WHAT IF THE PROBLEM WITH MATH AND SCIENCE SCORES OF STUDENTS IS SIMPLY A CULTURAL MINDSET?

WHAT IF THE PROBLEM WITH MATH AND SCIENCE SCORES OF STUDENTS IS SIMPLY A CULTURAL MINDSET?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© November 16, 2010

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The thought occurred to me that we might be looking at this problem of anemic standard test scores on science and mathematics from the wrong end.

When I came with Honeywell Avionics in 1980 from a previous career in chemical research and development, field chemical engineering, field management and corporate management, I witnessed something that would have been humorous if it weren’t so stultifying.

Human resources were intimidated by engineering.

That meant engineering was given cart blanche in training and development. There was no rhyme or reason, no system or coordination, no record keeping. Training and development was ostensibly an award system to engineers to attend cushy conferences in such places as San Francisco, Las Vegas and Denver. It was an elitist mindset that said engineers stir the drink, so back off! Human resources did.

Not being intimidated by engineers, I made a study and discovered three quarters of our 1,000 engineers were working on technology developed after they ended their formal education. Engineers’ income was essentially based on seniority with little to do with skill levels or competence. Meanwhile, newly graduated engineers at the low end of the pay scale had the technology to keep programs current.

The answer was a technical education program for all engineers in all disciplines, which not only was embraced but also soared as obsolescent skills were addressed.

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Intimidation is not always so apparent.

Few organizations will admit it, but I sense there is a theology of organization that prevents teachers of science and mathematics from being sufficiently protected from moral relativism. William Livingston addresses this in THE DESIGN FOR PREVENTION (2010), but not as I imply here.

It is difficult for science and mathematics to thrive in a spiritual climate of theological opinions and infallible administrative authority when science deals only with facts. The science and math teaching corps, I sense, is intimidated by this cultural mindset, and therefore needs a wall of separation to freely embrace their teaching objectives.

Put another way, there appears a “discomfort zone” between the two. My sense is that teachers of science and mathematics avoid the breach, as they attempt to stay on the safe side of the divide, which penalizes students and teachers alike.

I further suggest that more students would go into teaching math and science if the culture (mindset) of classroom were more a fact-based rather than a faith-based climate, and less the bureaucratic zoo that it appears to be.

Moreover, I suggest students would find science and mathematics less intimidating if the curriculum could evolve in open laboratory like environment. Students like laboratories.

The United States, I submit, will never improve science and math test scores simply with more money, more laboratories, and more sophisticated equipment. It must end the power struggle between humanism (civil religion) and scientific rationalism. School boards tend to be comfortable with the former because it is consistent with their politics and moral judgment, and not with the latter, the intrigue of empirical data and scientific analysis.

I have said elsewhere that educational institutions are like factories that I had worked in as a boy. My thinking has matured to the point that I now see them more like religious institutions. This is not as strange as it might seem as most of them grew out of such origins. Graduates of our most pristine institutions have a cookie cutter resemblance except for foreign students, who more resemble gear heads and nerds.

Perhaps without intending to do so, this faith-based institutional connection has become a significant player in the dumbing down of the science curriculum at the elementary and secondary educational level. You don’t have to take my word for it just look at national statistics.

Privileged students -- my granddaughter and grandson are benefactors of a private school – are in the freshman and junior class respectively, and both have had or are now taking algebra, geometry, college algebra and trigonometry, and my grandson is now taking solid geometry and calculus, and will complete integral and differential calculus next year.

Scientific knowledge is exploding exponentially since the midpoint of the twentieth century. To attempt to maintain a scientific curriculum in elementary and secondary school in a climate of regressive norms is to inflict much damage, not only in missed opportunity for students in math and science, but in lower morale for teachers and students, alike.

This is my take on the subject, what is yours?

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