When even the liberal Washington Post prints articles like these…
Really? Let’s find out…
The liberal Brookings Institute? What is it now? Republican? on its educational platform? Does this mean that all those teachers and “educators” preaching this nonsense from the 1970s hell even the 1960s were wrong? Oh dear me! Let’s read more…
[quote]Happiness, Relevance and Math Scores
A new Brookings Institution report analyzes survey and test data from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. It found disconnects between performance and other factors. According to the Washington think tank’s annual Brown Center report on education, 6 percent of Korean eighth-graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39 percent of U.S. eighth-graders. But a respected international math assessment showed Koreans scoring far ahead of their peers in the United States, raising questions about the importance of self-esteem. In Japan, the report found, 14 percent of math teachers surveyed said they aim to connect lessons to students’ lives, compared with 66 percent of U.S. math teachers. Yet the U.S. scores in eighth-grade math trail those of the Japanese, raising similar questions about the importance of practical relevance.
Tom Loveless, the report’s author, said that the findings do not mean that student happiness causes low achievement. But he wrote that his analysis of the international math assessment, the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, shows that U.S. schools should not be too quick to assume that happiness is what matters in the classroom.
“It is interesting that people grasp this notion in other areas of self-improvement – eating healthy foods, getting exercise, saving for retirement – but when it comes to education, for some reason, the limitations of happiness are forgotten,” Loveless wrote. Several countries in Asia and some in Europe tend to beat the United States in math scores, even though their students show less satisfaction with performance and less love of math, and even though the lessons they receive are less “relevant,” the report found. The report is likely to stoke a debate over teaching math and other subjects that has divided the United States for at least a century. Progressives say that what students choose to study and how they feel about education should matter as much, or more, in the classroom than test results; traditionalists say that gain requires some pain and that tests matter. Alfie Kohn, a progressive author and lecturer, questioned the findings. “Let me get this straight,” Kohn said. “Kids who get higher scores on standardized tests are unhappy and self-doubting, so that means we should question the importance of happiness and self-confidence, rather than the importance of these tests?”[/quote]
But THIS is the part that I loved best…
[quote]Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, said the report shows that schools need not be fun to be effective. "
Schools should work on academics, not feelings,
" Finn said. “True self-esteem, self-confidence and happiness are born of true achievement.”[/quote]
Oh dear! Standards are more important than feelings? How can this be? haha
(sorry to take it OT)
Odd that they included Macau and Hong Kong, but not the mainland. Maybe they’re not considered industrialized?