in past grades - I call this a "grasshopper" approach, jumping from subject to subject often without any connection between these subjects. This is tied with #1 and general lack of understanding of the very concept of best practices. E.g. instead of giving kids 1 way to solve a problem and drilling them on it over and over again until they remember it by heart, they are given 4-5 different solution methods and told to pick one they like the most. This is a good approach for a well educated college student going in for their Master's, not a fifth-grader. As the result, they are confused and don't remember anything 6 month later.
3) Schools are centered on the mediocre performers, instead of challenging each kid at their level, they drag the well performing kids down to that mediocre level, since the majority of kids must pass the state tests for school to look good in scores. So, in the middle school the well performing kids are paired up with lazy morons to jack up teacher's test results, which means the kids willing to learn do all the work and don't learn at the level they require because the assignments and curriculum are based on the overall "team" level i.e. morons.
4) Parents who just don't give a crap are a big part of the problem. Teachers have no tools at their disposal to make the morons shut up and at least stop interfering with learning process, as long as their parents don't care.
This is not something that can be fixed with more investment. I went to school where all we had were a textbook and a blackboard, I got better education than what my kids were getting in public school.
3) Schools are centered on the mediocre performers, instead of challenging each kid at their level, they drag the well performing kids down to that mediocre level, since the majority of kids must pass the state tests for school to look good in scores. So, in the middle school the well performing kids are paired up with lazy morons to jack up teacher's test results, which means the kids willing to learn do all the work and don't learn at the level they require because the assignments and curriculum are based on the overall "team" level i.e. morons.
4) Parents who just don't give a crap are a big part of the problem. Teachers have no tools at their disposal to make the morons shut up and at least stop interfering with learning process, as long as their parents don't care.
This is not something that can be fixed with more investment.
These are what a good reading list could help with. Good SF books were better than most of the teachers I had. Though most of my teachers were better than the majority of SF books I read.
The problem is filtering out the garbage. Maybe we should have multiple lists, conservatives versus liberals versus Christians versus atheists.
This would enable bright kids to find interesting stuff to selectively ignore teachers and parents.
There are four major problems with education in the US (and some other Western countries). In my opinion all four are equally important.
1) Lack of common, standardized, continuously improving, research and trial based curriculum. Every state, every district, every school, every teacher are free to do whatever they can come up with, as long as they meet some poorly developed, basic state standards that are targeted at the lowest common denominator and are test based rather than knowledge based.
2) Lack of repetition and general lack of emphasis on remembering the things learned in past grades - I call this a "grasshopper" approach, jumping from subject to subject often without any connection between these subjects. This is tied with #1 and general lack of understanding of the very concept of best practices. E.g. instead of giving kids 1 way to solve a problem and drilling them on it over and over again until they remember it by heart, they are given 4-5 different solution methods and told to pick one they like the most. This is a good approach for a well educated college student going in for their Master's, not a fifth-grader. As the result, they are confused and don't remember anything 6 month later.
3) Schools are centered on the mediocre performers, instead of challenging each kid at their level, they drag the well performing kids down to that mediocre level, since the majority of kids must pass the state tests for school to look good in scores. So, in the middle school the well performing kids are paired up with lazy morons to jack up teacher's test results, which means the kids willing to learn do all the work and don't learn at the level they require because the assignments and curriculum are based on the overall "team" level i.e. morons.
4) Parents who just don't give a crap are a big part of the problem. Teachers have no tools at their disposal to make the morons shut up and at least stop interfering with learning process, as long as their parents don't care.
This is not something that can be fixed with more investment. I went to school where all we had were a textbook and a blackboard, I got better education than what my kids were getting in public school.
