Sep 10 2008
Supporting New Science Teachers
I saw this press release today and thought it would make a good addition to my recent discussion of how to improve science education. The study looks a the recent trend of school districts hiring science teachers who are trained in science but not teaching – uncertified science teachers. This practice is increasing due to the shortage of science teachers.
They found that the outcome of science education and the retention of new science teachers can be improved by two factors: supporting them with mentors (retired science teachers who observe them in the classroom) and with lesson plans.
This study and the accompanying article support the notion that good science teachers are a prerequisite to improved outcomes in science education. But it also suggests that providing access to science lesson plans (which could certainly be incorporated into a science-wiki) helped the teachers perform better and improved retention.
However, it looks like the study did not separate the two variables – mentoring and providing lesson plans, so we do not know the relative contribution of each.
It also raises the question of whether or not it is easier to teach teachers science or to teach scientists how to teach. I think we should both – but I would be interested to see a comparison of outcomes.
In any case, this looks like a very practical solution to the problem of lack of enough good science teachers – recruiting those with science degrees and then supporting their teaching ability. Hopefully these kinds of programs will spread. I also like the fact that these school districts were not afraid to experiment, and of course using objective outcome measures to assess how the programs worked.
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42 Responses to “Supporting New Science Teachers”
That’s interesting and not too surprising. I did a double degree – 2 years for the BEd and 3 years for the BSc (+1 for the honours year) and I still found going into a school daunting initially. Having a great mentor (which I did) and lesson plans (which I did) were both invaluable.
If I had to pick one – it would be the mentor. This is a bit of a cheat – in that a good mentor would help you with lesson planning etc., anyway. The other excellent human resource in a science department is an excellent laboratory technician. They usually know what’s going on more than the teachers (myself included) …
If there is no mentor available – which I’d guess occurs a fair bit in underfunded / low socio-economic areas, then access to lesson plans that require minimal resources would be a flying spaghetti monster send.
As far as “teach teachers science or to teach scientists how to teach”, I’d go with both too. The scientists (i.e., at least those like me with a science degree) would be more often than not (again, this is a guess) best suited to the higher grades and pre-college/university level courses; whereas the teachers who learn science would be more suited to primary/junior/middle school. Of course, this is what happens naturally anyway.
Your final line about “using objective outcome measures to assess how the programs worked” reminded me of the work that Nobel Prize winning physicist Carl Wieman is doing at the University of British Columbia. The Carl Wieman Science Education Institute has the goal of “Achieving the most effective, evidence-based science education (effective science education, backed by evidence).”
You can check out their website here: http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/
I was thinking of asking Dr. Wieman to speak to our local Skeptics in the Pub group. If I talk to him I’ll let him know about your recent blog posts on this topic.
About 30 years ago I talked with an old man: a teacher who was in pension. When he was young he had LEARNED to be a teacher. I do not remember if he talked about his own experience or of what happened at the beginning of the century. He told me about the change in the production of teachers.
Teachers are a product. They are produced by a system, which is led and controlled by the state.
In the old days teachers LEARNED to be teachers. They did not go to a university to study pedagogic, they were trained on the job like in out German “Handwerk” (“cratfsmen”). This system meant that there is a group of mentors, like masters in Handwerk.
Teaching is subject to ideology. So, with the times changing, the ideology changed and the system changed its way to produce teachers. But there are TWO ideologies: one about how to make teachers, and th other one in the heads of the teachers.
Many braindead “68ers” decided to change the world – by becoming teachers. As they wandered through the system, they moved up in hierarchy … of the production system… and became deciders … on how to teach, what to teach and how the ideology of teaching should be.
And this is why ended up with the mess we are in. All kinds of neurotic ideas and ideologies were tried and produced.
And the more the teachers were made better the less they actually achieved.
50 years ago children went to school for half of the day. They learned to read, to write, to calculate.
Every 10 years the FAZ, the Frankfuter Allgemeine Zeitung, runs a test about reading, writing, calculation. Each time the results were worse. The same test questions, and the children more and more failed to give the correct answers.
Right now we have the next big step: “Ganztagsschulen”, that is schools where the schildren go to work in dthe morning, stay there all day, and come back home in the evening. Many, and me too, call this a children KZ.
Year for year the production of the teachers was improved. Year for year the teachers were taught more and better about how to hold classes, how to prepare the teaching material. They incressingly learned more about psychology. And the better the teachers were the more mess they produced. Today we need twice as much time to get a much worse result than we had 50 years ago, when teachers just were teachers.
Industry and commerce are in need of qualified employees, but the to not get them. The jobs with lower qualification dwindle in numbers. Most of the unemployed have a bad or no real qualification of job.
One problem I talked about with the old teacher is the practical experience of teachers. This does not only mean the special area a teacher has to teach, say physics or a language. No, it is ALL, it is how to lead a normal like with clear thinking. That is the least a teacher MUST be able to. But they are not…
Teachers are terribly overpaid, and have MUCH power over they life of persons who are at their mercy.
BOTH the teachers do not grasp. Teachers live in a parallel world. They have absolutely NO clue at all about normal life. And power over other people makes them little kings, who abuse this power. The life of many a child was ruined by teachers. I know this, I am one of the few who got away…
Children go to school, then to university, to study pedagogic, then become teachers in school. No contact with the real world. Mental onany. The whole production system MUST fail.
