Why America's Obsession With STEM edu is dangerous

[summer]

Washington Post

If Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country’s education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills. Every month, it seems, we hear about our children’s bad test scores in math and science — and about new initiatives from companies, universities or foundations to expand STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) and deemphasize the humanities. From President Obama on down, public officials have cautioned against pursuing degrees like art history, which are seen as expensive luxuries in today’s world. Republicans want to go several steps further and defund these kinds of majors. “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” asked Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott. “I don’t think so.” America’s last bipartisan cause is this: A liberal education is irrelevant, and technical training is the new path forward. It is the only way, we are told, to ensure that Americans survive in an age defined by technology and shaped by global competition. The stakes could not be higher.



This dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to defenestrate. A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy. When unveiling a new edition of the iPad, Steve Jobs explained that “it’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — that it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.”



Innovation is not simply a technical matter but rather one of understanding how people and societies work, what they need and want. America will not dominate the 21st century by making cheaper computer chips but instead by constantly reimagining how computers and other new technologies interact with human beings.



For most of its history, the United States was unique in offering a well-rounded education. In their comprehensive study, “The Race Between Education and Technology,” Harvard’s Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz point out that in the 19th century, countries like Britain, France and Germany educated only a few and put them through narrow programs designed to impart only the skills crucial to their professions. America, by contrast, provided mass general education because people were not rooted in specific locations with long-established trades that offered the only paths forward for young men. And the American economy historically changed so quickly that the nature of work and the requirements for success tended to shift from one generation to the next. People didn’t want to lock themselves into one professional guild or learn one specific skill for life.





That was appropriate in another era, the technologists argue, but it is dangerous in today’s world. Look at where American kids stand compared with their peers abroad. The most recent international test, conducted in 2012, found that among the 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranked 27th in math, 20th in science and 17th in reading. If rankings across the three subjects are averaged, the United States comes in 21st, trailing nations such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Estonia.



In truth, though, the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of our national success. Since 1964, when the first such exam was administered to 13-year-olds in 12 countries, America has lagged behind its peers, rarely rising above the middle of the pack and doing particularly poorly in science and math. And yet over these past five decades, that same laggard country has dominated the world of science, technology, research and innovation.



Consider the same pattern in two other highly innovative countries, Sweden and Israel. Israel ranks first in the world in venture-capital investments as a percentage of GDP; the United States ranks second, and Sweden is sixth, ahead of Great Britain and Germany. These nations do well by most measures of innovation, such as research and development spending and the number of high-tech companies as a share of all public companies. Yet all three countries fare surprisingly poorly in the OECD test rankings. Sweden and Israel performed even worse than the United States on the 2012 assessment, landing overall at 28th and 29th, respectively, among the 34 most-developed economies.



But other than bad test-takers, their economies have a few important traits in common: They are flexible. Their work cultures are non-hierarchical and merit-based. All operate like young countries, with energy and dynamism. All three are open societies, happy to let in the world’s ideas, goods and services. And people in all three nations are confident — a characteristic that can be measured. Despite ranking 27th and 30th in math, respectively, American and Israeli students came out at the top in their belief in their math abilities, if one tallies up their responses to survey questions about their skills. Sweden came in seventh, even though its math ranking was 28th.



Thirty years ago, William Bennett, the Reagan-era secretary of education, noticed this disparity between achievement and confidence and quipped, “This country is a lot better at teaching self-esteem than it is at teaching math.” It’s a funny line, but there is actually something powerful in the plucky confidence of American, Swedish and Israeli students. It allows them to challenge their elders, start companies, persist when others think they are wrong and pick themselves up when they fail. Too much confidence runs the risk of self-delusion, but the trait is an essential ingredient for entrepreneurship.





My point is not that it’s good that American students fare poorly on these tests. It isn’t. Asian countries like Japan and South Korea have benefitted enormously from having skilled workforces. But technical chops are just one ingredient needed for innovation and economic success. America overcomes its disadvantage — a less-technically-trained workforce — with other advantages such as creativity, critical thinking and an optimistic outlook. A country like Japan, by contrast, can’t do as much with its well-trained workers because it lacks many of the factors that produce continuous innovation.



