More mathematics/sciences in high school

[Guest Tigleon]

I'm a high school student (and math/science geek) from Canada and I'm taking part in a debate regarding the amount of maths and sciences being taught in high schools. I'm on the affirmative, advotcating that there should be more math/science courses available (or possibly required) in our high schools.

 

I have a number of ideas, but I'm a little low on solid resourses. I'm looking for any input or opinions anyone has to offer on the subject, or any good ideas for resources (maybe regarding future career trends).

 

Thanks!

 

- Tigleon

[Klaynos]

Hi, in the UK everyone at highschool is required to take both science and maths untill the end of high school, but they are also required to take English, RE (to a lesser extent), a modern foreighn language and some humanity subject and some others which I can't remember, I feel the key to a good high school education (that's up to the age of 16 over here) is a broad education, covering lots of differnt aspects, specilising on one thing can make people who are not so good at that one thing feel very depressed and put them off of school altogether.

[Babbler]

Here a bunch of link that seem useful, although they deal with different sub-fields of science:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~jerrypapers/whysci.html

 

http://www.jerf.org/iri/2005/03/04.html

 

http://www.intuitor.com/physics/

 

http://www.santarosa.edu/lifesciences/whybio.htm

 

http://www.cofc.edu/~chem/hbook/whystudy.html

 

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/chapman.htm

 

Also, what province do you live? In Canada and the US, IIRC, the education system is a provincial/state matter. In Quebec, you enter high school at grade 7 (you leave at 11), where you take Ecology. Afterwards, a student takes Physical Science 216 and Biology in Grade 8 and 9, respectively. You go into the either Physical Science 416 or 430, depending your math course. There are no required science course afterwards, and Physics and Chemistry are open only to those who have taken P.S. 430. In order to enter the science CEGEP (junior college - required for university admission) programs, you must have the Physics and Chemistry.

[Guest Neutronix]

At my college we are all made to do 'General Studies' (a nonsense lesson which teaches you about nothing in particular) and often 'IT for learning' They made me do it and christ, Im a closet nerd*. I actually dropped a subject to switch into a combination so I didnt have to do that lesson.

 

Whats really annoying is this : The Government pays 4 times more to the college per hour per student for general studies than physics or maths.

 

What!?!

 

This is true throughout the education system, the UK government loves stupid subjects. One of my biggest and most passionate issues is the UK education system, and Im sure you'll all hear about it as one day I will sit down and rant about it...

 

*That is, in private, I am, but I never let on in public.

[Klaynos]

My old college scraped general studies before I started they reconed they could make more money from Key skills, at least some unis accept GS a-level, key skills is a joke...

 

Anyway getting to my point, when I started at the college our "school of science and mathematics" had a physics department containing, 1 administrator, 3 full time lectuers, 1 part time lecturer, 1 technition. The year before it had 5 full time lecturers, the number of students taking physics had stayed the same, there had been no recruitement effort or even a suggestion that there would be any more staff recruited, halfway through my first year the part time one quit, 1 of the full times quit and another of the full time's wen on long term sickness (she had a terminal illness ). So our 1 lecturer had to cover 2 to 3 lectures every single slot, there was no cover hired, or any suggestion that any would be hired untill the beginning of the next year (I know of at least 2 people who contacted the college and offered their services, both with teaching qualifications and with doctorets in phyiscs, one of which had just retired as a physics prof), the college would not even look at their CV's or talk to them about it.

 

So having very little teach about 1/3 of the class passed the first year the beginning of the next year, and the above mentioned retired uni prof was hired as a part time cover lecture (he was doing 2 afternoons a week), at this point the one remaining physics lectuer was signed off will long term sickness, and never returned, this was at the beginning of my second year, within a few weeks, there was nothing done until after xmas when they got another cover lecture to cover for about 3 days a week (making a total of 4 days of lecturers being in the department).

 

I fortunatly passed my a-level but I know many people who failed it due to lack of teaching :'(

[Guest Neutronix]

The government needs to stop blowing money on things like key skills, and pay it into science and maths. In the end it all pays back, technologically and econominally speaking, having scientists is no bad thing.