30 years ago this could be seen, and the situation became much worse. PISA? Wish, whe had it back. We have post-PISA…
That engineers go into schools and teach — in Germany is not allowed. Engineers, despite they studied much more and harder than the teacher students, do not have the special paper, the “Staatsexamen”, the “Lehrerlaubnis”. Their diploma is not accepted.
We had and have so many unemployed engineers who for sure would be good teachers (at least as good as the “teachers” we now have). But these engineeers are not allowed to teach…
To change the production system would mean to change the ideology – and that is solid concrete … in concrete heads. We need a revolution to change that.
The same is true for other issues of society.
The new idea in the USA of training scientists on the job is good. We had it, 100 years ago.
ama
I find it strange that everyone here talks about “the old days” as if there was some magical time long, long ago when education was a heavenly undertaking full of remarkable teachers and interested students eager to learn and equipped with all the tools they needed. I know creeping nostalgia is one of the side effects of aging for many people, along with a fear and resentment of young people they don’t understand or like, but it’s a bit ironic that the people proposing this fantasmagorical past don’t seem to know enough history to realize just how untrue this is. It’s quite possible that the ones being nostalgic led happy, bucolic childhoods and as a result had no clue that other kids weren’t as lucky as them, ignorance truly is bliss (or at least it’s nostalgic bliss!).
I know remarkable teachers who not only know how to teach, they know how to teach kids who have great difficulty learning. Come to think of it, most of my friends who are teachers chose to teach kids that have difficulty. Throughout the history of teaching there have been gifted educators and ones that are substandard (just like in any other professional, we just expect more from teachers even though we give them less).
There is a simple way to measure the output of schools: by using the same test. The FAZ did it: the results became worse and worse.
In one way more and more effort is put into didactics of teaching, into psychology, into classroom preparation.
In the SAME way the students become more and more lousy, uneducated pack.
The whole education system is junk.
Education worked, once, long ago. How did the do it? Answer: They did training on the job. No psychology and other BS. No ideology. Just teaching.
How do I know? Because I am a natural talent.
ama said:
“Education worked, once, long ago”
How do you know? How long ago? And for what demographic? Are you talking about the lost civilization of Atlantis?
I suppose since we are the woefully uneducated, living in the present, such questions are beyond us.
Fifi said –
“I find it strange that everyone here talks about “the old days” as if there was some magical time long, long ago when education was a heavenly undertaking full of remarkable teachers and interested students eager to learn and equipped with all the tools they needed”
Yes, an invented past supplies all the answers we ever need. It works for politics, public policy, religion, and now evidently, science and science education.
The beauty of the system, is that with a little googling, you can always find a set of past facts that reinforce your own world view, while ignoring all those facts that do not. (What I love about internet queries, is how, correctly formed, they give you all the information you want to hear, without having to deal with all the information you don’t want to hear. This has for many supplanted the “Review of Literature” required for real research).
This allows one to avoid the Orwellian dilemma of “Doublethink”
“…the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”
@rc_moore
>>ama said:
>>“Education worked, once, long ago”
>How do you know?
Well, I herewith confess: I read newspapers. [1]
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung every 10 years runs a test WITH THE VERY SAME QUESTIONS.
EACH TIME the result is worse.
When in the sixties, the average grade was a 3 (on a scale of 6 to 1, 1 being the best), it fell deep below 4.
The average!!!
The resullts are comparable, reproducible, and cover a time of 30 or 40 years.
[1] bad habits don’t wear off…
Hello, all.
I don’t claim to have followed this discussion carefully over Dr. Novella’s last three posts. But it caught my eye because of another article I read today, which discusses a paper by “game academic” (they have those?) Constance Steinkuehler (game academics are cute women named Constance?) on how video game players unconsciously begin using the scientific method to figure out the hidden rules of their games and, thus, to win them.
Apparently, a study of a World of Warcraft forum revealed that 86% of discussion was composed of classical scientific banter: hypotheses, data presentation, counter-hypotheses and criticism, and finally acceptance of workable theories of how the game works. Many of these players are using Excel and other programs to create mathematical models they can then compare against the game.
Here’s the link:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2008/09/gamesfrontiers_0908
So the answer to better science education is… more video games? Well, maybe that’s part of it, anyway. The researcher also broaches the topic of lagging science education.
ama – So you believe everything you read in newspapers? Particularly the catastrophic stories about “today’s youth” (which, incidentally, has been a popular subject of sensationalist articles for over a century)? In another thread weren’t you going on about how horrible and terrible all journalists are!
This, to me, reveals that the education you consider so superior to today’s education didn’t teach the skills and understanding of personal (and contextual) bias that is just the kind of thing that’s part of a well rounded ability to think critically.
It’s well worth remembering that racial segregation in the US didn’t end that long ago so this mythical pie-in-the-sky educational system and society you keep remembering wasn’t the experience of some of the very same communities in the US who are still being poorly served by education (for the most part). There never really has been equal opportunity in the US, that’s just part of the mythology that allows the people on the rich side of the divide pretend they’re “self made” and to blame the poor for being poor.
ama said –
“every 10 years runs a test WITH THE VERY SAME QUESTIONS.”
