Shifting Times?
Recently, I started to wonder if all the talk about technology in education - Web 2.0, social networking, laptop initiatives, and many more is just a new spoke in the cycle of modifications to the education with different wording. The goals of all new educational initiatives are begun with a good reasons. Everyone wants to be doing all they can to have our students leave 12 grade ready to be a great, productive, contributing member of society. Whole language, differentiated instruction, “new math”, and many other initiatives have been buzzwords of the past. When the pendulum swings, recycled initiatives are given new life with new titles. Is that what’s happening here? Am I being suckered?
I’ve came to the conclusion that we are truly living in a time of important shift in public education. Jobs of the future - jobs that our students will hold - do not even exist today in many cases. If our fifth grade students are sitting in classrooms where 91% of their time is spent sitting and listening, as reported in the current issue of Science magazine (commented on by USA Today), it seems obvious that we are not doing all we can for them to be active, problem solving citizens. USA Today is posing this question, “Should elementary school teachers focus more on problem-solving, reasoning, science and social studies than basic reading and math skills? Share your comments below.” If top news agencies are asking for our participation in their stories now, I’m going to take that as a signal that we must be teaching our students how to be active participants in their education.
All subject areas are important in an education, but the skills of problem solving and the underlying thought processes need to be a focus in today’s classrooms. Science and social studies and health are rich subjects where these processes can be employed to understand the past, take note of the present and plan for the future. Technology is not the future, technology is the present and it’s time teachers embrace the tools of their students to show them education is not living in the past.
Filed under: Learning From and
“Should elementary school teachers focus more on problem-solving, reasoning, science and social studies than basic reading and math skills?
I do not see these as being mutually exclusive. Basic math and reading skills can be taught in conjuction with problem solving at very early ages. A five year old can concluded that if we have 10 pieces of candy, and they are shared equally between 2 friends, then by distributing them using the “one for me, one for you” strategy the child will conclude that each friend gets 5 pieces of candy, and that 10 divided by 2 = 5.
I think you have touched the heart of what is wrong with math education in the US. We have focused too much on what has been coined as “the basics” at the expense of problem solving. Kids have been taught what the teacher deems to be the quickest and most efficient way to arrive at the correct answer with little regard to whether or not the student is developing an understanding of underlying math concepts. In today’s technological world where computers can calculate almost anything for us, it is so much more important that students develop a strong number sense and a deep understanding of mathematical concepts so that they are capable of applying those concepts in the real world. Math IS a creative field, but we have been teaching it as rote procedure. We need to encourage kids to apply basic math concepts in creative ways using problem solving and critical thinking. Our students are far more capable of that than we are giving them credit for.