Re: Sixth grade science teaching

Paul J Gans wrote:
> Nancy Norton <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>>>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?
>>>
>>>
>>>Because it got rid of techniques for teaching math,
>>>physics, and chemistry that more or less worked and
>>>replaced them by all sorts of new wizz-bang notions
>>>(like 'new math') that didn't work.
>>>
>>>A lot of idiots had their hands in it. My favorite
>>>is that one should NOT memorize a multiplication
>>>table. One should *reason* out the answer to a
>>>multiplication problem.
>>>
>
>
>>I was in school at that time (born in 1957) and I'm sure I had to
>>memorize multiplication tables. We probably also did some things that
>>weren't effective, but I did learn my math facts.
>
>
>>Personally, I like the Montessori approach. My son learned his math
>>facts *and* understood why it worked, without the pain of sitting still
>>and reciting tables.
>
>
> There's no need to recite them except to help get them
> memorized. I was terrorized by such recitals to the point
> where I can still remember them.
>

Whether they're recited repeatedly or written repeatedly, dry, rote
table memorization is going to turn many kids off. Terrorizing kids by
forcing public recitals is just one more torture.

>
>>>Another was teaching set theory to young kids as
>>>a basis for arithmetic. It is, actually, but kids
>>>have to learn how to compute. They can learn nice
>>>theory later.
>
>
> There is a time for everything. I've always wondered why
> social studies are taught early, when kids are way too
> young to get the nuances, and the "hard" sciences are left
> for high school, when kids are busy learning the social
> science of the opposite sex.

Agreed! Of course, there are some aspects of the "hard" sciences that
need more advanced math than most elementary school kids can handle but
they can learn a lot without getting into the details. At my son's
elementary school, they did and they started early. There was lots of
hands on experimenting in science and he always performed way above
grade level. He hated social studies for the most part (although he
learned a lot on, and really enjoyed, the 10-day field trip to D.C. that
his class took when he was in 4th grade). Of course, except for the
field trip, social studies required a lot of reading which he couldn't
do comfortably until 6th grade.

His 8th grade history teacher was great and showed him that even history
can be fun and interesting.

>
> It should be the other way around. Young kids, as I'm
> sure you know, are insatiably curious and they need to
> find out by both social approval and getting their questions
> answered, that curiosity is a *good* thing.
>

Too many schools don't encourage curiosity.

>
>
>>Yeah, I vaguely remember doing set theory in elementary school. It
>>wasn't particularly helpful in understanding basic arithmetic.
>
>
> Right. What a six year old needs to know is that two and
> three are five. He or she can count peas or pebbles to
> convince themselves, but in a deep sense, that's not a
> proof that 2+3 = 5.
>
>
>
>>>In physics the notion was to no longer teach them
>>>things in an authoritarian way, using the occasional
>>>experiment to demonstrate that what the teacher said
>>>was true. Instead the quaint notion that you could
>>>have kids do experiments and "deduce" things from
>>>them.
>>>
>
>
>>My high school physics class was... poor to mediocre, I'll admit. Part
>>of it was the teacher. His name was Einert. If you dropped the first
>>letter of his name you had an exact description of his teaching style. I
>>love physics but he made it *so* boring!
>
>
>>Now, our high school chemistry teacher was great. He taught a lively,
>>entertaining class and we learned a lot.
>
>
> My high school physics teacher was a martinet. Things were
> done HIS way. He even used to inspect our notes. But I
> was interested so it didn't bother me too much.
>

Sounds awful. Like you, I was interested in physics, so I didn't suffer
too much from a poor teacher. He may have suffered a bit from the
students in our class, though. Especially 2nd semester. There were
several of us who were good at the subject and found him terribly
boring, so we did well without actually paying attention in class. It
got worse 2nd semester when my boyfriend (now my husband) rearranged his
schedule to be in my physics class. We weren't exactly disruptive, so he
couldn't penalize us, but we definitely annoyed him.

> My chemistry teacher was very nice, but a bit of a loon.
> He'd give quiz questions like: [blank] reacts with [blank]
> to give [blank] and [blank], and we had to fill in the
> blanks. If you didn't understand that the quiz was
> about the *previous* lecture, you were dead.
>
> Somehow, I survived... ;-)
>

Yikes! What a nightmare. Mr. Ogata sometimes had us do labs that looked
like conventional chemistry experiments at first but turned out to be
things like peanut brittle (right before Christmas break) or Jello (when
we were studying colloids). He'd also read us funny essays like one on
the physics of the strapless dress (I wonder if he wouldn't get in
trouble for that one today). He was great.

> ----- Paul J. Gans
>

.

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