• I really find it hard to believe those facts about the U.S. in science.
• If we are so far behind, how come Michael Gorbachev came to Minnesota and Montana to Control Data to see how we run are computers and thing?
• Around 33 hours for fifth graders! In my opinion thats too much thats almost as many hours as a full job practically. So instead of homework we can be making money.
• When you put down how far behind we are in science and math, why don’t you try tell us this in a little nicer manner? . . . Have a little pride in your country and its capabilities.
• I think your facts were inconclusive and the evidence very flimsy. All in all, you raised a good point.
All in all, these students don’t think there’s much of a problem; and if there is, not much can be done about it. Many also complained that the lectures, classroom discussions and homework were ‘boring’. Especially for an MTV generation beset by attention deficit disorders in various degrees of severity, it is boring. But spending three or four grades practising once again the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions would bore anyone, and the tragedy is that, say, elementary probability theory is within reach of these students. Likewise for the forms of plants and animals presented without evolution; history presented as wars, dates and kings without the role of obedience to authority, greed, incompetence and ignorance; English without new words entering the language and old words disappearing; and chemistry without where the elements come from. The means of awakening these students are at hand and ignored. Since most school children emerge with only a tiny fraction of what they’ve been taught permanently engraved in their long-term memories, isn’t it essential to infect them with consumer-tested topics that aren’t boring . . . and a zest for learning?
Most adults who wrote thought there’s a substantial problem. I received letters from parents about inquisitive children willing to work hard, passionate about science but with no adequate community or school resources to satisfy their interests. Other letters told of parents who knew nothing about science sacrificing their own comfort so their children could have science books, microscopes, telescopes, computers or chemistry sets; of parents teaching their children that hard work will get them out of poverty; of a grandmother bringing tea to a student up late at night still doing homework; of peer pressure not to do well in school because ‘it makes the other kids look bad’.
Here’s a sampling – not an opinion poll, but representative commentary – of other responses by parents:
• Do parents understand that you can’t be a full human being if you’re ignorant? Are there books at home? How about a magnifying glass? Encyclopedia? Do they encourage children to learn?
• Parents have to teach patience and perseverance. The most important gift they can give their children is the ethos of hard work, but they can’t just talk about it. The kids who learn to work hard are the ones who see their parents work hard and never give up.
• My child is fascinated by science, but she doesn’t get any in school or on TV.
• My child is identified as gifted, but the school has no program for science enrichment. The guidance counselor told me to send her to a private school, but we can’t afford a private school.
• There’s enormous peer pressure; shy children don’t want to ‘stand out’ by doing well in science. When my daughter reached 13 and 14, her life-long interest in science seemed to disappear.
Parents also had much to say about teachers, and some of the comments by teachers echoed the parents. For example, people complained that teachers are trained how to teach but not what to teach: that a large number of physics and chemistry teachers have no degree in physics or chemistry and are ‘uncomfortable and incompetent’ in teaching science; that teachers themselves have too much science and maths anxiety; that they resist being asked questions, or they answer, ‘It’s in the book. Look it up.’ Some complained that the biology teacher was a ‘Creationist’; some complained that he wasn’t. Among other comments by or about teachers:
• We are breeding a collection of half-wits.
• It’s easier to memorize than to think. Kids have to be taught to think.
• The teachers and curricula are ‘dumbing down’ to the lowest common denominator.
• Why is the basketball coach teaching chemistry?
• Teachers are required to spend much too much time on discipline and on ‘social curricula’. There’s no incentive to use our own judgment. The ‘brass’ are always looking over our shoulders.
• Abandon tenure in schools and colleges. Get rid of the deadwood. Leave hiring and firing to principals, deans, and superintendents.
• My joy in teaching was repeatedly thwarted by militaristic-type principals.
• Teachers should be rewarded on the basis of performance -especially student performance on standardized, nationwide tests, and improvements in student performance on such tests from one year to the next.
• Teachers are stifling our children’s minds by telling them they’re not ‘smart’ enough – for example, for a career in physics. Why not give the students a chance to take the course? • My son was promoted even though he’s reading two grade levels behind the rest of his class. The reason given was social, not educational. He’ll never catch up unless he’s left back.
• Science should be required in all school (and especially high school) curricula. It should be carefully coordinated with the math courses the students are taking at the same time. • • Most homework is ‘busy work’ rather than something that makes you think.
• I think Diane Ravitch [New Republic, 6 March 1989] tells it like it is: ‘As a female student at Hunter High School in New York City recently explained, “I make straight As, but I never talk about it … It’s cool to do really badly. If you are interested in school and you show it, you’re a nerd” . . . The popular culture – through television, movies, magazines, and videos – incessantly drums in the message to young women that it is better to be popular, sexy, and “cool” than to be intelligent, accomplished, and outspoken . . .’In 1986 researchers found a similar anti-academic ethos among both high school and female students in Washington, D.C. They noted that able students faced strong peer pressure not to succeed in school. If they did well in their studies, they might be accused of ‘acting white’.
• Schools could easily give much more recognition and rewards to kids who are outstanding in science and math. Why don’t they? Why not special jackets with school letters? Announcements in assembly and the school newspaper and the local press? Local industry and social organizations to give special awards? This costs very little and could overcome peer pressure not to excel.
• Headstart is the single most effective . . . program for improving children’s understanding of science and everything else.
There were also many passionate, highly controversial opinions expressed which, at the very least, give a sense of how deeply people feel about the subject. Here’s a smattering:
• All the smart kids are looking for the fast buck these days, so they become lawyers, not scientists.
• I don’t want you to improve education. Then there’d be nobody to drive the cabs.
• The problem in science education is that God isn’t sufficiently honored.
• The fundamentalist teaching that science is ‘humanism’ and is to be mistrusted is the reason nobody understands science. Religions are afraid of the sceptical thinking at the heart of science. Students are brainwashed not to accept scientific thinking long before they get to college.
• Science has discredited itself. It works for politicians. It makes weapons, it lies about marijuana ‘hazards’, it ignores about the dangers of agent orange, etc.
• The public schools don’t work. Abandon them. Let’s have private schools only.
• We have let the advocates of permissiveness, fuzzy thinking and rampant socialism destroy what was once a great educational system.
• The school system has enough money. The problem is that the white males, usually coaches, who run the schools would never (and I mean never) hire an intellectual . . . They care more about the football team than the curriculum and hire only submediocre, flag-waving, God-loving automatons to teach. What kind of students can emerge from schools that oppress, punish and neglect logical thinking?
• Release schools from the stranglehold of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], NBA [National Education Association], and others engaged in the breakdown of the discipline and competence in the schools.
• I’m afraid you have no understanding of the country in which you live. The people are incredibly ignorant and fearful. They will not tolerate listening to any [new] idea . . . Don’t you get it? The system survives only because it has an ignorant Godfearing population. There’s a reason lots of [educated people] are unemployed.