I wanted to comment on the recent study finding a lack of basic literacy among today’s college grads, but I forgot about it until Rachel’s post reminded me. As I said in my comment on her post, it’s astonishing but not surprising.
Twenty percent of U.S. college students completing 4-year degrees – and 30 percent of students earning 2-year degrees – have only basic quantitative literacy skills, meaning they are unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station or calculate the total cost of ordering office supplies, according to a new national survey by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The study was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The AIR study found there is no difference between the quantitative literacy of today’s graduates compared with previous generations, and that current graduates generally are superior to previous graduates when it comes to other forms of literacy needed to comprehend documents and prose.
I have to admit, I’m always kind of astonished by dour reports on the state of education in the U.S. Is our educational system really that bad? Has that much changed since I was in school?
I mean, I’m a product of the public schools myself —I attended public elementary schools, and a public magnet school from 8th grade through 12th, and went to a public land-grant university — and I like to think I did pretty well, and came away with some pretty good basic skills. (Looking back I also realize I might have done even better if my ADD had been discovered and treated, say, before I entered my 30s. But, given that major handicap in terms of academic success, I think I did pretty well anyway.) Still, based on my past experience with some of my fellow students, I’m not entirely surprised at this report.
One thing I had going for me when I started college was already knowing how to use a library. It was a skill I picked up during my earlier schooling, mainly because I wasn an avid reader even then, and figured out that volunteering to be a library aide kept me a safe distance from the playground and the other boys during recess. Besides, middle school, high school, and college all kicked off with a library orientation when I was in school.
In college, I ended up working part time in the library for the school of education. I was mystified by how many students had no clue how to find a book in a library.
Over and over, I watched students in the education school try to look up books in the online catalog. Failing that, they would come to the desk and ask me to look it up for them. I’d look it up, give them the reference number and point out the shelves where they’d most likely find their book. They then would take two or three steps away from the desk, look up at the shelves, look down at the number, up at the shelves again, and then turn around and come back to the desk to ask “Could you just find it for me?” I could, of course, and I did.
They were training to be teachers, and couldn’t find a book in the library. I can’t help wondering if any of them taught some of the students mentions in the article.
It underscores one thing for me as a parent; even though we’re zoned for some of the best public schools in are area, we’ll have to be involved in our kids’ schooling from day one.
I would fathom the reason college students can’t figure out how much gas it takes to get to the next gas station is because we’re too busy re-writing a perfectly good paper eight times because the professor doesn’t think the thesis statement is supported in the body of the paper.
My college education has been spent trying to get the services promised me by the ADA. My institution considers "academic freedom" for the professor more valuable than "academic freedom" to succeed for the student. Professors priorities override student priorities every time. And then we fail (or do poorly) and the professor can’t figure out why.
T, thanks for the post and the link to Rachel’s Tavern. The report is an interesting one, although it doesn’t add that much to our understanding of why college grads don’t do so well in particular areas. As a professor at a private liberal arts University I see students not only improving but excelling. That is, students move dramatically from where they start, and continue doing wonderfully in particular areas (they can’t excel at everything since there are some things they don’t like and don’t spend enough time with).
But a few things do play a part, and these are not always reported:
1) most people, not just college graduates, don’t do so well in computation and calculation tasks. That is, math is seen as difficult, and thinking mathematically on the spot can be daunting.
2) I learned more about mathematical thinking when I was out of college than when I was in college. Of course, I am awful at math. I sucked my whole life at math, but, school focused on pure math, and when I got out I had to worry about application to those aspects of life for which I needed those skills the most. It might very well be the same for folks, and they might not encounter that need when newly minted graduates.
3) Most folks that come through college, unless they major in sciences or math (or other technical field that requires more, or Accounting) take only one or two classes in “math” or quantitative skills – and they tend to take them at the beginning of their schooling. Most kids would rebel if schools required more math. They rightly see lots of the math stuff taught in the upper courses as particularly irrelevant to their daily lives, and as way difficult. Hence, beyond the Intro math course, and a basic statistics course, or some such, the next set of courses, say Calculus and more, provide lots of suffering for the majority of kids but little in applicable stuff for what they end up doing on a daily basis. Of course, the problems this report notes are with the basic stuff, so what we might need are either more courses in basic math, more intensity, better approaches to application to everyday life, etc.
4) The problem might very well not rest with College, or with College Professors. By the time kids come to College they should already master the basic mathematical literacy needed for the kind of calculations needed to be literate. In other words, the difficulty might start earlier and might be distributed differently (i.e., 10-11 years of math in K-12 vs. 2 years at most of Math in College). Now, given all that schooling we would expect them to remember some basic things when they get out of College, but it is not surprising that with only 2 classes at most in College, and with focus on other things in their lives, these folks would not spend time practicing mathematical skills.
As to Nio’s thoughts. It is sad that his experience has been that negative. I’ve taught at six different institutions and I have not seen Professors who are so bad they don’t care about their students, nor about their students’ learning. The majority of professors complain about the lack of enthusiasm by students, their seeming disinterest in putting the effort needed to excel, the lack of preparation in writing, speaking, and critical thinking that students come with from High School. If anything my experience tells me that professors are amazingly concerned about the students’ learning and academic freedom to learn. What’s more, colleges and universities bend over backwards a few times to make sure students have an amazing learning environment. But, here’s the kicker, a lot of the students I encounter do not want to take those opportunites, they don’t understand that they are full stakeholders in the learning process and that at least 50%, and that is a small percentage, rests on their shoulders. Instead they expect the professor to open their brain case and pour the learning oil.
Why this? I think we live in a society that actively dismisses “intellect,” that actively seeks to disperse the critical faculties of its citizens by pounding them with consumerism, with the sense that being entertained and having things handed to them is far easier and better than thinking critically, and more. Oh, we could go on. But the current mood of attacking the Universities and the professors as somehow subverting our students abilities, interests, and desires is incorrect. Well, it has been wrong since at least Socrates! : )
T, your point about being involved is absolutely right. As a parent myself I agree wholeheartedly. We spend a lot of time on thinking, making synthetic leaps from what we know, asking questions and questioning deeply, finding connections. Even if it is regarding stuff on TV! : ) I do see kids in College that can’t be bothered to learn something new, or to put a bit of effort into things they should know. We need a good report on contemporary U.S. university student culture! : )
T, sorry this went on so long. My apologies. This is just a topic close to home. Thanks for posting it!
As Nacho pointed out, the problems start way before college.
We’ve created public schools focused on teaching to a test — whether it be for the "Every Child Left Behind" act, or even state states (like the Missouri Assessment Test here in the heartland). Because of this, teachers are forced to focus on kids getting good test scores rather than actually teaching real-world skills.
While this approach may ensure the proper funding so many schools desparately need, it’s creating an entire generation of kids who are going into the world with sub-par math skills, questionable literacy and a void in problem-solving.
Add in cuts to arts and phys-ed programs, and we’re heading to a country full of overweight, uncreative kids who’ll be stuck on the side of the road because their car ran out of gas.
The only hope is that parents (such as ourselves) will step up and teach our kids the things they no longer do at school. Which is what me and The Mrs. plan on doing … well, until it come time for geometry. I suck at geometry.
Fortunately, the hubby and I overlap when it comes to academics. Where I excell with language arts, etc., he excells in math and science (both of which were my least favorite subjects). So, between the two of us I hope we’ll be able to help our kids do well. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see where their strengths lie..