Why School ‘Reform’ Fails-학교개혁이 실패한 이유- 선생도 어쩔수 없는 학생의 낮은 학습동기가 문제다.

[운동맨]

아래기사는 뉴스위크 에 실린 기사입니다.

미국 학교개혁이 실패한 이유가 학생들의 낮은 학습동기 때문이라고 하는군요.

배울 의욕이 없는 학생들이 모여 있는 학교에서는 아무리 뛰어난 선생님이 노력을 해도 소용이 없다는 군요.

저도 이점에 전적으로 동의합니다.

이런상황(학생들이 낮은 학습동기를 가지는 것)의 책임이 학교와 선생님의 탓으로 돌리기는 쉽지만 사실 이것은 선생님도 어쩔수가 없는 것입니다. 이런 이유로 미국에서는 교사들이 많은 스트레스에 시달립니다. 학교개혁은 나아지지 않는 학교의 교장과 선생들을 해고등을 통해 길들이려고 하니까요.

쉽지 않아 보입니다.

이런 이유로 운동맨의 최선영어습득법에서는 제일 먼저 영어학습자가 영어를 배우고 익히려는 강한 동기를 가져야 함을 강조합니다. 이게 없으면 다 꽝입니다.

운동맨 제이

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Why School ‘Reform’ Fails

Student motivation is the problem.

 

  

R. Michael Stuckey / Getty Images

As 56 million children return to the nation’s 133,000 elementary and secondary schools, the promise of “reform” is again in the air. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced $4 billion in Race to the Top grants to states whose proposals demonstrated, according to Duncan, “a bold commitment to education reform” and “creativity and innovation [that is] breathtaking.” What they really show is that few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery than “school reform.”

Since the 1960s, waves of “reform” have failed to produce meaningful achievement gains. The most reliable tests are those given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The reading and math tests, graded on a 0–500 scale, measure 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 17-year-olds. In 1971, the initial year for the reading test, the average score for high-school seniors was 285; in 2008 that score was 286. The math test started in 1973, when high-school seniors averaged 304; in 2008 the average was 306.

To be sure, some improvements have occurred in elementary schools. But what good are they if they’re erased by high school? There’s also been a modest narrowing in the high-school achievement gaps between whites, blacks, and Hispanics, although the narrowing generally stopped in the late 1980s. (Average scores have remained stable because, although blacks’ and Hispanics’ scores have risen slightly, the size of these minority groups has also expanded. This means that their still-low scores exert a bigger drag on the average. The two effects offset each other.)

Jetta Productions-Getty Images

America's Best High Schools: The Top 20

America's Best High Schools: Profiles of the Top 20

Standard explanations of this meager progress fail. Too few teachers? Not really. From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent while the number of teachers rose 61 percent. The student-teacher ratio has fallen from 27 to 1 in 1955 to 15 to 1 in 2007. Are teachers ill paid? Perhaps, but that’s not obvious. In 2008 the average teacher earned $53,230; two full-time teachers married to each other and making average pay would rank among the richest 20 percent of households (2008 qualifying income: $100,240). Maybe more preschool would help. Yet the share of 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool has rocketed from 11 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 2008.

“Reforms” have disappointed for two reasons. First, no one has yet discovered transformative changes in curriculum or pedagogy, especially for inner-city schools, that are (in business lingo) “scalable”—that is, easily transferable to other schools, where they would predictably produce achievement gains. Efforts in New York City and Washington, D.C., to raise educational standards involve contentious and precarious school-by-school campaigns to purge “ineffective” -teachers and principals. Charter schools might break this pattern, though there are grounds for skepticism. In 2009 the 4,700 charter schools enrolled about 3 percent of students and did not uniformly show achievement gains.

The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If the students aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a “good” college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school “reform” is that if students aren’t motivated, it’s mainly the fault of schools and teachers. The reality is that, as high schools have become more inclusive (in 1950, 40 percent of 17-year-olds had dropped out) and adolescent culture has strengthened, the authority of teachers and schools has eroded. That applies more to high schools than to elementary schools, which helps explain why early achievement gains evaporate.

Motivation has weakened because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don’t like school, don’t work hard, and don’t do well. The conflict between expanding “access” and raising standards goes against standards. Michael Kirst, an emeritus education professor at Stanford, estimates that 60 percent of incoming community—college students and 30 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges need remedial reading and math courses.

Against these realities, school-“reform” rhetoric is blissfully evasive. Duncan urges “a great teacher” in every classroom—akin to having every football team composed of All-Americans. With that sort of intellectual rigor, what school “reform” promises is more disillusion.

[진발]

If these phenomena goes on, those who are enlightened, motivated, and capable of knowing what they are doing will have far more opportunities during their lives.

[운동맨]

저도 그렇게 생각합니다. 대충대충하는 사람들이 많아야 열심히 하는 나에게 더 기회가 오겠죠.^^
학교에서 대충대충하는 아이들 정말 대부분입니다.