Ok, this is a joke right? What exactly is such a protocol meant to determine? And why would a newspaper be considered an authority in this area?
Do you have any more meaningful data?
Fifi said –
“racial segregation in the US didn’t end that long ago so this mythical pie-in-the-sky educational system and society you keep remembering wasn’t the experience of some of the very same communities in the US who are still being poorly served by education (for the most part)”
I have mentioned this before. Comparing test results from before the civil rights movement to those after the civil rights movement is a complicated thing to do. The demographics are in no way similar.
I remember in 5th grade the first child of a migrant worker to ever enroll in local school system (up to this time, they were not allowed to enroll — as migrants they were expected to work in the fields with their families). Needless to say, he spoke only Spanish, the school had no Spanish speaking staff, and he spent the 2 weeks here was there sitting politely and quietly in the corner.
Within 2 yrs, a flood of migrant children hit the local public school system. And the rest as they say, is history.
Fifi: It’s not nostalgia to recall that average class size and/or student teacher ratio in schools 50 or more years ago as compared to today’s schools can have made a considerable difference as to piquing student curiosity and mentoring promising candidates for advanced studies in whatever the discipline considered.
ama –
I have an idea, that should satisfy you criteria of an education. Let’s take the newspaper test and teach the questions over and over again in school, at the exclusion of all else.
Then give the test to the new generation. Viola! we have increased the educational level of the people of Germany. You are now very happy!
Sadly, the German people, without doctors, or engineers, or anyone with knowledge other than the answers to a newspaper poll, disappear from the face of the earth. No one reports on this however, because the now illiterate German people no longer have newspapers.
http://www.rbb-online.de/_/kontraste/beitrag_jsp/key=rbb_beitrag_1354844.html
“Illiterate? Write for help!”
(Paul Tomblin in a.s.r.)
http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/archiv/2001/erste7556.html
http://www.du-bist-jetzt-deutschland.de
Roy Niles – Well I certainly can’t speak from personal memory about schools in 1958 (incidentally, it’s only been 54 years since racial segregation in US schools was outlawed). I have no doubt that the 50s were an idyllic time to be a white, middle class child or teen and that class sizes were smaller (as was the general size of the population), it was a very prosperous era relatively speaking. Not to mention, from what I understand, kids that didn’t have any academic aptitude were quickly prepared for the workforce and often didn’t finish high school – particularly if they were from working class backgrounds – because they could apprentice in a trade and start earning good money right away. By the time I was in school – late 60s and early 70s, class sizes varied according to a variety of factors (but then I never went to school in the US, only France, Canad and Australia). I remember some teachers being bullied by kids in high school but there was much bigger drama at other public schools. I had both good and bad teachers, the curriculum wasn’t particularly engaging and it was pretty much rote learning (of course, this was back in the “good old” days there were smoking rooms in the high school for the kids and they beat kids with a cane at one elementary school I went to!)
I’m not disputing that there aren’t things incredibly wrong with the educational system in the US, I’m just pointing out that the nostalgia about times past may be being a little bit subjective and myopic. It seems to me that if we ignore the historical racism and inequalities around education, then we’re hobbling any ability to actually deal with some of the underlying issues and causes for the current state of education in the US. Smaller class sizes by themselves don’t insure good teaching or teachers, or a better education in science or critical thinking (though it does make it easier for good teachers to give each kid more attention).
Fifi:
I attended grammar school in Solano County, California prior to WW2. Contrary to what you and others may believe, the schools in that area were not segregated and did not ban children of migrant workers, of which there were many in that and adjacent counties. White kids, rich, poor and poorer, attended school with Hispanics (mostly Mexican) and Asians (Japanese, Chinese, Filipino ethnicity). There were almost no African-Americans in the area then, so whether they would have been allowed in these schools, I can’t say – except there was at least one that attended my local high school during WW2.
My recollections are not meant to reflect idyllic times – there were social barriers between the races and the economic classes in and out of school. And it was still the era of the Great Depression. But the class sizes and teacher-pupil ratios arguably made a big difference in how the students in general progressed.
California had achievement tests in place at the time and the top scorer in the County when I was there was a migrant worker’s daughter from Oklahoma in an eighth grade class – her classroom had approx. 20 students in four grades with one teacher for the room.
(Other high scorers included Japanese American kids, who were soon hauled off to the camps with their parents.)
I mentioned this earlier because no-one was talking about class sizes or student teacher ratios as being either part of the present problems or a possible factor to be considered in the solution.
fifi said:
the catastrophic stories about “today’s youth” (which, incidentally, has been a popular subject of sensationalist articles for over a century)?
“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint” (Hesiod, 8th century BC).
Plato had his ‘Socrates’ say something rather similar. I reckon that counts as ‘over a century’.
BTW, I have developed an enormous respect for Dr Novella, and so will repay his good work by pedantically and trivially pointing out that ‘lack of enough’ is a tautology.
Yay CERN, also.
Roy, will all due respect, you remember wrong.
Check out old high school yearbooks from the era. You will not see the children of migrant Mexicans, or African-Americans. You will not see women in the college bound science and math classes. And how many Native Americans? There were many in the area.
