Sunday, May 15, 2011
What's Our Sputnik?
Thomas E. Friedman's New York Times article was a bit shocking for me because I was surprised to see such a politically charged article in our required readings. I completely understand the need for it, though. I understand that we are at a crossroads in our country and we need to shake things up. Although Sputnik preceded my existence by about 15 years, I do understand what effect it must have had. I do think we need a 2011 Sputnik but I don't think we will be able to get out of our own way to see it happen. I see the push for science slipping away since I began teaching about 15 years ago. It is scary to me. At first I thought that the math and literacy push would go away like so many other education initiatives. I just kept teaching my hands on science my way and pretended that the state standards would not come knocking for me. Of course, it eventually did. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with a uniform way of ensuring that all students and teachers are held to high standards, that should be a given. I do worry that in doing so, we are actually making things worse for ourselves in a global society where math, science and technology drives so much of what is going on in our world today. I worry that without our Sputnik, our children will not be competitive in the global economy and we will have failed to to our best to prepare them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Tammi,
ReplyDeleteI really believe that math and language arts are going to be emphasized for a long time. But why should we have to choose between these subjects and science? If the time devoted currently to recesses (outside of lunch and P.E)and the time missed because of students leaving class for band practice and chorus were added to a half-hour extension of the school day, we would have time for Science. (The musical segments could be held before 7:30 or after 3.
Dennis
Dennis-
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for responding to my blog. This process is relatively new to me and I enjoy the dialogue.
None the less, I agree that language arts and the sciences need to coexist to meet all of our curricular goals. However, I do not feel that it should come at the expense of recess. In my district, we have gym twice a six day cycle which means that due to our loss of recess to accomplish more literacy and math (90 minutes each) our children have about 35 minutes of physical activity out of the 36 hours each week they are in school. That is despite all the studies that show children who exercise actually perform better on academic tasks (Chomitz, 2009).
Also, my district does have band in the morning before the first period begins. They actually miss homeroom period. Roll is taken at band and they also can opt out of general music to take band at that time as well. The lack of time for science, for me, occurs when any program (our drug and alcohol prevention program, for example) takes place during science because we are never to take any time from math or literacy.
We are also expected to teach writing process skills in science to reinforce what is being taught in the literacy classroom. My premise is that the process skills in literacy should have a science focus, thus accomplishing two tasks. I do not think that having children in a school longer will solve the issues facing schools today. Even in our required readings for this week we saw what successful scientists found encouraging and discouraging (Nagel, 2010). Not one mentioned needing more time in the school day as a barrier. It is what happens within the confines of that time that makes the difference.
References
Chomitz, V. A. (2009). Is There a Relationship Between Physical Fitness and Academic Achievement? Positive Results From Public School Children in the Northeastern United States. Journal of School Health, 79(1), 30-37. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Nagel, D. (2010). Are schools pushing girls away from science? THE Journal. Retrieved from
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/03/23/are-schools-pushing-girls-away-from-science.aspx