Americans should be careful before they try to mimic Asian educational systems, which are oriented around memorization and test-taking. I went through that kind of system. It has its strengths, but it’s not conducive to thinking, problem solving or creativity. That’s why most Asian countries, from Singapore to South Korea to India, are trying to add features of a liberal education to their systems. Jack Ma, the founder of China’s Internet behemoth Alibaba, recently hypothesized in a speech that the Chinese are not as innovative as Westerners because China’s educational system, which teaches the basics very well, does not nourish a student’s complete intelligence, allowing her to range freely, experiment and enjoy herself while learning: “Many painters learn by having fun, many works [of art and literature] are the products of having fun. So, our entrepreneurs need to learn how to have fun, too.”



No matter how strong your math and science skills are, you still need to know how to learn, think and even write. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (and the owner of this newspaper), insists that his senior executives write memos, often as long as six printed pages, and begins senior-management meetings with a period of quiet time, sometimes as long as 30 minutes, while everyone reads the “narratives” to themselves and makes notes on them. In an interview with Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, Bezos said: “Full sentences are harder to write. They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.”



Companies often prefer strong basics to narrow expertise. Andrew Benett, a management consultant, surveyed 100 business leaders and found that 84 of them said they would rather hire smart, passionate people, even if they didn’t have the exact skills their companies needed.



Innovation in business has always involved insights beyond technology. Consider the case of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was a classic liberal arts student who also happened to be passionately interested in computers. He studied ancient Greek intensively in high school and majored in psychology while he attended college. And Facebook’s innovations have a lot to do with psychology. Zuckerberg has often pointed out that before Facebook was created, most people shielded their identities on the Internet. It was a land of anonymity. Facebook’s insight was that it could create a culture of real identities, where people would voluntarily expose themselves to their friends, and this would become a transformative platform. Of course, Zuckerberg understands computers deeply and uses great coders to put his ideas into practice, but as he has put it, Facebook is “as much psychology and sociology as it is technology.”





Twenty years ago, tech companies might have survived simply as product manufacturers. Now they have to be on the cutting edge of design, marketing and social networking. You can make a sneaker equally well in many parts of the world, but you can’t sell it for $300 unless you’ve built a story around it. The same is true for cars, clothes and coffee. The value added is in the brand — how it is imagined, presented, sold and sustained. Or consider America’s vast entertainment industry, built around stories, songs, design and creativity. All of this requires skills far beyond the offerings of a narrow STEM curriculum.



Critical thinking is, in the end, the only way to protect American jobs. David Autor, the MIT economist who has most carefully studied the impact of technology and globalization on labor, writes that “human tasks that have proved most amenable to computerization are those that follow explicit, codifiable procedures — such as multiplication — where computers now vastly exceed human labor in speed, quality, accuracy, and cost efficiency. Tasks that have proved most vexing to automate are those that demand flexibility, judgment, and common sense — skills that we understand only tacitly — for example, developing a hypothesis or organizing a closet.” In 2013, two Oxford scholars conducted a comprehensive study on employment and found that, for workers to avoid the computerization of their jobs, “they will have to acquire creative and social skills.”



This doesn’t in any way detract from the need for training in technology, but it does suggest that as we work with computers (which is really the future of all work), the most valuable skills will be the ones that are uniquely human, that computers cannot quite figure out — yet. And for those jobs, and that life, you could not do better than to follow your passion, engage with a breadth of material in both science and the humanities, and perhaps above all, study the human condition.



One final reason to value a liberal education lies in its roots. For most of human history, all education was skills-based. Hunters, farmers and warriors taught their young to hunt, farm and fight. But about 2,500 years ago, that changed in Greece, which began to experiment with a new form of government: democracy. This innovation in government required an innovation in education. Basic skills for sustenance were no longer sufficient. Citizens also had to learn how to manage their own societies and practice self-government. They still do.



Twitter: @fareedzakaria

[annieblah]

True STEM ed is not on just science and math, but pbl. It's a way of teaching and thinking critically. Not rote memorization. I'm thinking the bigger issue is that there are schools with poor implementation of such learning practices.

[wise_rita]

Mar 30, 2015 4:59:21 GMT -5 summer said:

Washington Post

If Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country’s education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills. 

You mean like vocational training?

:: climbs onto cross ::

Long live the humanities!

