Big Surprise!

One of the feature articles in the January 2005 issue of Scientific American states...

Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, research shows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress.

"Surprisingly"? I don't see what's so surprising. I'm not surprised. Are you surprised? The entire article is worth a read and can be found here.

Teachers Who Fail

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041212/NEWS/412120357/

More than half a million Florida students sat in classrooms last year in front of teachers who failed the state's basic skills tests for teachers. Many of those students got teachers who struggled to solve high school math problems or whose English skills were so poor they flunked reading tests designed to measure the very same skills students must master before they can graduate.

A Herald-Tribune investigation has found that fully a third of teachers, teachers' aides and substitutes failed their certification tests at least once. The Herald-Tribune found teachers who had failed in nearly every school in each of the state's 67 counties.

Nine percent of teachers failed portions of the tests at least four times, according to the Herald-Tribune study.

[Thanks to DVD for the link.]

Apologies

Apologies for my lack of recent posting in this blog. I am by no means abandoning this blog. It's just that, as I mentioned before, it is difficult to come up with material suitable for this format. I am continuing to work on an analysis of the NCTM Standards and hope to have some posts on this topic which will be of manageable length for this blog. I am also reading through the new (old?) California curriculum and expect to be able to compose a short review in the near future. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do.

Comments, questions, suggestions or rants are always welcome.

Quick Blurb

High school students in Hong Kong, Finland and South Korea do best in mathematics among those in 40 surveyed countries while students in the United States finished 28th.

The survey also questioned students about their own views of themselves and their work, and found that while good students were more likely to think they were good, countries that did well often had a large number of students who did not feel they were doing well. In the United States, 36% of the students agreed with the statement, "I am just not good at mathematics," while in Hong Kong, 57% agreed. In South Korea the figure was 62%. Of the United States students, 72% said they got good grades in mathematics, more than in any other country. In Hong Kong, only 25% of the students said they got good marks, the lowest of any country.

[Thanks to DVD for providing the NYT link.]