Maine Schools Ignore Private Sector STEM Help Offers
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Sat, 08/04/2012 - 6:00am
By Mal Leary, Capitol News Service
Posted July 25, 2012, at 3:26 p.m.
Last modified July 25, 2012, at 4:31 p.m.
Education Commissioner Steve Bowen...said [at] LePage’s job creation meetings across the state...[there are] business owners and representatives of companies telling him they would like to participate in efforts in the schools. They are often told by schools they have no time for such efforts.
“I had them tell me they had tried to call the schools, tried to volunteer their time, but got no answer,” he said.
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/25/education/most-maine-eighth-grader...
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This is no surprise to me. I've even sat on a school board where we had 3 people in a science profession including a medical doctor and a PhD in science and someone who worked in R&D. Whenever the discussion came to science in school (on curriculum committee), the school people always rebuffed any offers of any kind of involvement from those who had actually worked in the field. Furthermore, about 10 years ago now, there was considerable discussion on the crackpot math program they were using, but to no avail. Terms like "cutting edge" and "research based" and pedagogy were always tossed around in defense of what and how they were teaching. Those of us who knew better got extremely frustrated. There were suggestions and opinions that were brushed aside. Yet just recently, our own district has finally come to the conclusion that that math program was not working and are switching to something more like what Singapore uses, who are at the top of the world in mathematics education.
I could go on and on about what i find wrong with science education and offer suggestions on how it could be better. What I do about it myself is offer my kids and others an opportunity to do real hands-on science through experiential learning of 4-H and Destination Imagination type of projects.