[IIOY]

Mar 30, 2015 5:42:32 GMT -5 annieblah said:

True STEM ed is not on just science and math, but pbl. It's a way of teaching and thinking critically. Not rote memorization. I'm thinking the bigger issue is that there are schools with poor implementation of such learning practices.

I agree with a lot of what FZ says in this piece, and have argued several of these points myself, but he seems to fall into the same trap that so many Americans do, which is to take a black-and-white approach to education.  It need not be a zero sum game and, in fact, neither STEM nor Common Core is designed to be a zero sum game.

[tres3]

A friend that is a research scientist keeps saying it is creativity and exposure to arts that make the breakthroughs in science, not the technical side of it.

Although Americans having a better understanding of science can only help us. (see e.g. climate change deniers and flat earthers)

[tres3]

Our elementary school calls it STEAM. The A is for arts

[IIOY]

Mar 30, 2015 7:08:20 GMT -5 tres3 said:

Our elementary school calls it STEAM. The A is for arts

So does ours.  I think this is the trend now.

[origami]

Mar 30, 2015 6:59:45 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Mar 30, 2015 5:42:32 GMT -5 annieblah said:

True STEM ed is not on just science and math, but pbl. It's a way of teaching and thinking critically. Not rote memorization. I'm thinking the bigger issue is that there are schools with poor implementation of such learning practices.

I agree with a lot of what FZ says in this piece, and have argued several of these points myself, but he seems to fall into the same trap that so many Americans do, which is to take a black-and-white approach to education.  It need not be a zero sum game, and in fact, neither STEM nor Common Core are designed to be zero sum games.

agreed. Votech actually is important, but it need not be mutually exclusive with a liberal arts education or learning critical thinking/innovative skills. And let's not pretend memorization and an overemphasis on testing hasn't infected the humanities too. I do agree with FZ that teaching creative and critical thinking is far more important than test scores and I hate that we've become obsessed with testing. SK scores very well on those int'l tests and their education is heavily focused on rote memorization. FZ is right on about that. That fact plus the confucionist hangover of deferring to one's elders/superiors makes for some serious workplace issues here. As much as I love how much their society values education, we should not be copying their system.

[aurora]

Mar 30, 2015 7:07:52 GMT -5 tres3 said:

A friend that is a research scientist keeps saying it is creativity and exposure to arts that make the breakthroughs in science, not the technical side of it.

Although Americans having a better understanding of science can only help us. (see e.g. climate change deniers and flat earthers)

And I think many proponents of STEM ed would agree that the creativity of problem defining and solving are key, central elements of a good STEM education. Not that it's alwys taught that way, but it's what we must strive for.

[aurora]

Mar 30, 2015 6:33:56 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Mar 30, 2015 4:59:21 GMT -5 summer said:

Washington Post

If Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country’s education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills. 

You mean like vocational training?

:: climbs onto cross ::

Long live the humanities!

This quote made my skin crawl, too. Technical skills alone aren't at all what an engineering degree should be, much less one in science or math.

Not that I have a problem ith voctech training for those who want it, just that I don't see voctech as the universal battle cry.

[rupertpenny]

There are two main takeaways here for me:

1. When it comes to education the grass is always greener (on the other side of the Pacific) and
2. Obsession with test scores isn't doing anyone any favors.

[wise_rita]

Mar 30, 2015 7:24:40 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

There are two main takeaways here for me:

1. When it comes to education the grass is always greener (on the other side of the Pacific) and

What do you mean here?

I don't think anybody thinks the Asian way is a sustainable or good way to teach (if that's what you mean by "grass is greener").

A complete lack of critical thinking skills will not foster the innovation which drives economic growth, which the article pointed out...I think, I skimmed.

[ttt]

I want to like this article a million times.

That said, I agree that the main problem is the focus on test scores and memorization rather than STEM itself. Memorizing facts has never been the US's competitive advantage and it never will be. Where we excel is our culture of innovation and creativity and that it's okay to fail a bunch of times before you succeed (this is also evidenced in how easy it is to start businesses here, even if you've failed multiple times before, something that is not true everywhere). This is what we need to foster and encourage rather than trying to compete with China and SK and Singapore on test scores.

