Making Changes

Since I do not have my own classroom, it is hard to give an example of how I helped overcome the problems of diversity within my school.  However, a friend of mine who is a science teacher approached me with a problem of her own.  She teaches in a low-income part of town where most of the students in her classes come from poverty-stricken homes, are often abused, and live in drug-ridden environments.  With so many distractions in the classroom due to behavior problems, she finds little time to reach all of the students who are actually motivated to learn.  She knows they are missing out on opportunities because she needs to devote so much time to serious situations caused by other students.  She met with the other teachers in the school and together they created a plan to help solve the problem.  They decided to sort the students within the classes by learning level so that they could focus on reaching more students on their own levels.   All the teachers collaborated on the plan and were pleased with the arrangement.  However, when the teachers took their plan to the administration, they were met with obstinacy.  Instead of receiving cooperation, they were all berated for even considering the possibility of separating the students into different classes.  The classes remain the same and the motivated students in the classes are struggling to learn from their teachers.  The teachers are without resources to control the unruly students and trying their best to give all the students the learning experiences they need, but it is not enough. 

It is difficult to make changes within the district and further out if teachers do not even have the power to make changes within their own schools or even within their own grade levels.  I have said that perhaps part of the solution to improving STEM education was for teachers to receive more training in improving lessons within the classroom, but now I want to change that statement slightly.  I think the solution to improving STEM education needs to begin with the people higher up in the system.  Those with the power to change things within the system should probably be the ones getting the most training and education on how to improve learning in the classrooms.  Teachers can have wonderful ideas, but without the power to implement them, they are useless. 

The Problem with America

I think Friedman is absolutely right in stating that there is nothing to spur us to better educate ourselves (Friedman, 2010).  The biggest science topics lately are focused around climate change and the multiple natural disasters happening all around the world.  These occurrences are prompting citizens to better educate themselves on their causes.  People have become much more resourceful in trying to do their part to save the planet.  They are more environmentally cautious and try to live more lightly.  It is great that this has happened.  The global climate change is serious and needs to be rectified.  It is also wonderful that everyone is becoming more aware of global issues and noticing the rest of the world.  Just the other night, my twitter feed was full of tweets concerning the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  I was getting faster updates on the event from the tweets there than the news on CNN.  This is a great technological advance, but it is not enough for us.  

The United States has been so concerned about fixing the problems of other countries that we have lost focus of our own issues.  If we spent less time and money in Afghanistan and more trying to build vehicles that could run on non - gasoline products, we would not need to go overseas for oil in the first place.  Our money could remain here and we would be reducing our carbon footprints at the same time.  

I think the problem is not that we do not have any exciting events happening to spur us, it is that the events that do happen do not have the knowledge about them as widespread as there was for Sputnik or people are not as knowledgable about them to appreciate the magnitude of the event.  Amazing things are happening all the time in STEM fields.  Between stem cell research and the realization of the medical uses of stored cord blood, it would be hard to state that nothing exciting has happened in science since Sputnik.  

When Sputnik was launched, it was clear to all Americans that they were behind other countries in science.  That is not the case today.  I believe most Americans do not realize how far behind we are.  As a teacher, I am aware of our deficits in math and science when compared to other nations.  However, I believe if I were not in the teaching profession, I would not be aware of the international differences.  It is not publicly known that American students are behind their equals in other countries.  Maybe if there were television commercials informing everyone that elementary students from other countries are more advanced than our own, there would be an angry public outcry that would force the country to improve science education.  If videos about our lack of technological skills went viral on YouTube the way videos of funny cats do, there would be dozens if not hundreds or thousands of blog posts declaring there needs to be a change.   Movies like “The Social Network” give the nation a false sense of pride in believing we are on top when it comes to technology advances.  More movies should be made about how far behind we are.  

Technology changes so often and Americans could be the ones making the changes.  It is great to think that sites such as Facebook or Myspace were created by citizens of the United States.  However, these two sites are already becoming outdated and replaced by Twitter and Tumblr just as OpenDiary and LiveJournal were replaced.  Soon Twitter will be a figment of the past and replaced by something new and exciting.  

Friedman stated: “We just keep thinking we can do it all -- be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can't” (Friedman, 2010).  One big issue is that science and math curriculum in the United States is crammed full of topics.  By trying to fit every topic into one year of study, students do not get enough time to fully understand what they need to.  They get little snippets of ideas and just a small taste of every thing.  They have large extensively detailed textbooks.  In most other countries, the topics are limited and the students can spend a lot more time fully understanding them.  The textbooks are simple paperback books the size of large pamphlets.  It has been established that in order to meet the level of countries, we need to greatly reduce the amount of topics covered in the curriculum, but the challenge is deciding what is important and what is expendable (McGinnis & Robert-Harris, 2009).  

Other challenges include funding and teacher training.  Unfortunately, I think it will be awhile before the country can get its act together and put its funding into the necessary places to make these ideas happen.  I think we can probably all agree, though, that America needs to fix its own problems before it deals with the problems of everyone else. 

References

Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8. 

McGinnis, J. R., & Robert-Harris, D. (Sept/Oct 2009). A new vision for teaching science. Scientific American Mind, 62–67.