You are so wrong on repetition. One problem with our system is TOO MUCH REPETITION. If you compare math as taught here to math taught in Asia we repeat topics for 3-7 years. They only repeat topics for 1-3 years. We spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME repeating what has already been taught because our kids are not held accountable for remembering it. In Asia, after 1-3 years you are just expected to know it and no one is going to reteach it to you. We reteach concepts every time they are used so our kids don't bother remembering. They don't need to. They EXPECT us to review anything they need now and cry foul if we don't. I have parents who will scream because I took points off on a test because a student did the algebra wrong (I teach geometry). They don't think their child should be held accountable for knowing the prerequisite material for my class and that I should grade them only on the new material. It's hard to teach kids who don't know what they should know walking through the door.
I agree with the rest of your post. We NEED to vertically align our curriculum and stop reteaching everything every time it's needed. There should come a point when you are just expected to know what you were taught before and if you don't it's on you not your teacher. I spend appx 9 weeks out of the year reviewing topics my students should know before they even take my chemistry class but I have to. If I don't review how to solve ratios before I teach gas laws they will not make it through the math and I teach in a GOOD district. It's even worse in poor districts. I taught the math along side the chemistry and physics when I taught at the charter school. I had to. They didn't know it.
I am tired of teaching to the bottom. It's my top that can actually do something in the future not my bottom. The bottom is the bottom mostly because they don't want to put in the effort to be any higher. Why am I putting in more effort than they are? Teaching kids who want to learn and do learn is a joy. Trying to force the bottom who won't even pick up a pencil is a PITA. THEY are making the choice not to learn yet THEY don't have consequences for that. Everyone EXCEPT them is blamed for their failure AND they are often disruptive in class and stifle the learning of others as a result. Kids who don't want to learn belong somewhere else.
Um, I have dual majors in chemistry and math with a minor in physics. Why are you asking if I can explain how to solve a simple algebraic equation? I could explain that when I was in the 8th grade. Of course I can explain it. It doesn't matter though. They don't listen to the explanation (which I repeat over and over and over). I have now stooped to their level (if you can't beat them, join them). They want to be told the steps to do and just follow them. So I tell them if you see a variable in the denominator your first task is get it out of there. Unfortunately, there are multiple ways they can show up in the denominator. The more we cater to this kind of thinking the worse it gets. I WISH my students actually wanted to understand the math instead of just follow an algorithm to get an answer. I wish learning was important to parents and not just grades. I had one student the other day I was trying to get to solve this equation: 160 = (n-2)*180/n using algebra. She looked at it and said "Oh this is where you guess and check".
I'm convinced that was once done to give kids an advantage becomes necessary in short order. We started reviewing math concepts before using them in math and science classes to increase ability but all that happened in the long run is kids now EXPECT to have anything they need from past classes reviewed before they use it. Even parents buy into this and cry foul if I EXPECT my geometry kids to be able to do algebra without reviewing it so now they remember even less. We started letting kids use calculators in math so we could teach more math, now they can't do math without one and half the time not with one. I have to explain over and over to put expressions that are in the denominator in parentheses because the calculator does EXACTLY what you tell it to. Do you know what my student's say? "Someone should fix this so we don't have to do that". They don't think. They are led by the nose by technology. They'll believe anything they read on the internet. When I have to correct things they find on the internet half of them are amazed that I can actually discern bad information from good and the other half think I'm stupid because I don't agree with the internet. There is no shortage of bad information on the internet but they think "on the internet" = Correct.
Now we're adding test retakes to the mix. They're not doing well enough on the tests so we reteach and retest. Guess what is becoming necessary? We've been doing this for two years now and I'm lucky if I see a 60% average on the first take of the test anymore. It's not unusual to see averages below 50%. They don't take the first test seriously. Of course they and their parents think we must not have taught the material because the WHOLE class didn't get it. No, they just don't bother trying to learn it the first time. They treat the first test like a pre test and the second test like the real test. Since the questions are virtually identical on the second test (they and their parents will cry foul if we were to change them), they do ok on that one. Not surprisingly we give out LOTS of A's now what we do retests but we actually fail more students. The only good thing that has come out of this is parents have stopped yelling at teachers because Suzy got a B or Johnny failed. However, grades don't mean much.
