2011 March 23
Bill,
You are right. Content is missing from standards.
The education core standards do not say students should learn the
addition table, the subtraction table and the multiplication table.
They do not say in what grade these are to be learned. The core
standards do not say what measurement units are to be taught.
"inch" shows up in an example but not as an item of knowledge.
On his web site, my congressman has similar "no content" language
about most subjects the Congress is working on.
We should do better. But how?
Robert Bushnell
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On Mar 22, 2011, at 6:45 PM, Bill Hooper wrote:
I recently participated in a survey on educational needs in the US.
I stated my opinion that teaching the SI metric system should be an
important educational goal.
I received a reply following the survey and was not happy with the
results they reported. All the ideas that were "summarized" were
generalities and topics that were completely devoid of content.
(The vagueness of the generalities are also a failing of the
report, but that is not my main thought here.) Here is my reply.
(The instructions at the end of the report directed that I send my
reply to the White House, which I did.)
The excerpt below includes a brief quote from the report
summarizing the results and then my reply.
Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council wrote:
"Recently, through the White House’s Advise the Advisor program, I
asked for your ideas on how all Americans can help our students
succeed in the 21st century.
"Your response was tremendous! Thousands of you ... sent us ideas
about our education system. ... We ... created a summary of what
we learned. Take a look:" ETC.
To which I replied:
I took a look and I was dismayed to find a total absence of
anything regarding CONTENT. Yes, there are a lot of worthy general
ideas, but they are all too often such vague generalities that they
can be interpreted to mean almost anything (or nothing).
There are elements of CONTENT in our educational system that MUST
be addressed if our educational system is truly to meet the needs
of the 21st century.
One particular one (which I had offered to Ms. Barnes's survey) is
the teaching of the SI metric system, thoroughly, correctly and
probably exclusively. The rest of the world (96% by population)
uses metric in everything they do, in all trade, commerce, design
and manufacturing, etc. Our students are not prepared for the 21st
century if they have not thoroughly learned the SI metric system
and how to use it (and, importantly, NOT just busy-work converting
metric values into Ye Olde English values and the reverse).
There are other matters of CONTENT that need to be addressed as
well, but I believe the metric system is one of the most important.
Regards,
William Hooper