I heard a piece on NPR a while back about the top university in India, which had an acceptance rate something like half that of Harvard and MIT. It talked about how their graduates were brilliant, incredible technically and had these amazing skills, how impressed this one employer had been with them. But whenever he gave them an open-ended question or problem to solve, it was like "......." They just had no idea what to do with something that didn't have a right/wrong answer. That was totally outside the way they had been taught their entire education.

[rupertpenny]

Mar 30, 2015 7:34:18 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:24:40 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

There are two main takeaways here for me:

1. When it comes to education the grass is always greener (on the other side of the Pacific) and

What do you mean here?

I don't think anybody thinks the Asian way is a sustainable or good way to teach (if that's what you mean by "grass is greener").

A complete lack of critical thinking skills will not foster the innovation which drives economic growth, which the article pointed out...I think, I skimmed.

I think Americans are fixated on the math performance in Asian countries while some places in Asia are trying to reform their education systems to look more American (HK recently changed universities to a 4 year, liberal arts oriented scheme). I don't think that most Americans actually want to emulate the Chinese education system completely, but you can't deny plenty of Americans do think lots of Asians are really, really good at math. And they also think it would be good if Americans were really, really good at math.

ETA: I just want to be clear, I don't think the Asian model is better. I live in Asia and will be sending my kid(s) to international schools with western curriculums. I just think on both sides people focus on the perceived strengths of the other methods. The "grass is greener" thing goes both ways.

[pt716]

Mar 30, 2015 7:18:00 GMT -5 aurora said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:07:52 GMT -5 tres3 said:

A friend that is a research scientist keeps saying it is creativity and exposure to arts that make the breakthroughs in science, not the technical side of it.

Although Americans having a better understanding of science can only help us. (see e.g. climate change deniers and flat earthers)

And I think many proponents of STEM ed would agree that the creativity of problem defining and solving are key, central elements of a good STEM education. Not that it's alwys taught that way, but it's what we must strive for.

Yes. I would say that creativity and critical thinking are significantly more important in STEM than memorization of facts. If you are working in a lab, you can always look up facts you need when you need them. The ability to do something with those facts and come up with new, creative ways of looking at something is what you really need in scientists.

[origami]

Mar 30, 2015 7:36:39 GMT -5 ttt said:

I want to like this article a million times.

That said, I agree that the main problem is the focus on test scores and memorization rather than STEM itself. Memorizing facts has never been the US's competitive advantage and it never will be. Where we excel is our culture of innovation and creativity and that it's okay to fail a bunch of times before you succeed (this is also evidenced in how easy it is to start businesses here, even if you've failed multiple times before, something that is not true everywhere). This is what we need to foster and encourage rather than trying to compete with China and SK and Singapore on test scores.

I heard a piece on NPR a while back about the top university in India, which had an acceptance rate something like half that of Harvard and MIT. It talked about how their graduates were brilliant, incredible technically and had these amazing skills, how impressed this one employer had been with them. But whenever he gave them an open-ended question or problem to solve, it was like "......." They just had no idea what to do with something that didn't have a right/wrong answer. That was totally outside the way they had been taught their entire education.

I want to like YOUR post a bunch of times. Were you impressed with what you saw of China's education system? I am pretty impressed with SK's system even though it's not what I prefer, because they do their type of system well. But China... Not so much. I could have been told inaccurate things, but from what I understand they dont receive a broad based education even for memorization purposes. I got the impression they are taught only a few subjects in depth. Is this true? I particularly question what they learn in history class.

[wise_rita]

Mar 30, 2015 7:43:42 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:34:18 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

What do you mean here?

I don't think anybody thinks the Asian way is a sustainable or good way to teach (if that's what you mean by "grass is greener").

A complete lack of critical thinking skills will not foster the innovation which drives economic growth, which the article pointed out...I think, I skimmed.

I think Americans are fixated on the math performance in Asian countries while some places in Asia are trying to reform their education systems to look more American (HK recently changed universities to a 4 year, liberal arts oriented scheme). I don't think that most Americans actually want to emulate the Chinese education system completely, but you can't deny plenty of Americans do think lots of Asians are really, really good at math. And they also think it would be good if Americans were really, really good at math.

ETA: I just want to be clear, I don't think the Asian model is better. I live in Asia and will be sending my kid(s) to international schools with western curriculums. I just think on both sides people focus on the perceived strengths of the other methods. The "grass is greener" thing goes both ways.