I wish I could see what happens in the next 50 years. I do not expect it to be pretty. Those who can think and generate new information will be able to write their own ticket. The rest will be slaves to the information they provide and EASILY replaceable.
Hi, maybe my sentence was not clear but I asked how your students justified the equivalence between both equations, since that's what they do in class, not if you are able to solve them or not...
The reason I wanted to know that is because I am curious to see how their reasoning works. It's probably a mix of a lack of understanding and a lack of thought, but maybe when they explain their rationale, it might be possible to pinpoint the wrong knowledge and correct. Indeed if the rationale is simply "guess and check" then the cause is probably lost and the problem has started earlier in the academic course.
I also did not mean to imply that you did not know what you were doing, I am also a scientific major, an engineer in telecommunications and microelectronics, now working in financial risk management (no comments ). And even though I did not receive a US education, I believe the drop in the education level is a general trend among all Western countries and not just specific to the US.
You are so wrong on repetition. One problem with our system is TOO MUCH REPETITION. If you compare math as taught here to math taught in Asia we repeat topics for 3-7 years. They only repeat topics for 1-3 years. We spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME repeating what has already been taught because our kids are not held accountable for remembering it. In Asia, after 1-3 years you are just expected to know it and no one is going to reteach it to you. We reteach concepts every time they are used so our kids don't bother remembering. They don't need to. They EXPECT us to review anything they need now and cry foul if we don't. I have parents who will scream because I took points off on a test because a student did the algebra wrong (I teach geometry). They don't think their child should be held accountable for knowing the prerequisite material for my class and that I should grade them only on the new material. It's hard to teach kids who don't know what they should know walking through the door.
I agree with the rest of your post. We NEED to vertically align our curriculum and stop reteaching everything every time it's needed. There should come a point when you are just expected to know what you were taught before and if you don't it's on you not your teacher. I spend appx 9 weeks out of the year reviewing topics my students should know before they even take my chemistry class but I have to. If I don't review how to solve ratios before I teach gas laws they will not make it through the math and I teach in a GOOD district. It's even worse in poor districts. I taught the math along side the chemistry and physics when I taught at the charter school. I had to. They didn't know it.
I am tired of teaching to the bottom. It's my top that can actually do something in the future not my bottom. The bottom is the bottom mostly because they don't want to put in the effort to be any higher. Why am I putting in more effort than they are? Teaching kids who want to learn and do learn is a joy. Trying to force the bottom who won't even pick up a pencil is a PITA. THEY are making the choice not to learn yet THEY don't have consequences for that. Everyone EXCEPT them is blamed for their failure AND they are often disruptive in class and stifle the learning of others as a result. Kids who don't want to learn belong somewhere else.
This is not the kind of repetition I was talking about, the reason they keep coming back to the same topics for 3-7 years in U.S. schools is because they don't do enough repetition as they learn them. They would spend 2 weeks (at most) doing something, then move to another subject and never come back that year, so the next year they have to go over it again... And again.... And again.
The proper way to do repetition is to drill it non stop for several months, better else the whole year, so that you never have to re-teach kids again. Give them lots of homework and structure it so that even the new subjects are using examples from the earlier subjects. E.g. if you study decimals, then percentages, then fractions, make sure that most of your problems on percentages have decimals in them, and most of your problems on fractions have both decimals and percentages. If you start basic geometry, design the problems so that they involve decimals, percentages and fractions. Give them tons of repetitive homework, and I bet you that you won't have to repeat fractions or percentages the following year. Instead, the teachers jump grasshopper style from one subject to another disconnected subject, don't give the kids enough problems, don't monitor their success in retaining that information, and then wonder why is it that kids don't remember much of what they learned a year or two prior. So the teachers and the kids do years of low-intensity "dumb" repetition, wasting time and resources, and taxpayer money, instead of doing several months of high intensity smart repetition.
