Comments on Beyond 'Drill and Kill'

• Weeding out must stop
• Posted by T on March 19, 2009 at 8:00am EDT

• Everyone knows that anyone who takes pre-engineering at a nearby university, nationally recognized for its engineering school, will have to survive a rigorous course of study specifically designed to "weed out" the unprepared and less committed students. Is it any wonder we are now behind other countries in engineering and science graduates? We are now reaping what our universities intentionally failed to sow for decades.

• No Royal Road
• Posted by Fossil , Prof. of Math (emeritus) at Gargantuan State U. on March 19, 2009 at 11:15am EDT

• The idea of educating people to be scientists via "Science Light" is dubious. Moreover, the hard truth is that anyone who needs "remedial math" in his or her late teens is extremely unlikely to go on to a career which needs serious quantitative skills, let alone one in mathematics, physics, or comp sci. The world is really not Lake Wobegon--not all children are "above average", educational ideologiy to the contrary notwithstanding.

  In response to T above, the countries that are no outdistancing the US in producing competent scientists and engineers are even more ruthlessly competitive than the US. For a few years, I supervised the admission of math grad students, many of them foreign, from which vantage it was clear that in China, for instance (a source of enormous talent), the "weeding out " process starts early and continues up the line to produce, at the end, a stream of highly qualified young people, small, of course, relative to the general population of China, but quite large compared to what comes out of US undergrad programs. The problem is not "weeding out" but rather, the willingness of middle-class American kids to endure the hard work and intense focus that will enable one to avoid being weeded out. The idea that one is entitled to slide without effort or friction through the educational system on one's way to a high salaried job is endemic to our culture and the bane of higher education. Other cultures have not yet caught the infection.

  I doubt that the community college program described here is much of an antidote. It seems more like a sop for the bad conscience of some educators and administrators.

• what needs to be remediated?
• Posted by mathprof , math on March 19, 2009 at 1:30pm EDT

• The example of what might need to be remediated, "fractions," is not just one example.  This is the point where reasonably good sixth graders fall off the prerequisite structure in math, and once they can't handle fractions, they can never catch up.  In particular, they can't do simultaneous linear equations, or slopes and rates of change, or trigonometric identities -- no matter how good their algebra or trigonometry teacher is.  And the easy availability of decimals, not to mention calculators, lets them evade fractions in all daily-life calculations.  Elementary school instruction should recognize the central importance of fractions and keep at it until there is real mastery, eschewing the "yours is not to reason why; just invert and multiply" that gets the students through their multiple-choice tests.

  The other major stumbling block is understanding how to go from words to generalized algebra.  Since this "translation" was first made only recently, in the sixteenth century, it isn't something obvious, and the one-day blitz in first-year algebra that my own kids experienced is far from sufficient.  There are too many topics in school mathematics, and many teachers have no sense of which of these are truly important for future mathematical study.

  All that said, I salute these folks in Dallas who are trying to help students who have been badly served in their earlier preparation.  Nothing like this will work without dedicated teachers who commit extra time and energy to working with these students, but, for many community college students, this may be their first encounter with such teachers who -- and this is necessary, though not sufficient -- actually understand the elementary mathematics and science they are teaching, and understand how those topics fit in to higher-level understanding. 

• Early Inspiration Key
• Posted by CC , Grad Student, Science Ed at Private College on March 19, 2009 at 2:15pm EDT

• I agree with Fossil that we need to help kids focus in on science early. The inspirational "counting frogs" stuff while many kids still have their natural curiosity in tack and while doing well is still "cool." The research clearly shows that kids learn more and learn it more deeply when they "do science like scientists" (i.e. inquiry science).

  We need to pair this inspiring education with better awareness of the wide range of jobs available in science (including the important supportive roles that technicians play). Kids tend to aspire to what they see as good potential careers and it is disheartening to go to any elementary school graduation and note that almost all the boys aspire to be professional athletes and most of the girls want to be actresses, singers, newscasters or athletes. Teacher, veterinarian or doctor are currently popular alternatives for those with more academic leanings, but if we allowed passionate people from all types of science-related careers to share their work and inspirations, I'm sure that we could instill in our kids the drive that Fossil has noted in other countries to excel in science.

  Yet, I also very strongly believe that we need to capture the potential that T noted has been weeded out of the system for decades. Once we have a critical mass of young people aiming for careers in science, we need to ensure that alternative, necessary support roles and the pathways to them are clear to those who are found lacking and are prevented from rising to the same levels as the cream of the crop in the research scientist pipeline. It is certainly better than allowing disillusioned young people to flounder in our current economy doing any job to survive when they had at least some aptitude and interest in what we need: more technical jobs.

