Increasing Math and Science Achievement: The Best and Worst of the East and West

Abstract

IN MARCH 2005, during the annual session of the Chinese National People's Congress, a group of members of the Chinese legislative body introduced a proposal calling for an immediate overhaul of the New Mathematics Curriculum Standards for elementary and secondary schools. A similar proposal was introduced by members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the highest political organization representing non-Communist parties and social elites without party affiliations. Both proposals were initiated and supported by prominent mathematicians and scientists who believe that the New Math Curriculum Standards, released by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2001 and largely modeled after the 1989 version of the standards issued in the U.S. by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), are ruining education in China. The New Math Curriculum has been sharply criticized for betraying an excellent educational tradition, sacrificing mathematical thinking and reasoning for experiential learning, giving up disciplinary coherence in the name of inquiry learning, lowering expectations in the name of reducing students' burden, and causing confusion among teachers and students. 10 years, when we find our next generation cannot think logically and reason mathematically, says Jiang Boju, a professor at Peking University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who sponsored the proposal, it will be too late. Similar concerns have been voiced by ministry officials, parents, mathematicians, and textbook publishers. BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE IRONY OF EDUCATION REFORM IN THE EAST AND WEST The math wars in China are also taking place in other East Asian education systems. Over the past decade, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore have all engaged in dramatic curricular reforms and are now beginning to debate the results. (1 When they first embraced reform, these high performers in international and science tests appeared to be extremely unhappy with their own and science education. They seemed eager to abandon what the rest of the world, particularly the United States, would love to have: a rigorous, coherent, systematic and science curriculum instead of inquiry-based, constructivism-driven, child-centered, progressive and science education, which many American educators now seem similarly eager to throw away. The East Asian reformers were not crazy, nor were they agents of the U.S. government on a secret mission to wipe out America's competition by lowering and science achievement elsewhere, as some Chinese teachers jokingly accused. They were well-intentioned and diligently looking for a way to address their own problems: students' lack of creativity, an overemphasis on testing, a focus on memorization over application, a disconnection between school learning and real-life situations, and overworked students. In essence, what the East Asian reformers wanted for their future was America's past and present. In their eyes, students in the United States were happy, creative, and socially responsible--products of an education system that focused on children over knowledge, pedagogy over content, and the individual over the group--all traits seen as the secret to America's economic success and dominance. Comparing their own curriculum with that of the United States, the reformers found that they tried to teach too much and were knowledge--and teacher-centered. Thus they began to ease students' burdens by removing basic concepts, formulae, and computation skills; turning a staircase curriculum into a spiral one; and requiring students to construct and discover knowledge through inquiry. Meanwhile, on this side of the Pacific and in the land that exported NCTM and AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) standards and constructivism, Singaporean textbooks have become increasingly hot commodities for parents, (2) Japanese lesson study is viewed as an exemplary teacher professional development model, (3) Chinese teachers have become models of excellence, (4) and coherent and logical East Asian curricula are synonymous with the path to and science excellence in U. …