Hi, maybe my sentence was not clear but I asked how your students justified the equivalence between both equations, since that's what they do in class, not if you are able to solve them or not...
The reason I wanted to know that is because I am curious to see how their reasoning works. It's probably a mix of a lack of understanding and a lack of thought, but maybe when they explain their rationale, it might be possible to pinpoint the wrong knowledge and correct. Indeed if the rationale is simply "guess and check" then the cause is probably lost and the problem has started earlier in the academic course.
I also did not mean to imply that you did not know what you were doing, I am also a scientific major, an engineer in telecommunications and microelectronics, now working in financial risk management (no comments ). And even though I did not receive a US education, I believe the drop in the education level is a general trend among all Western countries and not just specific to the US.
Thanks for the clarification. My students can't explain it because they never understood it. That's the point. They look for patterns and then follow algorithms. They are dividing by the number to get a by itself. The only problem is they don't realize they are solving for 1/a not a. They're baffled when I tell them it's not correct. The problem is they are trying to memorize solution patterns instead of understanding what to do and why you do it. I spend a ridiculous amount of time reteaching algebra in my geometry class.
This is not the kind of repetition I was talking about, the reason they keep coming back to the same topics for 3-7 years in U.S. schools is because they don't do enough repetition as they learn them. They would spend 2 weeks (at most) doing something, then move to another subject and never come back that year, so the next year they have to go over it again... And again.... And again.
The proper way to do repetition is to drill it non stop for several months, better else the whole year, so that you never have to re-teach kids again. Give them lots of homework and structure it so that even the new subjects are using examples from the earlier subjects. E.g. if you study decimals, then percentages, then fractions, make sure that most of your problems on percentages have decimals in them, and most of your problems on fractions have both decimals and percentages. If you start basic geometry, design the problems so that they involve decimals, percentages and fractions. Give them tons of repetitive homework, and I bet you that you won't have to repeat fractions or percentages the following year. Instead, the teachers jump grasshopper style from one subject to another disconnected subject, don't give the kids enough problems, don't monitor their success in retaining that information, and then wonder why is it that kids don't remember much of what they learned a year or two prior. So the teachers and the kids do years of low-intensity "dumb" repetition, wasting time and resources, and taxpayer money, instead of doing several months of high intensity smart repetition.
That is called DRILL AND KILL and it is TABOO in teaching. We were told years ago to stop drilling our kids to death. I agree with you that what is needed is practice, practice and more practice but the powers that be have declared this a poor teaching strategy. Drill and kill was stamped out about 10 years ago. This is why we have kids who can't do anything because they don't remember it.
One major frustration is that I cannot get my students to do homework. The best students do it and it shows in their grades. The rest copy a friend's homework if they do anything at all. We have stopped giving points for homework assignments because all that was happening is kids were sitting in someone else's class copying the homework to get the points. Now they don't even copy the problems down because they don't get points. Then they wonder why they bomb the test. Lack of practice is a serious problem but I don't know how to get kids to practice. They didn't when we gave grades for homework and they don't now that we don't give grades for homework. I'd say at least we're not inflating grades anymore but that's not true because we now offer retakes on all tests and students only have to do the problems they got wrong on the first test on the second test. I give out LOTS of A's now but I have as many E's as A's...often more.
I wish I knew the solution. There is a direct correlation between amount of practice and retention but forced practice is frowned upon. We're told that if we engage our students they will want to practice on their own. I swear the people who come up with this stuff have never taught kids anything. This is NOT Japan where Tiger moms will make sure their child knows what they need to know and education is highly valued. This is the USA where the student has no responsibility or incentive to learn and their failure to learn is always someone else's fault. Usually the teacher.
One thing we NEED to do is hold students accountable for knowing previous material. My school is debating whether or not to increase the rigor of our tests now that we allow retests and do things like incorporate more difficult algebra in geometry tests which will force students to use the math they learned in the past. I am pushing for increased rigor. If we're giving retakes we should be able to give more demanding tests.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 05-11-2015 at 12:59 PM..
