Re: What Does TIMSS Teach Us? (was"The Benezet-Berman Experiment (LONG!")

["John M. Clement" <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

One wonders how Benezit was able to implement his program.  Do we know whether elementary school teacher in the 1930s had higher thinking skills than current elementary teachers?  While at one time school teaching was one of the few jobs available for educated women,  most were educated in normal schools.  I can remember hearing disparaging remarks, such as "That is not a good college, it used to be a normal school".

There is one virtue that seems to be shared by elementary and middle school teachers.  They are willing to try new ideas and implement them in the classroom.  There are studies that have shown that better understanding of science can be achieved by just giving teachers appropriate materials, but short term inservices are useless (Smith et al.).  It is entirely possible that in the process of learning how to teach the new strategies that elementary teachers would improve their ability to reason.  We also have to keep in mind that Benezit worked by removing material, not adding it!  Do we know the thinking level of the foreign teachers who are apparently doing a better job?

Adey and Shayer have developed a curriculum which is extremely effective (Adey 1) in the middle school.  It only inserts a 70 minute module into the existing curriculum every 2 weeks for a total of 2 years.  This uses a very workable model of training where each teacher attends a short inservice every month for 2 years.  But there are also mutual and outside observations as part of the program.  Their book "Really Raising Standards" (Adey 2) details the theory and recapitulates their JRST articles.  One important effect is that teachers tend to change their methods.  They use more inquiry in the regular lessons.  Once this happens the program's effectiveness increases.

In short we need to find ways to train new teachers better, and retrain existing teachers.  This MUST be laid at the doorstep of the colleges and universities.  They must be closely involved with the schools.

One of the problems that elementary and secondary education faces, is low esteem in the eyes of many people.  The low esteem, and the fact that it has traditionally been women's work has depressed salaries to the point that almost any other job pays better.  Education is not seen as a science, but as an assembly line job, where teachers pound ideas into student's heads according to the dictates of the central authority.  At one time medicine was also held in low regard.  By adopting scientific measurement of outcomes, and by utilizing the results of research, doctors have become highly skilled engineers.  Once a similar philosophy is implemented in schools, respect and salaries will rise.  Although I do not subscribe to his methods in science, Douglas Carnine has been a major exponent of this point of view (Carnine).  He trains teachers as good technicians with lots of support material.  Note this does not have to include the current philosophy of state testing with simplistic exams, and asking teachers to
teach more".  The existing assembly line can not run faster, as it is already running too fast with too many defects.

John M. Clement

        References
P. Adey, M. Shayer, C. Yates (1989) Thinking Science, Macmillan, London

P. Adey, M. Shayer (1994)  Really Raising Standards, Routledge, New York

D. Carnine, "The Metamorphosis of Education into a Mature Profession"  Keynote Address Society for Prevention Research, Utah June 1998 available at www.oslc.org/Ecpn/carnine.html

E. Smith, T. Blakeslee, C. Anderson (1993).  Teaching Strategies Associated with Conceptual Change Learning in Science, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 30, 111-126


> While I agree with just about all of what Richard Hake has to say (as
> usual), I continue to believe that the problem of grossly inadequately
> prepared teachers in grades 4 through 8 is the *sine qua non* of this
> whole issue. Arons pointed this out repeatedly going back 30 years.
>
> While there is much in curriculum and standards that can be improved, no
> significant change will happen without a drastic improvement in the
> teachers, because no quality reform can be implemented by teachers who
> themselves are at the cognitive and skill level of a 10 year old (yes,
> they are -- I have tested them).
>
> I would be interested to know people's opinion on what percentage of our
> current teachers in grades 1 through 6 could implement a Benezet program
> without falling back on rote algorithms. I think the percentage is VERY
> small. I would like to document that and continue to seek populations of
> teachers -- elementary in particular -- to test with my diagnostic
> instrument (referred to by Richard).
>
> Jerry Epstein