This argument really takes away from your point about class sizes, which I think is valid.
“Lack of not enough” might be more tautological than lack of enough.
r c, I went to school with migrants from Oklahoma and Mexico and can remember them clearly (and their names), regardless of what you’ve found in old yearbooks. And as I said, there were no African Americans in the grammar school, but at least one in High School. Nobody talked about his ethnicity as he didn’t – but he did have a nickname reflective of his coloring – I won’t repeat it here except to say he was a friend and I was aware that he was passing as other than black.
But I think this had to do more with his personal situation than with the school admission requirements. Certainly there were no separate public schools in the area at that time, or even later, for purposes of segregating the “races.”
r.c., I forgot to add that even though Solano County was named after an Indian Chief, there were no Indians, aka: Native Americans, in my schools. I would have known if there were as I spent my formative years in a Tlingit Indian Village in Alaska. There were and are of course many Indians in Northern California, such as the Hoopa Valley Tribe, where I have some relatives.
rc, if it’s important to you that Native Americans be in the migrant picture somewhere, I might add that many of the Oklahoma migrants were part Cherokee, and I’m sure some of them were in my school.
I still remember many faces similar to the one pictured on this site: http://www.airarchive.com/migrant-mother.htm
This woman and her family passed through Selma, CA, possibly in the same camp where my family stayed a few years before this picture was made at a different location (Nipomo, California, March 1936).
Roy Niles – I don’t question your personal experience and I DO think you bring up a good point about teacher/student ratios but my point was that it’s possible to have a bad teacher with a small class, which will just result in a more intensified poor teaching! It was the general nostalgia about the “good old days” that I was starting to find to idealize the past in a way that ignores history. (Not that you proposed this but it was also paired with the general idea that it’s the kids who are unteachable and are “bad”, as if bad/troublemaking kids haven’t been around forever saying out loud the critical things the teacher doesn’t want to hear!
) Which gets us back to the discussion about freedom to question and challenge a teacher vis a vis authority in the classroom (all the great teachers I had managed both but the authority flowed from the natural respect of the students it wasn’t forced authority). We all, kids and adults alike, respond with more interest to a topic when the person teaching it is engaged, loves and is excited by what they’re teaching and has a very real interest in the student understanding (not getting it “right” but understanding).
I’ve got to wonder whether the push shouldn’t be for a class specifically about critical thinking. Certainly there are some areas that can be taught in English but it’s actually a skill that’s applicable across the board. I’d suggest that art classes are actually a very good place to teach aspects of critical thinking relevant to science (how to observe, how our senses work and can be tricked, and how to formally analyze the structure and content and evaluate whether it effectively realizes the intention). English is a good place to teach debate and how to argue points effectively but to say that literary criticism and understanding the structure of literature and language should be subservient to the needs of science doesn’t make much sense to me – I actually think that a lot of confusion is caused by applying certain theories/methods of analysis very relevant to a particular discipline to another discipline where they’re not really applicable (or applicable in the same way).
I suspect for all of us there’s always a danger of taking a personal experience like our school experience(s) and then extrapolating it into being universal. There were a lot of different educational systems in place in the 50s – as there still are – and America’s a big country with a lot of different cultures that add to regional variation. I’m sure your experience WAS very different than that of a kid in the South. Do you think it’s possible that perhaps you just weren’t aware of some of the inequalities or were lucky enough to have lived places with cohesive inclusive communities and good schools with good teachers?
(Would you mind indulging my curiosity and clarifying something for me? You mentioned that you had a friend who was passing but was called racist names at school – I generally associate the term “passing” with being black and passing for white so would you mind clarifying what he was passing as and what kind of name he was called? I’m not asking you to repeat the slur! Just how that adds up with him passing. Thanks
)
This should be of interest to those involved in the above discussion. The OECD indicators – Education at a Glance 2008 came out the other day. The table on page 307 of the report is interesting. The US spends the third highest amount of money per student ($95,600 from the age of 6 to 15) yet came 23rd in the PISA performance in science in 2006. By contrast, New Zealand came 5th and nearly spends half the amount (in US dollars). There’d probably be something missing in terms of the relative buying power of the currency, but still, even the French are beating you. (At least you’re not from Luxembourg – $159,854 per student and they came 27th…)
Here’s the Education at a Glance 2008 document: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/46/41284038.pdf
It’s over 500 pages so I’d hate to read their “Education in massive detail” document.
Here’s the 2006 PISA performance in science report: http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/17/39703267.pdf
It’s really interesting in its own right. From the Executive Summary (found here: http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf ):
PISA 2006 assessed students’ ability to perform scientific tasks in a variety of situations, ranging from those that affect their personal lives to wider issues for the community or the world. These tasks measured students’ performance in relation both to their science competencies and to their scientific knowledge.
PISA assessed three broad science competencies:
• Identifying scientific issues. This required students to recognise issues that can be explored scientifically, and to recognise the key features of a scientific investigation.
• Explaining phenomena scientifically. Students had to apply knowledge of science in a given situation to describe or interpret phenomena scientifically and predict changes.
• Using scientific evidence. This meant interpreting the evidence to draw conclusions, to explain them, to identify the assumptions, evidence and reasoning that underpin them and to reflect on their implications.