Honestly one of the biggest issues is we hold no one back anymore. We have students in the fourth grade who can not add or subtract along with other basic unmastered concepts. Without this foundation how are they supposed to master new concepts? Students know they will keep getting passed on from grade to grade so they don't even try.
Honestly one of the biggest issues is we hold no one back anymore. We have students in the fourth grade who can not add or subtract along with other basic unmastered concepts. Without this foundation how are they supposed to master new concepts? Students know they will keep getting passed on from grade to grade so they don't even try.
The new research suggests that retention is not the answer.
Much of the early research seemed to show that retention in the early grades was NOT harmful, but we now have a quantitatively rigorous study that shows that retention has bad effects on high school graduation.
and India found that test scores rise with social promotion.
A controversial 2009 law in India outlawed the practice of holding failing students back and making them repeat the entire year of school in classes 1 through 8. In India, it’s called “detention” and at least one student union staged a protest this Spring to bring detention back, arguing that automatic promotion undermines academic quality and standards. But the Times of India published a story June 4, 2013 showing that automatic promotion might be working. It showed that average test scores were rising in states that had been following an automatic promotion policy prior to 2009, but falling states that were still holding kids back. The national drop out rate also fell by almost 30 percent after the law went into effect.
That is called DRILL AND KILL and it is TABOO in teaching. We were told years ago to stop drilling our kids to death. I agree with you that what is needed is practice, practice and more practice but the powers that be have declared this a poor teaching strategy. Drill and kill was stamped out about 10 years ago. This is why we have kids who can't do anything because they don't remember it.
One major frustration is that I cannot get my students to do homework. The best students do it and it shows in their grades. The rest copy a friend's homework if they do anything at all. We have stopped giving points for homework assignments because all that was happening is kids were sitting in someone else's class copying the homework to get the points. Now they don't even copy the problems down because they don't get points. Then they wonder why they bomb the test. Lack of practice is a serious problem but I don't know how to get kids to practice. They didn't when we gave grades for homework and they don't now that we don't give grades for homework. I'd say at least we're not inflating grades anymore but that's not true because we now offer retakes on all tests and students only have to do the problems they got wrong on the first test on the second test. I give out LOTS of A's now but I have as many E's as A's...often more.
I wish I knew the solution. There is a direct correlation between amount of practice and retention but forced practice is frowned upon. We're told that if we engage our students they will want to practice on their own. I swear the people who come up with this stuff have never taught kids anything. This is NOT Japan where Tiger moms will make sure their child knows what they need to know and education is highly valued. This is the USA where the student has no responsibility or incentive to learn and their failure to learn is always someone else's fault. Usually the teacher.
One thing we NEED to do is hold students accountable for knowing previous material. My school is debating whether or not to increase the rigor of our tests now that we allow retests and do things like incorporate more difficult algebra in geometry tests which will force students to use the math they learned in the past. I am pushing for increased rigor. If we're giving retakes we should be able to give more demanding tests.
Add one more problem to my list - people running (ruining ?) our education system have no clue on how to educate.
I was, by your definition, "Drilled and killed" through school. I still know my algebra, 30-some years later. And I fully agree that "looking for patterns" approach to math teaching is idiocy at it's best. I try to tell my kids that if they want to solve any problem, they have to learn the rule and know when to apply it. Unfortunately, I myself have zero patience and little teaching skill...
My other pet peeve is the so-called "whole language" approach to reading. In my opinion, this is going back in development, from alphabet to pictographs. That's how you end up with kids who can't learn new words because they don't even know how to read them. In any sane country the first teacher who suggested this method should've been tarred, feathered, and dipped in boiling ****. And never again allowed to approach any classroom, even as a janitor.
Last edited by Ummagumma; 05-11-2015 at 10:17 PM..
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). And even though I did not receive a US education, I believe the drop in the education level is a general trend among all Western countries and not just specific to the US.