Thanks for clarifying.

I wonder how much Americans differentiate the stereotype that Asian-Americans are good at math compared to the reality in actual Asia.

I'd wager most Americans (Europeans, too, not picking on any one nationality here) don't know the first thing about education in Asia. They just see growing economy > we're in recession > let's do what they're doing. Hence the STEM focus being jammed down our collective western throat.

[rupertpenny]

Mar 30, 2015 7:52:04 GMT -5 origami said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:36:39 GMT -5 ttt said:

I want to like this article a million times.

That said, I agree that the main problem is the focus on test scores and memorization rather than STEM itself. Memorizing facts has never been the US's competitive advantage and it never will be. Where we excel is our culture of innovation and creativity and that it's okay to fail a bunch of times before you succeed (this is also evidenced in how easy it is to start businesses here, even if you've failed multiple times before, something that is not true everywhere). This is what we need to foster and encourage rather than trying to compete with China and SK and Singapore on test scores.

I heard a piece on NPR a while back about the top university in India, which had an acceptance rate something like half that of Harvard and MIT. It talked about how their graduates were brilliant, incredible technically and had these amazing skills, how impressed this one employer had been with them. But whenever he gave them an open-ended question or problem to solve, it was like "......." They just had no idea what to do with something that didn't have a right/wrong answer. That was totally outside the way they had been taught their entire education.

I want to like YOUR post a bunch of times. Were you impressed with what you saw of China's education system? I am pretty impressed with SK's system even though it's not what I prefer, because they do their type of system well. But China... Not so much. I could have been told inaccurate things, but from what I understand they dont receive a broad based education even for memorization purposes. I got the impression they are taught only a few subjects in depth. Is this true? I particularly question what they learn in history class.

Don't know that much about education in the PRC, but I had a student assistant last year who was from Shanghai. I was just kind of making conversation and asked why she decided to come to university in HK and she just said "well, I actually want to learn stuff besides whatever Mao had to say about certain subjects." I mean, I knew that probably happened, but it still caught me off guard to hear it stated so bluntly.

[pt716]

Mar 30, 2015 7:13:25 GMT -5 origami said:

Mar 30, 2015 6:59:45 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I agree with a lot of what FZ says in this piece, and have argued several of these points myself, but he seems to fall into the same trap that so many Americans do, which is to take a black-and-white approach to education.  It need not be a zero sum game, and in fact, neither STEM nor Common Core are designed to be zero sum games.

agreed. Votech actually is important, but it need not be mutually exclusive with a liberal arts education or learning critical thinking/innovative skills. And let's not pretend memorization and an overemphasis on testing hasn't infected the humanities too. I do agree with FZ that teaching creative and critical thinking is far more important than test scores and I hate that we've become obsessed with testing. SK scores very well on those int'l tests and their education is heavily focused on rote memorization. FZ is right on about that. That fact plus the confucionist hangover of deferring to one's elders/superiors makes for some serious workplace issues here. As much as I love how much their society values education, we should not be copying their system.

I had a discussion about this once with one of my Korean lab mates. He was amazed by the idea that students were allowed to question teachers and that we were taught to think rather than just accept and memorize.

I always felt kind of bad for him re: the seniority thing. He was the youngest of the three Korean guys in my lab and so pretty much had to do what the others told him to. One of them was very traditional and used it to order him around.

[rupertpenny]

Mar 30, 2015 7:54:33 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:43:42 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

I think Americans are fixated on the math performance in Asian countries while some places in Asia are trying to reform their education systems to look more American (HK recently changed universities to a 4 year, liberal arts oriented scheme). I don't think that most Americans actually want to emulate the Chinese education system completely, but you can't deny plenty of Americans do think lots of Asians are really, really good at math. And they also think it would be good if Americans were really, really good at math.

ETA: I just want to be clear, I don't think the Asian model is better. I live in Asia and will be sending my kid(s) to international schools with western curriculums. I just think on both sides people focus on the perceived strengths of the other methods. The "grass is greener" thing goes both ways.

Thanks for clarifying.

I wonder how much Americans differentiate the stereotype that Asian-Americans are good at math compared to the reality in actual Asia.