You can see how the US did (and others) in the document and look at the various factors they think contribute to performance.
More food for thought…
theo said:
…but still, even the French are beating you.
I agree, on *average*, the US lags behind on the international comparisons. I think this is good information, and is a starting point in thinking about education in the US.
But the demographics of the test population is not the same. Simple comparisons reveal very little. And too much focus on this will mask the real issues.
I am currently hosting several German exchange students. They point out many superior points to the German educational system, which seem valid. But even though they have studied English for years (their spoken English is excellent), and they are some of the best students in Germany (the criteria for the exchange program is very high) they are badly failing their classes in the US. They say it is because English is not their native language.
When I pointed out that at the school they are attending, English is a second language for over 60% of the students, they agreed that a unified language and culture dramatically boosts the average test scores of students.
All other countries are testing a homogeneous population. Many test only the wealthy and elite. The US reflects the entire world, all its good and bad.
I need to apologize to ama, also, who lost me in translation. I had the German students help me out on some of her links, and it does appear that the German education system is rapidly unraveling, as promotion to the university system in increasingly based on wealth and family connections and not objective testing, while the children of farmers and laborers, regardless of what their talents. Amazingly, this is occurring because the schools have dropped objective, score based evaluation, in favor of participatory classes, with lots of debate, essay writing, and ad hoc experimentation. This allows the schools to very subjectively grade the students, and promote to university track based in personal bias.
I really did not expect this, and would welcome more information.
Fifi: To answer your question about the boy who was “passing,” he was, as I said, passing for other than black, not for white. He wasn’t called racist names, he was given one somewhat benign nickname that referred to skin color – it was similar to being called ovaltine when you were actually coffee. He was also an athlete and people tended to want to stay on his good side.
Passing for other than black was not uncommon then or now. There were black college basketball players I knew who were identified only as Puerto Rican, for example. The simplest “reason” for this was that fans in those days were not inclined to identify with black athletes. Indians, yes (think Jim Thorpe), African heritage, no (think Jackie Robinson). But I digress.
You also asked this: “Do you think it’s possible that perhaps you just weren’t aware of some of the inequalities or were lucky enough to have lived places with cohesive inclusive communities and good schools with good teachers?”
Of course I was lucky to have had a chance to experience the effect of a small class with a very good teacher. And to have my natural curiosity amplified as a result. What would we do without luck as a teacher, after all (think Eureka).
But don’t assume people there and then weren’t aware of inequalities – I believe I already pointed out “there were social barriers between the races and the economic classes in and out of school.” We weren’t blind to our own barriers, after all.
I worked one summer in a Naval Ammunition Depot machine shop with black sailors in a segregated Navy. I was in the 8th Air Force later where we saw black troops marching in a distant field, but none were in flight training. We didn’t learn of the Tuskegee Airmen until the was was over. But again I digress.
rc_moore – “When I pointed out that at the school they are attending, English is a second language for over 60% of the students, they agreed that a unified language and culture dramatically boosts the average test scores of students.”
That’s an interesting point that I’m going to mull over since it’s very relevant to where I live. Canada is a multicultural society with a large immigrant population who attend public schools and don’t have English (or French) as their first language. Quebec is a multilingual province, with French as the official language. Allophones speak another language at home and come from an environment that is neither Francophone or Anglophone. (The Germans may want to proceed with caution when promoting a “unified language and culture” as being superior!) So, while allophone students may be an issue in the US it doesn’t seem to be dragging Canadians down statistically – this would indicate that it may contribute but it may be the teaching methods that are problematic or inadequate rather than the allophone kids in a class dragging everyone down.
It seems to me that one reason that public education is so impoverished in the US is that generally American society just doesn’t care about poor people or education (on a generalized cultural level). There’s lots of sensational stories in the news, battles over ideology in the classroom and so on but seemingly little concern for education and the kids being educated (the talk is one thing, the actions say something else). Well, that and one doesn’t want one’s underclasses having the tools to assess what one is up to and develop a response to defend themselves. While an educated population is a boon in an egalitarian society since everyone benefits equally from skills and knowledge, in a culture that is essentially inegalitarian keeping the plebes ignorant is the name of the game (unless they need to be educated to serve a specific purpose).
Roy Niles – Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions, it’s appreciated. I’m always fascinated to hear about people’s experiences that are outside of my own. I don’t assume that people were, in general, unaware of the inequalities (quite the opposite actually since there were obviously plenty of people who thought the inequalities were just, fair and how things should be). Really it was more a question of not universalizing personal experience – something we all seem more prone to doing when looking back at our youth.
Fifi, I presume you’re not implying that I think my experiences were other than just the context that informed my observations. What I am implying is that the uniqueness of the context can amplify what might be a somewhat universal principle. (Again think Archimedes.)
fifi said –
…So, while allophone students may be an issue in the US it doesn’t seem to be dragging Canadians down statistically
It would if my relatives in Saskatoon suddenly had to take all their tests in French. The province of Quebec, I would suggest, has uniquely adapted to their situation as an island of French speaking citizens.
Also, having worked with engineers from Quebec — the language was an enormous barrier and contributed significantly to a project failure.
