More Than Texts Need Reform in Middle Schools

In his Physics Today article (May 2003, page 50), John Hubisz discusses the results of a review of middle-school science texts. I read the Hubisz report¹ when it first came out. The basic premise was accurate; opening a random textbook to a random page was about all it took to find several mistakes.

But has Hubisz done recent homework to check for signs of change? In particular, has he looked for improvement in the textbook selection process in large, influential states? In 2000, California made significant strides toward improving texts.

Hubisz writes, "Publishers aim to satisfy the committees that select texts, even though the members of those committees typically have little knowledge of physical science." My husband, an excellent chemistry teacher, chaired the California Curriculum Commission's science subcommittee and oversaw California's last science book adoption. Every submitted textbook was read first by a content review panel composed of three people, each with a terminal degree in science. Texts were then reviewed more thoroughly by committees of teachers and others. Although a few errors remain in the books that survived to adoption, those errors are much fewer than in previous texts. Some errors persist because of time demands on reviewers and the need to provide teachers and students with tools to meet California's demanding content standards. For the review criteria used, see reference 2.

Yes, texts need to be improved, to become more accurate, more interesting, and less disjointed. Yes, well-crafted laboratory activities need to be encouraged. But more has to happen before all children get a good science education. An important step is to make sure that students can read well enough to take meaning from those texts. Many can't now, but research-based reading interventions are being developed and implemented. And then the education system will have to deal with pesky student deficiencies in math. These areas especially need improvement if students are to understand and appreciate science.

Another reform that is badly needed, particularly at the middle-school level, is to improve teachers' science content mastery. Even decent books can be undercut if science-ignorant teachers design their own "innovative" lessons. A couple of years ago, I watched students in an eighth-grade class, with their newly adopted textbooks pushed to the side, do an exercise about molecules. The assignment was to take a chemical formula--for example, Fe₂O₃--and design and color a fanciful molecule based only on the students' artistic vision. One might argue that eighth grade is not the right time to introduce the details of bonding and molecular geometry, but a teacher who knew such things would never have caused students future confusion by assigning this counterproductive exercise.

The problem is multidimensional, and yes, physicists and other scientists should get involved.

Congratulations to John Hubisz on his fine article and especially for his Herculean efforts to improve an area of our educational system in which our failure has such serious consequences. I am especially dismayed at the preponderance of textbook errors because my twin daughters will be starting middle school in the fall.

The textbook errors Hubisz reports are indeed remarkable. He also emphasizes the importance of precise language, but language adopted by the physics community contains an interesting dilemma: an apparent distinction between law and theory. Is Newton's law of universal gravitation more fundamental than Einstein's theory of general relativity? This is not merely a semantic distinction, as is evident in the debate over evolution: It is, after all, "only a theory."

The call for physicists to take action is quite appropriate. However, one important component in the equation seems conspicuous by its absence from his discussion. Education colleges, by and large, have not been engines for real educational improvement. In our department, we have had to turn away students who were interested in pursuing graduate degrees in K-12 physics education; our college of education provides future teachers with teaching pedagogy but not physics.

It seems that the only long-term solution for the declining interest in and knowledge of science in the public schools lies in reforming teacher education. Physics departments need to play a significant role in that reform.

Among the many well-taken points in John Hubisz's article was one less compelling. In box 1 of the article, the answer to the oft-heard lament "Is it too much to ask that middle-school students develop the habit of consulting a dictionary?" should be "yes." Learning science is sufficiently challenging without continual interruptions, and even more difficult is to know what you don't know: Many physics words and names have idiosyncrasies of which young students can hardly be expected to be aware.

Adding pronunciation keys to the difficult words is a practice that might fruitfully be followed by textbook publishers. A few diacritics don't take up much space and don't detract from sentence flow or meaning, but do give the reader a frisson of distinction--that physics words and names are interesting and different! How better to convey the international scope of the physics enterprise than to teach students that "Planck" is pronounced differently from the experimental apparatus for determining mechanical advantage? Pronouncing words and names as if they were English sets students up for embarrassment.

I experienced such discomfort the first time I said "heterodyne" out loud in front of people who were experienced enough to know which syllable got the accent, but were insufficiently genteel to correct me privately. If students are embarrassed whenever they talk physics, they may be driven to philosophy and spend their days pondering So-cra¯tes.

John Hubisz presents an excellent and important review article. The involvement of physicists as volunteers in K-12 classrooms is only briefly mentioned as a solution to science education problems, but is critical in ensuring that all students receive a quality science education.

Textbook and teacher-training reform are necessary, but such slow processes will only show results in the long term. By volunteering in classrooms, physicists can help children learn science today. In close, continuing collaborations with teachers, physicists can help improve teacher self-confidence and easily dispel misconceptions raised by textbook errors. I've had the experience of visiting the same class for several years; the teacher, students, and I have all benefited enormously.

The article by John Hubisz caught my eye. I found the examples of textbook errors and misstatements amazing and frustrating. The example he gave of a textbook's confusing the terms speed, velocity, and acceleration tells me the textbook writer doesn't come close to knowing the subject. Someone might ask if it really even matters outside of science. I'll illustrate with a quick, real-world example.

Several years ago, I was an expert witness in a very lengthy lawsuit about a worker who was severely injured when a truck at a paving site backed over him. I was involved because of my background as an acoustical engineer. I dealt with the audibility of the backup alarm and how the sound field was distorted by the manner in which the alarm was installed.

