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Re: Reality



As a newcomer to this Board, forgive my bluntness.

Most of what I see shows again that most of our colleagues, including
most with a serious concern for good science education, really have
little knowledge of how deep this problem goes.

As some extensive diagnostic testing I have done in recent years clearly
shows, there are at your (any) institution a great many students who
lost all comprehension of mathematics and basic quantitative reasoning
in the fourth grade; there are probably many more than you think, and I
can prove it. Trying to deal with this issue through "remedial algebra"
or "science literacy" will not make a dent in this problem, as has been
shown over and over again. Until a serious approach to the REAL problem
is mounted, there will not be any serious improvement, at least for the
lower half to two-thirds of our students.

Before I came on this Board, Richard Hake kindly referred to some of my
recent work. Readers should feel free to inquire for further information
on the diagnostic testing and/or for information on a comprehensive
program to attempt to deal with reality (or see JCST, December 1997).

J. Epstein