@Fifi
>Canada is a multicultural society with a large immigrant
>population who attend public schools and don’t have
>English (or French) as their first language.
Interestingly, some European countries also became immigrant countries. Germany is one of them.
The questions is: are the immigrants soaked in? In Germany, France and other countries immigrant groups do NOT want to change. They want the bonuses from being Germans, but do not want to change their “we rule the world” attitude. I talk of moslems, by the way.
Without the “Gastarbeiter” from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Yugoslavia the German economy would not have flourished the way it did since the sixties. And those who came from these countries, and stayed in Germany, they BECAME Germans. This way a new world was formed.
In the USA and Canada immigrants come, and are soaked in — IF they have the mind to do so. Europeans will pose no problem. They are a mixture already.
Only religion and “we rule the world” insanity are dangerous. And this comes from islam and the GUS countries. There are many immigrants fromthe GUS coutnries to Germany, and their cruelty and violence is a BIG problem for many towns. The Turkish people in Germany, no matter who long they are here (even 30 or 40 years) are a foreign body. Aside of islam the violence agains women is terrible and costs lives each year.
There are also refugees from Vietnam. A lot of the old ones still do not speak German. They live in enclaves.
The very same situation is in the USA. Although Americans believe to live in a melting pot, in effect many groups only coexist.
The school situation for children with a family background other than of German origin is bad and very many do not reach the school degree, or only with very bad notes.
Some who are really good, and in effect are better as most genuine Germans, but they are not a large group.
Bad school education leads to no work education (“Berufsausbildung”), and so to no job, no future.
All can see that, and these children SURE to realize it. So they do not try to get out of this.
About 30 years ago we had schools with so many children from foreign countries, that teachers had no chance anymore to REALLY teach. There was nearly no progress.
THE CAUSE OF ALL OF THIS: LANGUAGE.
Instead of learning German language the Gastarbeiter children and immigrant children dragged down the level of the German children: German adopted their speak.
Americans find Teletubbies funny? We not. They are in our streets…
Sorry for the ton of typos… I see them now – but it is too late…
@rc_moore
Will the script DO its works and make a quote now?
[quote]I need to apologize to ama, also, who lost me in translation. I had the German students help me out on some of her links, and it does appear that the German education system is rapidly unraveling, as promotion to the university system in increasingly based on wealth and family connections and not objective testing, while the children of farmers and laborers, regardless of what their talents. Amazingly, this is occurring because the schools have dropped objective, score based evaluation, in favor of participatory classes, with lots of debate, essay writing, and ad hoc experimentation. This allows the schools to very subjectively grade the students, and promote to university track based in personal bias.
I really did not expect this, and would welcome more information.[/quote]
Perhaps your exchange students saw the texts and their background now for the first time. Newspapers and other media are a strange breed. Many facts are just not reported to public. Local stories are local stories, so they are not reported in other towns. Local stories are no national stories, so they are not reported in papers, magazines and broadcasts which have nationwide character.
Also, many topics are neglected. It so much more interesting to for the tousandth time gossip about the chancelorist or other blokes. But to report about really important themes? …
The going down of education is nothing new. It started 40 years go. And it is house-made. The system itself messed it up. The more reforms they made, the more they messed up.
And it was foreseable.
It is a matter of who is at the power. And it were the idiots.
By they way: they still are…
The most important point is – in contrast to your guess – that is is NOT “the capitalists” who made or now make the things this way. No, it is people who believe themselves to be “left” ones, “social” ones.
What is so sad about it all: One cannot talk with them. They DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
THESE people, who drag this country into misery, just do not realize and DO NOT WANT to realize what they in effect are doing.
Our parents were asked why they did not prevent Hitler. Go out now and ask those blokes of today, why they do not prevent the new Hitlers…
I wrote that in Bremerhaven, this unbelievable place of utmost insanity, elections for decades bring 2/3 of votes for the SPD. Now, since when is the number of white-collar employees larger than that of workers? Long, long years ago. But still, the followers of the SPD think of themselves as workeŕs. Only they never did see work, but were employees…
The SPD, when at the controls of power, does things far worse than the most right-wing CDU guy would do. No objections… from no one…
Now (for some years), that the SPD is ruling together with the CDU, there is political nirvana. NO ONE can take these idiots serious. They are nothing but kindergarten mob. Right now we have the latest affair at the party top.
All the time, all these years, it is the “social” ideology of self-esteemed “socialists”, who only “do good for the world”. It is their insane ideology which is responsible. But, instead of REALIZING this, instead of accepting their guilt, they still move on and make it worse…
One of the mistakes Marx made is to believe that the capital is “the” power at the control. No, it is the persons at the controls, wherever they come from. The former German chancelor Gerhard Schröder is such an example. He, by the way, was much worse that all CDU jerks together, and in the end cashed in big bucks from the Russian gas industry… (He still is…)
One could call it corruptistan.
There is a movement, for some years already, to build “networks”. Alumni of a university help each other and help students of THEIR university to get jobs. New associations are formed ESPECIALLY FOR THIS. So, “connections” will decide, who gets a job. Not integrity, not work skill, not scientific knowledge… And OF THIS the universities and their professors and deacons and presidents are proud.
