A local parent asked me in the midst of a poolside chat what I thought about the recent outcry regarding the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) and gauche display by the Georgia Department of Education. I replied that everyone seems to be disappointed.
The sad truth about our anxiety over test scores is it leaves our students bereft of their intellectual curiosity. Indeed, we find our jealously of high test scores from students in other countries to be our driving force to secure better numbers in United States.
A good score on the CRCT is nothing more than a measure of how well students acquire the skills and knowledge described in the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) and the Quality Core Curriculum (QCC). Moreover, the CRCT cannot determine the students’ passion and drive to learn the core disciplines, but it merely shows their ability to regurgitate facts.
Making passion for learning a priority will keep the United States the world leader in math and science and keep our future bright. It is not really important how many facts a child can spew out of his mouth on the sciences. Instead, we should be looking at how we can nurture the child’s natural curiosity that propels him to learn more in an effort to answer more of life’s questions.
How many Nobel laureates have you ever heard saying they owe their fabulous discoveries and work to being able to regurgitate facts?
The Soviet Sputnik was our first modern-era kick in the pants to get serious about how to teach science. The Soviet threat awakened us to the emerging education gap, but, most importantly, it also directed our attention to the broadening ambition gap. President Kennedy used this threat as a symbol to capture the imagination of our country and create a passion for space as well as the science and engineering needed to take us there.
Now we find ourselves trying to hold India and China at bay while we try figure out how to keep our science-related industries at home.
Sputnik turned science into a national priority, and the federal government implemented large-scale programs designed to create more scientists, engineers and mathematicians. However, the United States cannot muster even the slightest vision today for creating another spark.
The market for alternative energy is our future. The shallow political rhetoric about drilling for oil in Alaska’s 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is nothing more than a short-term Band-Aid for a deepening crisis. Energy independence and cutting off the flow of oil funds to terrorist organizations should be our rallying cry for the new push for creating a renewed passion for math and science.
Just look at the bio-mass technology as an example. It is actually possible to turn our trash into fuel, and the possibilities go on and on. Why are our President and Congress not blowing the trumpets as Kennedy did to excite our minds in this moment of opportunity (Yes, sometimes high gas prices can be an opportunity) so that our young people will flow into math and science programs?
When I held elected office, I loved to go into the local schools and interact with the students. Let me give you some observations from those visits.
When our children start school, every kindergartner is a scientist. The children are bursting with curiosity and soaking up knowledge like sponges. But over time, we begin to regiment them into a set of standards created to provide the proper standardized test scores.
In middle school, only a small portion of the students will still be excited about learning. Math and science turn into core areas to be avoided.
In high school, most just want to get accepted to a university and do not exhibit a real passion for learning. Instead of their futures being an exciting new frontier, many are anxious with few real ideas of what motivates them intellectually or spiritually.
Who is to blame? Well, there is very little vision from on high. Politicians do more to disable than to enable. Science text books stink. We do not use the unprecedented technological advances available to bring what the select, best teachers do into all our classrooms.
Parents are usually more worried about the standardized test scores than the students’ passion for learning. Television and computer games have become substitutes for reading. Private industry begs for more H-1B visas and cries about the need for paying to import engineers and scientists, but they hardly ever focus their talents on improving the local situation.
Education is just one of the major problems we MUST conquer if we want our children and grandchildren to have a decent future.
Steve Brown
stevebrownptc@ureach.com
Peachtree City, Ga.