Zulama

Amit Shah

Originally written for Univisiion’s “¡Edúcate, es el momento!”

I consider myself an expert on this topic. I was a very good student in India in the 1960s but hated math . . . arithmetic, algebra, geometry. I hated my teacher and tuned out for most of the classes, barely scraping by in the finals. Without understanding and applying the fundamental concepts, algebra was a jungle of craziness. In India at that time, we had to choose “streams” or focus of academic studies when we turned 14. These were primarily in the humanities and in science/math. The “better” students were shunted into science/math and the weaker ones into the humanities. Though I was a top student, my poor math scores got me pushed into the humanities field. Then came the shocker! I was introduced to trigonometry—a new language, a new perspective, I loved my teacher, and I learned the fundamentals—and I excelled. I learned the LANGUAGE and I became very fluent.

The biggest single hurdle in successful STEM education is RELEVANCE about the fundamental concepts. Drilling on concepts can only successfully benefit few; the rest are “not good” in math and science ’cause they missed out on the fundamental tools of deduction, process, and analysis.

Every year we are subjected to a barrage of data that shows the US behind in math and science in world rankings (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923110.html).

The pinnacle of achievement for the top spots are Finland and China, or Finland and South Korea, or Finland and Japan. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?pagewanted=all)

Almost like an annual weather report, there’s a predictable hue and cry about emulating Finland or China or one of the other top-ranking countries. What exactly do we want to emulate? The success, obviously. The success, though, is not a magic ingestion of curricula. Do we really want to drill our students as Japan, South Korea and China? Are students from these countries in US universities overwhelmingly successful even in the hard sciences and math? Are students from these countries adept in problem-solving, process thinking, analytical and deductive in the real-world outside of strict mathematical and scientific study? And what about Finland? The Finnish success story is part of decades of teacher training, government investment, and implementation of teacher-led pedagogy. I don’t have to outline the single-biggest drawback in U.S. K-12 education today —teachers who are trained, paid a decent wage, provided with the framework of a curricula. Without policies for teacher preparation, retention, measures for performance (other than high-stakes testing), we have a nation of coaches who are at sea in a vast bureaucracy.

Can fundamental concepts of math and science be made exciting, taught with vigor and have students be involved in furthering their inherent curiosity? Yes, yes, yes. The need for students, including the burgeoning Hispanic population, is essential (http://www.hispanicprblog.com/hispanic-culture-news/hispanic-education-3.html)

There are many programs that are doing just that and a national focus would significantly help in stemming the tide of math and science disinterest in the larger school population. Here are a few exceptionally good and easy-to-access programs:

1.     https://pumas.gsfc.nasa.gov/

2.     http://zulama.com/content/geometry-and-architecture

3.     http://zulama.com/video-game-academy

Can there be a few programs that are nationally or state-funded and offered in every district of the country via schools, afterschools, libraries and recreational centers for a period of 3 years —say grades 6-8–and then tested to see if that sample is successful?

We need a national STEM policy that can be articulated at the state and district level. Otherwise, coffee in Seattle is a different brew from Boston, certainly from the Midwest and a different beverage in Louisiana!

Amit Shah, guest blogger