I'd wager most Americans (Europeans, too, not picking on any one nationality here) don't know the first thing about education in Asia. They just see growing economy > we're in recession > let's do what they're doing. Hence the STEM focus being jammed down our collective western throat.

I think this is probably what happens most of the time.

[ttt]

Mar 30, 2015 7:52:04 GMT -5 origami said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:36:39 GMT -5 ttt said:

I want to like this article a million times.

That said, I agree that the main problem is the focus on test scores and memorization rather than STEM itself. Memorizing facts has never been the US's competitive advantage and it never will be. Where we excel is our culture of innovation and creativity and that it's okay to fail a bunch of times before you succeed (this is also evidenced in how easy it is to start businesses here, even if you've failed multiple times before, something that is not true everywhere). This is what we need to foster and encourage rather than trying to compete with China and SK and Singapore on test scores.

I heard a piece on NPR a while back about the top university in India, which had an acceptance rate something like half that of Harvard and MIT. It talked about how their graduates were brilliant, incredible technically and had these amazing skills, how impressed this one employer had been with them. But whenever he gave them an open-ended question or problem to solve, it was like "......." They just had no idea what to do with something that didn't have a right/wrong answer. That was totally outside the way they had been taught their entire education.

I want to like YOUR post a bunch of times. Were you impressed with what you saw of China's education system? I am pretty impressed with SK's system even though it's not what I prefer, because they do their type of system well. But China... Not so much. I could have been told inaccurate things, but from what I understand they dont receive a broad based education even for memorization purposes. I got the impression they are taught only a few subjects in depth. Is this true? I particularly question what they learn in history class.

I'm definitely not an expert in Chinese education, but from what I understand the answer is....no. The impression I get is that it's a bit of a mess, honestly. And there are huge, huge discrepancies between the quality of schools in cities vs. rural, and because of the hukou system, it's not like you can just move to a city and send your kid (well, kid) to school there. Even within the cities, there are huge differences in school quality. Which is why China totally cheats on the international rankings and just submits Shanghai test scores and is like "yeah, these are our scores..."

[ttt]

Mar 30, 2015 7:57:29 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:52:04 GMT -5 origami said:

I want to like YOUR post a bunch of times. Were you impressed with what you saw of China's education system? I am pretty impressed with SK's system even though it's not what I prefer, because they do their type of system well. But China... Not so much. I could have been told inaccurate things, but from what I understand they dont receive a broad based education even for memorization purposes. I got the impression they are taught only a few subjects in depth. Is this true? I particularly question what they learn in history class.

Don't know that much about education in the PRC, but I had a student assistant last year who was from Shanghai. I was just kind of making conversation and asked why she decided to come to university in HK and she just said "well, I actually want to learn stuff besides whatever Mao had to say about certain subjects." I mean, I knew that probably happened, but it still caught me off guard to hear it stated so bluntly.

I was truly shocked by what young people in China don't know or are unaware of - specifically, how "Tiananmen Square" meant nothing more than a famous location in Beijing to nearly all of them. 

[rupertpenny]

Mar 30, 2015 8:03:11 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:57:29 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Don't know that much about education in the PRC, but I had a student assistant last year who was from Shanghai. I was just kind of making conversation and asked why she decided to come to university in HK and she just said "well, I actually want to learn stuff besides whatever Mao had to say about certain subjects." I mean, I knew that probably happened, but it still caught me off guard to hear it stated so bluntly.

I was truly shocked by what young people in China don't know or are unaware of - specifically, how "Tiananmen Square" meant nothing more than a famous location in Beijing to nearly all of them. 

I actually wanted to ask my student assistant what she knew about Tiananmen Square (I worked with her right around the 25th anniversary) but I thought that might be too invasive or something.

[origami]

Mar 30, 2015 7:58:12 GMT -5 pt716 said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:13:25 GMT -5 origami said:

agreed. Votech actually is important, but it need not be mutually exclusive with a liberal arts education or learning critical thinking/innovative skills. And let's not pretend memorization and an overemphasis on testing hasn't infected the humanities too. I do agree with FZ that teaching creative and critical thinking is far more important than test scores and I hate that we've become obsessed with testing. SK scores very well on those int'l tests and their education is heavily focused on rote memorization. FZ is right on about that. That fact plus the confucionist hangover of deferring to one's elders/superiors makes for some serious workplace issues here. As much as I love how much their society values education, we should not be copying their system.