  Finally, we have to stop channeling the best and the brightest into medical schools only, as if we don't need them in other critical areas as well. We need to do a better job of educating ourselves and the general public about the wide array of careers that are not only available, but necessary to support science research and innovation. If we don't do these things and more, we will never be able to regain the technological edge that we have enjoyed for generations in this country.

• Why weed people out when you can bore them out?
• Posted by BrokeHarvardGrad on March 19, 2009 at 3:00pm EDT

• Someone up there assumes that weeding people out removes the worst of the lot in intro science courses. I almost failed an Intro Chem course, but I managed to slather away with minuscule intellect and get a Harvard degree. Rah, rah, get rid of all the dumb ones. This dummy walked out the door because I was bored out of my mind learning random equations and studying algae. Perhaps there are other intros to science that would be more rewarding. Incidentally, I as pre-med but left that thought-provoking field when I realized I didn't want to spend the next 50 years of my life in a controlled lab or in an office looking at peoples' diseased parts. Seems like there could be a middle ground.

• Fossilized but hopeful
• Posted by Theron on March 20, 2009 at 9:30am EDT

• Perhaps because of my job as an academic advisor in a regional public university, I see truths in both the article AND in Fossil's very apt posting. I thank both for the insight. If both cases apply, as I think they do, then our educational system needs to address the seeming paradox.

  The solution, I think, has to focus in part on how education is approached in toto. At what point does wonder drop out..and why? How is education perceived? At what point did we allow calculators to replace learning how to process (ie. think) math? When did composition become simply adhering to or memorizing grammar rules? When did reading become passe...and really only about decoding words anyway? What has happened culturally to engagement, to literacy, to being literate?

  "Fossil's" point that students slide through education and feel entitled to a high-salaried job reflects, I think, the commodification of education: a product to be bought so as to add to wealth in the future. In my State, the Legislature has cut funding to higher education each of the 10 years I have been in the system..and now higher education is being looked at yet again as a budget saver.

  Is there a connection between the loss of wonder embedded in education at all levels and this commodification? This situation is not new: Writers in the 1920's wrote about this; Henry Miller's 1945 "Air Conditioned Nightmare" outlines this; William H. Whyte's "Organization Man" along with a host of other sociological writers/books have explored the post WWII social trends. Finally, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's long ago called for a "rebirth of wonder." Perhaps this is the role, debated elsewhere in Inside Higher Education, for the Humanities, Literature, Art, Music, History and all those other "useless" disciplines.

• Posted by Scrawed on March 24, 2009 at 8:00pm EDT

• Sorry, but Fossil and his ilk are part of the problem. Really, what motivated, bright American students would want to expend their energies in a context where at best they'd be considered underqualified, lazy and unfocused regardless of their actual attainments? Certainly the Chinese do not as a nation address their students in this manner, but in the U.S. we've been shoehorning American students into a 'Jeff Spiccoli' stereotype for ages regardless of their actual abilities, work ethic, or even past academic performance. American students are ROUTINELY discriminated against on the basis of race in their own country because of beliefs like those held by "Fossil."
  

  Oddly enough also, despite "Fossil's" claims, Chinese academia - which one would suspect would be one of the prime beneficiaries of China's "relentless weeding-out process," is often criticized even within the PRC for churning out reams of plagiarized material (see "Plagiarism, Fake Research Plague Academia," China Daily March 15, 2006).

• Theron
• Posted by DFS on March 27, 2009 at 5:00pm EDT

• I have read your comments with interest over the past few months, an all I can say to you at this point is that I hope you will continue to talk to us, and to me.

  "At what point did we allow calculators to replace learning how to process (ie. think) math"?

  In the late seventies, and early eighties, when Texas Instruments sponsored the (then) new concept of advocating to the teacher's unions that calculators would free the minds from drill and kill.

  Once students in 3d and 4th grade were so "freed," the lack of drill and kill (i.e., knowledge) would inevitably result in freeing their minds from such rote, and enabling them to teach themselves.

  This was an abject failure for our population.

  Never mind that the resulting boom in multiplication of market share for Texas Instruments had an adverse effect on the youth. What was more important was the subsequent enabling of "teachers" -- without the correct degrees -- to rely only on calculators to guide students to firmly-fixed targeted answers.

  It's all one big sham. The students' minds are not "freed;" they have no more insight (in fact, they have less) to the nature of mathematics even at the target one century ago; and they are now, generally, unable to think on their feet while graphing something like lines.

  Once we accept something as "fact," without verification, we are doomed. But, the secondary schoolteachers will have jobs, with inferior credentials. And that's all that matters, now.