Tony Overman/The Olympian
Nisqually Middle School teacher Monica Miles laughs along with seventh-graders Alexis Martin (left) and Alyssa Barada as the students prepare computer slide presentations during a computer applications class earlier this year.

Math, science should not be shunned in any grade

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published August 5, 2001

Parents and educators have been deluged with news about the inability of U.S. students to compete in an increasingly technical world. While fourth-graders rank high on international science and math surveys, by senior year they plunge near the bottom.

Many educators and policymakers say: Address this before high school. Suggestions:

- Between kindergarten and fifth grade, your child should learn the basics -- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, said Lee Stiff, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Students also must grasp concepts. In addition to knowing by rote that 8+6=14, they also should be able to regroup the numbers to recognize 8+2+4=14.

Help elementary kids with foundations of geometry and algebra. Use a shopping trip to teach the difference between shapes by comparing rectangular cereal boxes to cylindrical ice-cream containers.

- Students best-prepared for rigorous math and science in high school take algebra by grade eight.

Middle-schoolers should take science that integrates subjects like biology with chemistry. While many U.S. eighth-graders learn the parts of the eye, students elsewhere understand the biochemical process that causes images to be formed in the brain, said Michigan State professor William Schmidt.

All high-schoolers should take four years of math, Stiff's group says. The College Board suggests at least three years of lab sciences like biology, chemistry and physics. Students interested in pursuing careers in math and science should make sure to include advanced algebra and calculus.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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