And there is NO ONE who opens his mouth to say that this is illegal, that this is plain textbook corruption.
Germany is on the way to ancient China, steered thereto by left social democrats.
Isn’t this a damned shame to mankind?
Roy Niles – “Fifi, I presume you’re not implying that I think my experiences were other than just the context that informed my observations. What I am implying is that the uniqueness of the context can amplify what might be a somewhat universal principle. (Again think Archimedes.)”
I’m not sure what you mean in the first sentence! That said, I do understand you were using it as an example of an experience that leads you to believe that smaller class sizes are preferable. I’d agree with that certainly, I just think it’s worth noting that a bad teacher with a small class won’t become any better simply because the class is small. Small class sizes help but it’s also about the teacher’s ability.
ama – Canada didn’t become an immigrant country, it’s always been one since it was colonized (even the aboriginal peoples migrated here over a land bridge). Same with America (not that this prevented prejudice against each new wave of immigrants in either country throughout their histories). Certainly Quebec deals with language in an unique way within Canada but all throughout Canada there are allophone immigrants. Ironically, its Francophone kids who are having the most trouble with literacy in Quebec (not the allophone students in French schools and not because it’s been dumbed down for immigrants).
Speaking purely from personal observation here, the hardest studiers and the ones getting most pressure to succeed in school – both in high school and university in my experience – were always the immigrant kids. This is because it’s very possible and quite easy to change one’s economic status through education in Canada. Education is desirable and effective if it offers hope of a better future – kids who already feel that the society they live in doesn’t offer them a future aren’t going to bother working hard for a future (particularly if they’re seeing their parents being treated badly now).
Maybe I just see culture differently because I moved around a lot as a kid, so nationalism has always seemed hollow and propagandistic to me, but I find claims of cultural superiority pretty hollow no matter who’s making them. Particularly when they’re accompanied by claims that it’s “them” (meaning immigrants) dragging a superior culture down.
@Fifi
>Maybe I just see culture differently because I moved
>around a lot as a kid, so nationalism has always seemed
>hollow and propagandistic to me, but I find claims of
>cultural superiority pretty hollow no matter who’s making
>them.
A great number of immigrants from the GUS countries to Germany had relations to Germany. In the past in several waves people had emigrated from German areas to the east. Now their grand…children and their relatives tried to escape from the GUS-countries and showed to their German ancestry. They were allowed to come to Germany if their proved such a relation. In Germany they are called “Aussiedler” and are not treated the way persons from other countries, as they have – somehow – a German relation.
A person who was in contact with these groups quite often, told about a shocking incident: When talking about Turks in Germany (who actually are as alien as are the people from the GUS countries), some of the (ex-)Russians (who were in German for a short time, say months) said: “When do we throw out the Turks?”
The nationalism really is a pest.
>… Particularly when they’re accompanied by claims that
>it’s “them” (meaning immigrants) dragging a superior
>culture down.
You did not read correctly.
The problem with the school classes is that the teacher has to teach in plain German. And the contents of what the teacher says, accumulates, and over the years the students accumulate knowledge.
If the students do not understand enough German, they cannot follow what the teacher and the other (German-speaking) students say. If there are some few students with language problems, this can be solved and these students will be “towed” by the others. But if a critical number of students is not able to follow what the teacher and the other say in German, they brake down the whole learning. If you have a class with 30 or even more children, and only 10 or, say, 5, who fully understand German, how can you go on teaching? It has become impossible.
The situation is absolutely terrible. In 2006 a whole school in Berlin was given up:
http://www.google.de/search?as_q=r%C3%BCtli-schule+berlin&hl=de&num=100
I hope some of the articles are in English, so you can read them. The situation became unbeareable, violence broke out. The school was given up by the director, who went into public with this. As a reaction politics for some microseconds moved their behinds and rearranged a bit, so that the school could stay open. But – actually – nothing has changed. Only, we had some newspaper and TV reports.
>… Particularly when they’re accompanied by claims that
>it’s “them” (meaning immigrants) dragging a superior
>culture down.
Again: you did not read correctly. I did not write about a superior culture. Honestly, I doubt that the Germans have ANY culture.
I wrote about the degrading of speech and of language in schools, caused by the pressure of too many students who could not be controlled anymore. Their babble was immitated by the other children and became their lingo. Just as these zerobainers wear jeans which are much too long so that their … nearly touch the ground, they adopted the language. It is cool to be stupid…
Addendum:
“If there are some few students with language problems, this can be solved and these students will be “towed” by the others.”
I meant “pulled”, i.e, that these students are helped by the others and will learn German.
Fifi says, “I do understand you were using it as an example of an experience that leads you to believe that smaller class sizes are preferable. I’d agree with that certainly, I just think it’s worth noting that a bad teacher with a small class won’t become any better simply because the class is small. Small class sizes help but it’s also about the teacher’s ability.”
But this is an exchange we had earlier:
‘You also asked this: “Do you think it’s possible that perhaps you just weren’t aware of some of the inequalities or were lucky enough to have lived places with cohesive inclusive communities and good schools with good teachers?”
Of course I was lucky to have had a chance to experience the effect of a small class with a very good teacher.’
