President Obama kicked off his latest educational initiative, Educate to Innovate, this week. He plans to bring corporate America together with scientific organizations to promote science and math education. Obama will bring scientists to visit the White House to make them equal to the star athletes that visit. Time Warner, Sesame Street, and the Discovery Channel all plan to incorporate science orientated programming. A National Lab Day is in the works and gaming companies including Sony are joining the effort.
This all sounds exciting except for the fact that the efforts will be focused outside the classroom. My disappointment was voiced in the New York Times article ; Mark Schneider, a vice president of the American Institutes for Research, made the point that while the effort was headed in the right direction, "it is missing more than half of what needs to be done," he continues, "it has nothing to do with the day to day teaching."
I can't predict if Educate to Innovate will be successful, Obama hopes to close the achievement gap between American and Asian/European students in STEM areas over the next decade. I hope it does. In 1986 government officials were more realistic when they chose to fund Project 2061. That project produced the book Science for All Americans, and a revised set of Benchmarks against which to measure scientific literacy. those participating in Project 2061 has declared at least 25 years would be necessary to put America back on top in the world of innovation. The project is in its 23rd year.
I'd like to say our inability to excite students to learn math and science is a problem of funding. Sally Ride identifies funding as falling short. Maybe it's teacher preparation and deficits in content knowledge. The Education Commission of the States makes that argument in their August 2009 report on the progress of educational reform. I don't know. I do know that young children love to explore the world of science and my middle schoolers report hating science. My "gut feeling" is we've taken the fun out of science. After elementary school science often becomes a pen and paper class that requires the memorization of the periodic table and the characteristics of phyla. If we're lucky, national Lab Day will promote the return to experimentation as a method of learning science. Sony's donation of PlayStations will get students interested in programming and a renewed interest in discovery will follow.
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We're here and we're STEM! Yay! Sorry to be so enthusiastic, but STEM education has been looked down upon for far too long. It seems as though only Tech Ed teachers realize the importance of it, while all others think it is a joke. However, they fail to realize the changing job market. IT, engineering, science, and R&D are all our next huge employment markets as the US becomes less dependent on manufacturing and more dependent on improving, problem solving, and building.
ReplyDeleteHaving fun is what learning should be focused on. The more energetic and appealing I make my class, the more students like it. Pen and paper is old school and we cannot educate in the old school anymore. These kids loose interest if it doesn't reek of technology.