I had a discussion about this once with one of my Korean lab mates. He was amazed by the idea that students were allowed to question teachers and that we were taught to think rather than just accept and memorize.

I always felt kind of bad for him re: the seniority thing. He was the youngest of the three Korean guys in my lab and so pretty much had to do what the others told him to. One of them was very traditional and used it to order him around.

yup that's pretty much how it is. DH has so many stories. We think in another generation it will be much more westernized in that sense, but for now it's quite a culture shock.

[summer]

Mar 30, 2015 8:03:11 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:57:29 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Don't know that much about education in the PRC, but I had a student assistant last year who was from Shanghai. I was just kind of making conversation and asked why she decided to come to university in HK and she just said "well, I actually want to learn stuff besides whatever Mao had to say about certain subjects." I mean, I knew that probably happened, but it still caught me off guard to hear it stated so bluntly.

I was truly shocked by what young people in China don't know or are unaware of - specifically, how "Tiananmen Square" meant nothing more than a famous location in Beijing to nearly all of them. 

This bothers me a lot. I had 30 year old adults from Morocco in my language class who had never heard of the Holocaust. This is what scares me about American schools changing history curriculums to water down slavery or not allowing Latino Studies, etc. History is so important. We already teach the driest possible version even though the subject could be so dynamic. Then watering down the facts on top? I hope not.

[origami]

Mar 30, 2015 8:09:15 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Mar 30, 2015 8:03:11 GMT -5 ttt said:

I was truly shocked by what young people in China don't know or are unaware of - specifically, how "Tiananmen Square" meant nothing more than a famous location in Beijing to nearly all of them. 

I actually wanted to ask my student assistant what she knew about Tiananmen Square (I worked with her right around the 25th anniversary) but I thought that might be too invasive or something.

I didn't have the guts to ask my guides but I know people who did and their guides either had no idea or pretended to have no idea. I'm sure you'd get a better response outside the PRC, but I probably wouldn't have the guts to ask either.

[pt716]

An interesting thing to me is that I actually did a lot more memorizing in my humanities classes than in my science classes. I don't know if that is because of how I was taught or because science came more naturally to me. It always seemed more efficient to learn concepts in science and not bother with memorizing, but I still had to remember who did what when in history, etc.

[summer]

Mar 30, 2015 8:25:47 GMT -5 pt716 said:

An interesting thing to me is that I actually did a lot more memorizing in my humanities classes than in my science classes. I don't know if that is because of how I was taught or because science came more naturally to me. It always seemed more efficient to learn concepts in science and not bother with memorizing, but I still had to remember who did what when in history, etc.

I always felt like history should be taught backwards. i remembered nothing from history class nor was I interested at the time.....until I got to the Civil War, civil rights, women's rights and the Holocaust. Then I wanted to know everything. It should grab you where you are and then work backwards to show how it came to be, imo.

Like, learning about Mesopotamian history is dry as dust, but if we talk about Iraq now and start answering current questions and work backwards, maybe you'd retain students' attention more? It's at least how it worked for me.

[pt716]

Mar 30, 2015 8:24:25 GMT -5 drruth said:

Mar 30, 2015 7:48:19 GMT -5 pt716 said:

Yes. I would say that creativity and critical thinking are significantly more important in STEM than memorization of facts. If you are working in a lab, you can always look up facts you need when you need them. The ability to do something with those facts and come up with new, creative ways of looking at something is what you really need in scientists.

While I completely agree with this- I wonder if some of the push for memorization skills in science (particularly at the undergrad level) has to do with premed/pre dentistry/pre vet programs where memorization is key to success?  Not many people majoring in a science field in undergrad actually plan to become scientists.  I don't know of any engineering programs that required memorization.

A lot of the students in the classes I TA'd were pre-med, and that emphasis on memorization always bothered me. I want my doctor to have good critical thinking skills, not just memorize a list of symptoms.

[smock]

Here's a reason to encourage the humanities and interdisciplinarity: a microbiologist in the UK just recreated a 9th century medical remedy and found out it can be used to kill MRSA. www.newscientist.com/article/dn27263-anglo-saxon-remedy-kills-hospital-superbug-mrsa.html#.VRlOMFV4psa