APPENDIX D

 

A LIST OF NEW ABSURDITIES IN THE NAME OF REFORMS OR NOVELTIES

  PERPETRATED ON THE AMERICAN EDUCATION

 

! Under a new educational plan proposed for the schools of McFarland, Wisconsin, one of the sites in the country participating in Project 2061, which is sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.:

 

         Standard subject areas such as English, math and science would be abolished.

         Instead, subjects such as exploration, food, machines and tools, and energy would dominate the curriculum.

         Lessons would take place mainly during hands‑on activities rather than at a chalkboard.

         And there would be no letter grades. Students would graduate from school once they've mastered a set of predetermined "benchmarks," such as the idea  that "sunlight is the ultimate source of most of the energy used on Earth."

 

         Responding to criticisms from parents, McFarland Superintendent Patrick Kennedy said the district erred in not involving parents earlier.²⁰

 

! Education in mathematics, like all education, is in an ongoing process of deterioration. The best-known example of this deterioration is the "New Math," introduced in the 1950s. The New Math made mathematics unintelligible by disconnecting it from any concrete application. A number like "2," for example, is defined not as a concept standing for any instance of two things, but as the

 

"equivalence class of ordered pairs of natural numbers. What this means is the following. An ordered pair of natural numbers is the pair (7,5). This, intuitively, means 7‑5. However, (6,4), (4,2)...and millions of other pairs represent the same [number]. Two such ordered pairs (a,b) and (c,d) are called equivalent if a + d = b + c. Hence...2 is the class of all ordered pairs equivalent to, say, (7,5). The " merit" of this definition is that one can, using only the natural  numbers, introduce the ordered pair (5,7), which represents 5‑7, or ‑2."

 

this incomprehensible hash of abstraction was taught, not to graduate students, but to grade schoolers, schoolers barely learning to automatize concepts of arithmetic and to keep them tied to reality.²¹

 

! In some schools there is no history requirement but a social science requirement that could be fulfilled with history, psychology, or sociology; the math unit could be satisfied with logic; and science by kitchen chemistry or amateur astronomy or even "geography."  It is also possible to meet a student satisfying a requirement by taking "Foods of the World."²²

 

! In a book written by two professors at Purdue University, titled Creative Sciencing, science teachers are told how to teach their subject properly. To learn science, the book declares,    Students must engage in "hands‑on science activities."

                                                                             

         They must perform a series of concrete "experiments," such as designing a bug catcher, collecting pictures of objects that begin with a "c," going on field trips to the local factory, or finding polluters in the community.²³

 

! The same book, Creative Sciencing, says:

         "When preparing performance objectives, you may wish to consider the fact that we don't demand accuracy in art or creative writing, but we have permitted ourselves to require accuracy in science. We may be paying a high price in lost interest, enthusiasm, vitality, and creativity in science because of this requirement of accuracy. . .

         "How many times will a student try to respond to a question if continually told that his or her answers are wrong? Wrong answers should be reserved for quiz shows on television." ²⁴

 

! At a meeting of experts brought together by a large foundation to discover what ails science‑teaching, James Rutherford, chief education officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science declares:

         "We are too serious, we insist on all the abstract stuff. We need to relax and let the children learn their own neighborhood."²⁵

 

! In 1994, California Learning Assessment System Test had a math question. The question, having given the parameters of a problem regarding the replantment of 3,000 trees "destroyed by a forest fire" had the following instruction:

         "How many days will it take to replant the forest? Explain your plan to the principal so that you can convince her to help students involved in replanting the forest."

         The correct answer was 10.5 days. Yet, in accordance with grading guidelines put out by the Department of Education, a student who answered 450 days received a higher grade than a student who answered 10.5 days, because the student with the right answer didn't write a good note to the principal while the 450-day wonder wrote an upbeat note. "It would be a great experience and we'd be helping save the forest. Remember only 450 days!" she wrote, ending her note with a happy face.²⁶