Toward the end of the many depositions (there were five teams of lawyers), an attorney who was working hard to discredit my conclusions asked if I'd measured the wind speed when I did my testing at the site. I answered yes. He perked up and dug out an old transcript. He asked if I remembered testifying on a particular date, when he had asked me if I had measured the wind velocity and I had said no. He obviously thought he had me on something.

I asked to read the testimony page in question. "What's the problem?" I asked. "Both answers are correct." None of the lawyers understood, so I explained: "Speed is a scalar quantity. Velocity is a vector; it has two parts--magnitude or speed, and direction. Speed and velocity are not the same. Speed does not indicate direction. If you are going to use the terms, I suggest you know their meanings." That pretty much ended the interrogation and the case was settled.

Maybe that lawyer got his science education from one of the poorer textbooks. Would that mean he could sue the teacher, school system, textbook publisher, or author? Let's hope that the statute of limitations has expired.

In his article, John Hubisz commented on "error-filled physical science textbooks." In particular, he wrote: "Many of the errors involved sloppy use of language . . . as in 'an acceleration is a change in velocity. . . .' Note the use of 'change in velocity' instead of the correct 'change in velocity with respect to time.' That imprecision was a common error." Apparently, this error is found worldwide and in areas other than textbooks.

For example, there was a German court case reported last year in the influential German weekly magazine Der Spiegel (issue 16, p. 196, 2002). The article carried the title "Schraube im Nacken," that is, "A Screw in the Nape of the Neck." A whiplash victim had suffered such serious damage to his neck (cervical spine) that he required a few screws to immobilize it permanently. But in the trial, the court expert, a "human biologist and professional engineer (Diplomingenieur)," testified that the victim's head had sustained only a change in velocity from "12.4 to 15 kilometers per hour," which was, he said, insufficient to cause such a serious injury. The judge in the case evidently knew his physics better than the court expert. The victim, as I later learned, was awarded €35 000 (about $40 000) for pain and suffering.

I endorse John Hubisz's quest to improve textbooks for middle-school science courses and to stress the accuracy of the material. But perhaps emphasizing the good parts of the existing books would provide more immediate progress.

We scientists who have been working with publishers to write middle-school texts have managed to provide a lot of accurate and interesting content for students; the presence of this better material should be emphasized. Criticism may be fun--and gets a lot of publicity--but is less effective than pointing out the best of the available materials. Alternative distribution systems will not soon match those of the existing publishers, so students and teachers should be encouraged to use and appreciate the good material that exists in the current textbook system.

Hubisz replies: I am quite pleased with the response to my article on middle-school texts. The large number of letters both supports my message and makes it clear that many others are concerned about the problem and are attempting to do something about it.

Martha Schwartz asks if I have looked for signs of change in the textbook selection process. Admittedly, I am most concerned about the end product--the adopted texts. But because of the publicity that my work on the textbook problem has received through print, radio, and television, I have responded to hundreds of requests (from a governor, several state senators, and a host of science curriculum supervisors and teachers) for my suggestions on a procedure for selecting science textbooks. Their replies suggest that changes are being attempted. After a radio interview in California, I received a blizzard of horror stories about the selection process. Schwartz's description of the process is similar to my proposal, except that many excellent texts never get to the first stage. My article at http://www.johnlocke.org/policy_reports/2003012933_1.shtml describes why many publishers do not even bother to submit their texts. Richard Feynman once served in California on a textbook selection committee that graded a blank mathematics book higher than the two other books in the series.¹ That incident suggests that time and manpower can overwhelm even the most conscientious and expert reviewers. Schwartz's reference 2 contains a discussion of how that can happen.

Kimball Milton is correct to point out that we have to be precise, but we are not likely to change the historically sanctioned language. I have suggested that texts clarify the vocabulary and now suggest that when referring to such words used inappropriately, we include them in quotes as our grammar dictates.

Richard Factor's letter reminded me of the first time I heard "antipode" spoken aloud. I was glad that I had never needed to use it in conversation. Pronunciation guides for specialized vocabulary are generally a good idea, but box 1 of my article referred to standard English/American words. But, then, how do you pronounce "laboratory" and "apparatus"?

I thank Norman R. Dotti and Borut Gogala for two practical examples of the importance of precision to add to my collection. I have just finished reading an informative forensic science book (they are great for demonstrating the scientific approach to solving problems). The book informed me that "7,000 volts of electricity jumped into the body of Theodore 'Ted' Bundy," that one could "send 50,000 volts of electricity for 8 seconds into the wearer [of a shock belt used to control difficult prisoners]," and that "the current generated . . . could be detected and measured in millivolts." Middle-school texts frequently confuse current and voltage.

Jay Pasachoff and I have discussed these problems in e-mail exchanges. He would admit that what a writer produces for textbook publishers is out of the author's hands once submitted, and the manuscripts do get edited to "simplify the science" and "adjust" the readability, as one editor told me. The original report did speak of some excellent material in one of the reviewed texts, but only because it was removed in the next edition. I am concerned that "emphasizing the good parts" as Pasachoff suggests may give readers the idea that the whole book is being recommended. There certainly are good parts, but the large number of people involved in developing these books militates against such a conclusion. Although my Web site http://www.science-house.org/middleschool reports errors in textbooks, its main purpose is to point out good resources for the middle-school classroom and for teacher enrichment.

Many years ago, I visited one of my son's classes. After the students successfully identified biologists and chemists and were asked which scientists studied the stars, they answered in unison, "astrologers." After class, I pointed out that they were astronomers and the teacher asked, "Aren't they the same?" Perhaps now her next 20 years of students will not be led astray. We need more physicists to visit more classrooms and to attend more school board meetings and to volunteer to review new text offerings. Together we can accomplish much.

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