US Students Lag in Science, Math

[Amby 490]

Learning should not be a chore, as soon as it becomes one, you've lost.

That's ridiculous. Learning is hard work -- it's silly to suggest otherwise.

The world belongs to the self-disciplined. Children should form the habit of doing

things they don’t like, otherwise they'll have problems later in life.

I actually agree with you on this. I see it first hand in my family. There is such a huge difference in my sister and I. I was taught the self discipline and to do things I don't like to do because I have to do them. I'm a really strange one though because I always loved learning, school, homework, etc. My mom always spent a lot of time with me when I was little reading and such and that made learning fun.

My parents missed that somewhere along the way with my sister because she is now in college and still gets my mom to do her homework for her.

I heard on the radio that the way kids learn usually goes along with if they were firstborn, middle child, youngest. They said that the oldest usually turns out to be the most successful because the parents had a lot more time to spend with the first child during the critical years when those things need to be learned. Once more children came along they had less time to spend with each child because the time had to be split.

Edited May 12, 2008 by Amby

[eau_xplain 2]

I think the education system and the attitude of some educators have something to do with it also.

This is based on a recent experience we had with my son. We were choosing his courses for his sophomore year. Looking through the course offerings being offered by the school, we thought we'd have him take two sciences (Biology and Physics) because the other course offerings would just bore him and will not be useful for the career path he has chosen.

I ended up "fighting" the guidance office about it for almost two weeks because they gave so many reasons why he cannot take two science courses in one year (one each semester). First, they said that he cannot take Physics as he needs to take Chemistry first as it's a prerequisite. I forwarded to them the county info that clearly showed that Chemistry was not a prerequisite to Physics. Then they told me that my son should spread out his science courses as the colleges prefer that students take a science course each year. I looked at the colleges/universities my son is interested in and they did not say anything about taking a science course each year. They do, however, prefer that a student will have a science course in the senior year. Finally, since they could not get us to "be sensible" about it, they palmed us off to the county's Science coordinator. She then gave us a spiel about how she thinks our son is not ready to take on Physics because he does not have enough experience of the "scientific processes" yet and Physics might be too much for him. We know our son. The early SAT results he has taken shows that he is more than able to take on challenging work.

Finally, my poor son decided to just enroll for another course as he got very disheartened about the whole thing. We just hope that we won't have to fight this hard when we try to enroll him in Advanced Placement courses in his junior year.

[HAL 9000 96]

I think the education system and the attitude of some educators have something to do with it also.

This is based on a recent experience we had with my son. We were choosing his courses for his sophomore year. Looking through the course offerings being offered by the school, we thought we'd have him take two sciences (Biology and Physics) because the other course offerings would just bore him and will not be useful for the career path he has chosen.

I ended up "fighting" the guidance office about it for almost two weeks because they gave so many reasons why he cannot take two science courses in one year (one each semester). First, they said that he cannot take Physics as he needs to take Chemistry first as it's a prerequisite. I forwarded to them the county info that clearly showed that Chemistry was not a prerequisite to Physics. Then they told me that my son should spread out his science courses as the colleges prefer that students take a science course each year. I looked at the colleges/universities my son is interested in and they did not say anything about taking a science course each year. They do, however, prefer that a student will have a science course in the senior year. Finally, since they could not get us to "be sensible" about it, they palmed us off to the county's Science coordinator. She then gave us a spiel about how she thinks our son is not ready to take on Physics because he does not have enough experience of the "scientific processes" yet and Physics might be too much for him. We know our son. The early SAT results he has taken shows that he is more than able to take on challenging work.

Finally, my poor son decided to just enroll for another course as he got very disheartened about the whole thing. We just hope that we won't have to fight this hard when we try to enroll him in Advanced Placement courses in his junior year.

What a bunch of ignorants...

This is a clear case of idiocy taken to the limits...

Your son should tell these folks that the High School Physics course is mostly math anyway. if he can grasp algebra and pre-calculus then he should be just fine. In fact, having a foundation in Physics will enable him to totally cream Chemistry. Just by chance why didn't he consider Biology and Chemistry? That probably would accelerate him through to the AP courses he wants to take.

I know since that is what I did back in HS

Good luck dealing with these bureaucrats.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Learning should not be a chore, as soon as it becomes one, you've lost.

That's ridiculous. Learning is hard work -- it's silly to suggest otherwise.

The world belongs to the self-disciplined. Children should form the habit of doing

things they don’t like, otherwise they'll have problems later in life.

I read that comment to mean that lessons have to be engaging to the student so that they're interested and get the most out of the material. Stands to reason that as a student you'd get more out of a lesson with a teacher who encourages class participation, rather than some authoritarian dinosaur who dictates out of a book.

There's more to learning than simply memorising (and parroting) dates, figures and statistics.