Re: Sixth grade science teaching

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 16:54:22 -0000, in talk.origins , bobg@xxxxxxxxx
(Robert Grumbine) in <11j0flu90c7sp97@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>In article <peSdnaAE5tP0pK3eRVn-pA@xxxxxxxxxx>,
>BruceW <LevelOneDiag@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>Robert Grumbine wrote:
>>>
>>> Roger Coppock <rcoppock@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [snip] What a difference Sputnik made!
>>>
>>> Indeed. Probably the single biggest disaster in the
>>> history of US education was our response to Sputnik.
>>
>>Why was education's response to Sputnik a disaster?
>
> The 'our' was the US, not merely education. The response that
>education was pushed in to included the 'New Math' (it's more
>important to know what you're doing than to get the right answer),

So you prefer rote learning? Teach answers from tables, not process?
Is it just math or should they teach science that was as well?

>and, more generally, a great acceleration of fads into education.

And what did that have to do with Sputnik?

>If you had a buzzword, you could sell your program. Reading was
>particularly hammered by that. High water mark for US reading skills
>and literacy levels was the post-WWII, pre-Sputnik response era.

Are you suggesting the phonics was the way to go instead of whole
language?

> Science suffered several ways (I'll ask my seniors to provide details),
>but one upshot was, particularly at lower grades, the separation of
>science (and math) out of the curriculum and in to their own little
>ghettos. Elementary school science is an ideal 'cross-disciplinary'
>subject -- you can read about it, write about it, do it, talk and write
>up your results, do the math with it, etc etc. In my first school
>system*, this was how it was largely done. Science was part of
>learning. Now, to the extent it exists at all, science is divorced
>from the rest of learning. It's a peculiar thing that you have to
>take, but we won't really expect you to learn it or use it outside
>of that ghetto.

Again, what did Sputnik have to do with this and how was this a
general move? Considering your objections to both new math and whole
language above I find this particularly strange.

>*system was a throwback to pre-sputnik in a lot of ways, including this one.
>
> In short, the response was a near-panic blind reflex of 'Everything
>we're doing must be wrong, particularly in math and science, so we'll
>change everything especially math and science'.

--
Matt Silberstein

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