So of course it’s also the teachers ability. Someone, perhaps you, could now come back and say, well an able teacher can overcome any problems of class size, and give as an illustration the guy in a mostly black urban school whose students do Shakespeare.
And I could come back and point out that in my teacher put on Gilbert and Sullivan and other operettas yearly, plus had everyone learn to play in the school band.
But to perhaps bring this anecdotal reference to a close, I’ve found something on the net about that very school and teacher, Mrs. Floy Weeks, and would like to publish it here if you’ll indulge me:
***
“The Green Valley School District was established in 1854. The description of the first one-room school house does not exist; however it is known that 38 students enrolled in its first year, ranging from ages 4 to 17. The “new” Green Valley Schoolhouse was an upgrade to a two-room structure, that accommodated 65 to 70 students in grades one through eight. The building sported a belfry on its broad roof and a very large American flag.
Calvin Webster, superintendent of schools around 1888, described the schoolhouse in detail in “History of Solano County Education.” He noted that the town of Cordelia and the “rich and famous” Green Valley sent their children to the little schoolhouse located at the foot of a hill that was surrounded by oak trees. “This is one of the oldest districts in Solano County, and is a first-class grammar school.”
The two classrooms were well furnished and furniture and apparatus. One of the largest and best selected libraries were housed within the school. In 1888, 91 children were enrolled. The teachers were paid $60 to $75 and taught for eight months.
Cordelia was described in 1872 as the center for large farming and stock-raising enterprises. At that time the population was about 300. There was a church, hotel, private boarding house, blacksmith shop, wagon shop, boot and shoemaker’s shop, law office, two dry goods stores, express office, post office, three saloons, upholstery and paint shop, livery stable, butcher shop, and a warehouse capable of storing 1,000 tons of grain.
Green Valley was known for grape growing and viticulture. Over 200,000 gallons of brandy and wines had been shipped between the years 1871 and 1872.
Cordelia had a large German immigrant population, consisting not just of farmers, but artisans and merchants from Hanover. Family names can still be found in the area, such as Siebe, Garben, Dunker and Glashoff, to name a few.
Bud Ellsworth not only was instrumental in securing the building’s roof in 1991, but he interviewed and provided anecdotal accounts of old-timers who had fond memories of the Green Valley school. “Buster” Dunker who graduated in 1919 recalled his teachers. There was Mrs. Ella Force, who taught grades five through eight from about 1910 until she retired in 1939 and Mrs. Floy Weeks, who was principal and teacher of grades five through eight from 1916 until she retired in 1956.
Mrs. Weeks commuted daily by railroad from Vallejo and later by Greyhound bus on Highway 40, which later would be widened and become Interstate 80. “The boys joked about the forceful principal, Mrs. Weeks, and the kind and gentle Mrs. Force.”
***
Mrs. Force and Mrs. Weeks. They both should be enshrined in a teachers hall of fame somewhere.
Thanks for the story about your school, most enjoyable and it sounds like you got an education from an era even earlier than the 50s at what seems to be quite an exceptional school with a really good and dedicated teacher! I agree that small classes and good teachers are a great combo and I suspect you agree that small classes with a terrible teacher aren’t so great. The point of my initial post was merely to question the universalizing of your personal experience from another era and what seemed to be a rising tide of posts about the “good old days” by various posters.
The history of education is taught in schools all over America. I have not read every post, but of those I read, there were few references to scholarly works (CWSEI excepted), only anecdotal accounts. Education has a history AND it is documented by people other than your Aunt Flossie.
Steve, the improvement of science teaching is examined and documented. That’s no big deal. But why not mention Seymour Papert and the history of project based learning and STEM style teaching which appears to be incredibly effective in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Sweden, and Singapore? In those locations a person must hold a science degree to teach science. Most scientist-educators think that is an important finding because similar programs in U.S. middle schools appear to be worthless when taught by non-science majors.
Second point: Second career science teachers who are new to teaching benefit from mentoring which is VERY uneven in practice. But by far the most wretched thing is what happens to *nearly* all new teachers in large schools, whatever the subject. Their first classroom is filled with children who have been rejected by every other teacher in the department. Two years ago we had a pediatrician who decided to make science education a retirement career. She lasted two weeks. (That’s my meaningless anecdote.) Last year we got a second career research biologist who has established a no-pathologic behaviour standard and appears to be surviving. He teaches basic science classes. Is he wasted on those classes when he could be turning out Intel Science Competition winners? I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision. Please note I said *nearly* all new teachers because *nearly* all large public school districts have management school feeders that have low standards because the demand is high.
Virtually all large school districts suffer from low “new teacher” retention. Their fix is mentoring which is only half of a solution.
I know I’m a little late to the conversation, but I’m a scientist who would like to teach. I actually went to a university that is known for producing teachers, but I didn’t go for teaching. I had many friends and roommates who were going to school there for teaching, which leads me to the problem: I wouldn’t mind going back to school (in fact, I would love to) but I remember so many of those teaching students whose homework so often amounted to doing arts and crafts and it always seemed so silly to me and I just don’t know if I could handle it. And by handle it I mean justify spending more money on an education without getting the return-on-investment I would be looking for (e.g. spending money to do irrelevant tasks).
Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s more to it than that, but that stuff I just never understood.