重创理科教育的美加课程改革

CURRICULUM REFORMS DEVASTATING MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

文章分析北美中小学课程设置及标准的变更在理科教育衰落中的颠覆性作用。其一,联合国教科文组织自20世纪60年代以来倡导和推行综合科学课程代替初中阶段物理、化学和生物的分科设置,它降低了科学教育在基础教育中的比重,综合课程定性描述的科学普及性质不具备奠定理工科基础的功能,教师对非本专业的学科一知半解更令教学质量一落千丈。这类课程在世界范围内拖垮了科学教育。其二,几十年来,中小学数学课程标准频繁变更,削减内容,降低深度,尤其小学‘发现式’课程标准,将传统小学数学的内容、结构和方法推倒重来,使之面目全非。‘发现式’数学压缩算术,引进中学里超乎小学生认知能力的代数知识;轻忽标准四则运算,弱化逻辑思维;思维与解题方法幼稚笨拙甚至错误百出。数学教育由此被釜底抽薪,大幅衰落。

In the past half century,two major curriculum reforms have devastated mathematics and science education.One is the integrated science program in middle schools,promoted by United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization,to replace physics,chemistry and biology courses taught separately before.Combining several courses into one,the share of,and the effort put into science education have been reduced.With the fragmented and one-inch deep contents of integrated science,it is difficult to build foundation for more advanced studies.Lack of qualified teachers—no one knows all the materials from three different subjects areas well—makes it impossible to have integrated science properly taught.Another major reform is the replacement of traditional elementary mathematics by socalled discovery mathematics.Topics in algebra introduced,and contents of arithmetic are compressed or removed substantially.Logical thinking and problem solving skills have been terribly weakened with standard algorithms and their applications underplayed.The integrated and stable structure of traditional mathematics has changed into a fragile and unstable mix of scattered strands.Some retrogressive or cumbersome,even faulty approaches are used.Elementary mathematics has thus been ruined;and further study of mathematics and sciences have become much more difficult to the students.