Feb. 20, 2001
Most of us have children or grandchildren who've been in middle school.
Last fall John Hubisz, president of the American Association of Physics
Teachers (AAPT), made available his 100-page review of widely-used middle
school textbooks in physical science. All such textbooks fail miserably, he
and his co-authors found. So did the AAAS' PROJECT 2061!
I've excerpted John's long report. It's important that we be aware of the
situation so that we can improve it, so I'll post the excerpts over the
next week.
High quality middle school education in science is crucial to an educated
citizenry in the 21st century.
cheers,
Jane Jackson
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Final Report: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Grant #1998-4248
The full report (about 100 pages) is at
<http://www.psrc-online.org/curriculum/book.html>
Excerpts: REVIEW OF MIDDLE SCHOOL PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEXTS
John L. Hubisz, Ph.D., Hubisz@unity.ncsu.edu
Purpose:
The purpose of this grant was to review and critique the physical science
in Middle School (grades 6, 7, and 8 ...) science textbooks with regard to
the scientific accuracy, adherence to an accurate portrayal of the
scientific approach, and the appropriateness and pedagogic effectiveness of
the material presented for the particular grade level....
Procedure:
A letter was written to all the relevant publishers as determined by lists
garnered from school districts that were considering or had recently
considered adopting science textbooks for Middle School grades. In some
instances three letters were sent to publishers at different addresses.
The letter explained the project, asked for a company liaison with whom we
could communicate during the project, and asked for copies of their texts
at the Middle School level. No publisher responded. ... Telephone calls
resulted in only two publishers willing to talk: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill and
South-Western Educational Publishing. The former publisher sent a complete
set of texts and the latter sent a sample (1 out of 14 slim volumes.)
Neither volunteered a liaison.
...
The reviewers [see below for their names] all had physics and teaching
backgrounds that varied from Middle School to graduate school. All had
been involved in some way with the teachers and/or the curriculum at the
Middle School level for many years....
General Overall Observations:
... All our reviewers commented on the "busyness" of the texts and pointed
out that a lot of the material had little to do with science.
The books have a very large number of errors, many irrelevant photographs,
complicated illustrations, experiments that could not possibly work, and
diagrams and drawings that represented impossible situations. It is no
wonder that teachers and students alike find difficulty with physical
science in the Middle Schools.
Some might suggest that corrections can come later, but evidence shows that
many students are turned off by their Middle School experience and most
never choose to take another physical science course. There is also clear
evidence that it is very difficult to overcome early established
information. "Hardwiring" is the common term used to describe how rigidly
students (and adults) hold on to early conceptions.
The general reading level has deteriorated markedly over the last 20-40
years. The publishers, as noted later, have responded to this by dropping
the level of science texts. ... Publishers are much more interested in
satisfying a group of selection committee members who typically have little
knowledge of the subject matter, but are impressed by pretty pictures and
seemingly up-to-date new information which for the intended audience is not
at all relevant. Our reviewers noted the same sort of "dumbing down" in
these elementary texts and all the reviewers commented on their
encyclopedic nature, not only encyclopedic, but also containing topics well
beyond the capacity of Middle School students.
In our experience an "author" is one who wrote the book in question. There
is a rich variety of college level textbooks and many high school level
textbooks competing in the market place and most are highly accurate. This
situation comes about as a result of the prompt response of colleagues to
errors in new editions and printings and the close association of teachers
with publishers' representatives. This is not true of science texts used
in grades K-8. The notion of "author" in these texts is quite foreign to
us. Of the several names listed in several of the textbooks, none that we
contacted would claim to be an "author" and some did not even know that
their names had been so listed. Instead of authors we have a collection of
people who "checked" parts or aspects of the textbook. Some of these
reviewers actually panned the material and heard nothing further from the
publisher.
Without a clear-cut author or pair of authors to "define" the text or give
it direction, these texts fail miserably. Committees produce mush and it
is very difficult to find anyone with the authority to make corrections.
Instead of being able to deal directly with authors we dealt with "editors"
and got answers to our concerns about inaccuracies such as "Well, we have
to make the science simple," "We don't think that your qualifications are
good enough," and "Our experts disagree with you."
The reviewers were:
-- Herbert H. Gottlieb, M.A., Physics Teacher, Bayside NY
-- Kelley L. Holzknecht, M.S., Department of Chemistry and Physical
Science, Meredith College, Raleigh NC
-- John L. Hubisz, Ph.D., Physics Department, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh NC
-- H. Thomas Hudson, Ph.D., Physics Department, University of the Incarnate
Word, San Antonio TX
-- Howard P. Lyon, B.A., Erie PA 16509
-- Beverley A.P. Taylor, Ph.D., Physics Department, Miami University,
Hamilton OH
-- Ray Turner, Ph.D., Physics Department, Clemson University, Clemson SC
-- James Watson, Jr., Ph.D., Physics Department, Ball State University,
Muncie IN
-- Nancy T. Watson, M.A., Burris Laboratory School, Muncie IN
**********************************************
Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>