Reframing the educational flip-flop debate
GadflyPublished: Jul 16, 2009 7:18 PM | Updated: Jul 16, 2009 7:22 PM
I refer to Malaysiakini’s report End our ‘flip-flop’ attitude to education.
If you flip a roti canai a few times, you still get roti canai. Try it with the education policy and you would get a real mess of wasted talents and resources. The recent reversal of a series of flip-flops in educational policies is truly a cause for concern.
It reflects an attitude that does not take the rights and developmental needs of children seriously. The many abrupt reversals with dismal results lead us to suspect that the Education Ministry is possibly tackling the wrong problem or the question has been wrongly framed.
The selection and double switch-over of medium of instructions for the teaching of science and maths seems to imply that switching of languages midway is as harmless as a change of clothes.
It is not, and this leads us to wonder at level of understanding of the policymakers of the cognitive development and theories of learning of children.
Scientific and mathematical knowledge are ways of thinking and not just facts, numbers and operational procedures. Nussbaum et al. from the University of Cornell had asked children who knew the fact that the world is round to draw rain clouds in the North and South Poles.
The drawings of the children still showed that their conception is a flat world. It is more appropriate to frame the debate in terms of teaching scientific thinking or reasoning rather than the idea of teaching science which is loosely framed.
This has wide implications beyond linguistic identities.
Effectiveness in teaching – do the right things and not do things right - should be the central concern. Both the teacher and the children must be able to communicate with each other first before scientific reasoning can be learnt. Learning in a familiar linguistic environment i.e. mother-tongue education would enhance the process of understanding.
When learning science and maths are seen a way of reasoning, the question of the linguistic identities does not arise. Linguistic nationalism in the ignorance of the nature of science and maths serves only to distract or confuse the aim and the process of learning.
The anxiety over the loss of ethnic identities is misplaced.
Translation of scientific terms or concepts from English to BM or learning English through science is of little learning value. It is the soundness in reasoning and abstract thinking that counts. It is a world of difference between switching ways of thinking and translating terms.
Historically, the Chinese, Indian and Islamic civilisations had contributed much to the western sciences and mathematics. Recalling such facts does provide self-confidence of the capacity of our own race. However, it is pointless to indulge in past glories.
The locus of the debate is on teaching rather than learning. Who is the object of our teaching? It must be the children. But in the eyes of the policymakers, who or what are children?
Their consistent image of the children seems to be more of ‘guinea pigs’ or lab mice rather than living beings with a human face. Children develop mathematical and scientific thinking in stages, from the concrete to the abstract, from those that they can relate to in real life experience to those that are beyond their experience.
The flip-flop in education policy reflects the ignorance or the denial of the cognitive and language developmental stages of children. It is disturbing that policymakers do not put themselves in the children’s shoes when deciding policies.
The medium of instruction in mother-tongue by itself in insufficient for proficiency. If it was so, US students who use English would score higher than Asian students in Japan or Hong Kong. International studies of maths and science achievements - like the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 and 2003 - have shown that young people from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan are consistently top performers while the US students are just at average levels.
The later switch to English medium should be done consistently and systematically in a way that is conducive to child development. The central focus of teaching science and maths should be on what ways or values that effectively encourage or facilitate scientific and mathematical reasoning.
All the irrelevant linguistic or nationalistic arguments or short-term political gain should be put aside. Too many a flip flop tends to give the impression that the policy makers still don’t get it. The right to normal development of the children are at stake here. Children matter.
If you flip a roti canai a few times, you still get roti canai. Try it with the education policy and you would get a real mess of wasted talents and resources. The recent reversal of a series of flip-flops in educational policies is truly a cause for concern.
It reflects an attitude that does not take the rights and developmental needs of children seriously. The many abrupt reversals with dismal results lead us to suspect that the Education Ministry is possibly tackling the wrong problem or the question has been wrongly framed.
The selection and double switch-over of medium of instructions for the teaching of science and maths seems to imply that switching of languages midway is as harmless as a change of clothes.
It is not, and this leads us to wonder at level of understanding of the policymakers of the cognitive development and theories of learning of children.
Scientific and mathematical knowledge are ways of thinking and not just facts, numbers and operational procedures. Nussbaum et al. from the University of Cornell had asked children who knew the fact that the world is round to draw rain clouds in the North and South Poles.
The drawings of the children still showed that their conception is a flat world. It is more appropriate to frame the debate in terms of teaching scientific thinking or reasoning rather than the idea of teaching science which is loosely framed.
This has wide implications beyond linguistic identities.
Effectiveness in teaching – do the right things and not do things right - should be the central concern. Both the teacher and the children must be able to communicate with each other first before scientific reasoning can be learnt. Learning in a familiar linguistic environment i.e. mother-tongue education would enhance the process of understanding.
When learning science and maths are seen a way of reasoning, the question of the linguistic identities does not arise. Linguistic nationalism in the ignorance of the nature of science and maths serves only to distract or confuse the aim and the process of learning.
The anxiety over the loss of ethnic identities is misplaced.
Translation of scientific terms or concepts from English to BM or learning English through science is of little learning value. It is the soundness in reasoning and abstract thinking that counts. It is a world of difference between switching ways of thinking and translating terms.
Historically, the Chinese, Indian and Islamic civilisations had contributed much to the western sciences and mathematics. Recalling such facts does provide self-confidence of the capacity of our own race. However, it is pointless to indulge in past glories.
The locus of the debate is on teaching rather than learning. Who is the object of our teaching? It must be the children. But in the eyes of the policymakers, who or what are children?
Their consistent image of the children seems to be more of ‘guinea pigs’ or lab mice rather than living beings with a human face. Children develop mathematical and scientific thinking in stages, from the concrete to the abstract, from those that they can relate to in real life experience to those that are beyond their experience.
The flip-flop in education policy reflects the ignorance or the denial of the cognitive and language developmental stages of children. It is disturbing that policymakers do not put themselves in the children’s shoes when deciding policies.
The medium of instruction in mother-tongue by itself in insufficient for proficiency. If it was so, US students who use English would score higher than Asian students in Japan or Hong Kong. International studies of maths and science achievements - like the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 and 2003 - have shown that young people from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan are consistently top performers while the US students are just at average levels.
The later switch to English medium should be done consistently and systematically in a way that is conducive to child development. The central focus of teaching science and maths should be on what ways or values that effectively encourage or facilitate scientific and mathematical reasoning.
All the irrelevant linguistic or nationalistic arguments or short-term political gain should be put aside. Too many a flip flop tends to give the impression that the policy makers still don’t get it. The right to normal development of the children are at stake here. Children matter.
View Comments0