Preparing our teachers for virtual reality

School Science and Mathematics, Jan 1999 by Lederman, Norman G, Niess, Margaret L

Oregon's Department of Education (DOE) is currently putting the finishing touches (for the time being) on K-12 content standards for mathematics and science. The community of mathematics teachers and educators was successful in getting the state to adopt at least a subset of the NCTM standards, while no such consensus was achieved by the community of science teachers and educators. The logic used by the folks in the DOE was that "since the science educators can't agree, we will have to develop our own content standards."

Oregon science teachers possess far less than adequate knowledge of the National Science Education Standards, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and the Scope, Sequence, and Coordination project and how these documents are related. Many do not realize that these are three separate documents, and they certainly are not aware that the documents have far more in common than they have differences.

We have a feeling that such rationales for developing content standards are not unique to Oregon. We all probably have our humorous (or maybe not so humorous) stories to tell. However, this editorial is not about the development of content standards. The discussion about standards simply serves as a context for our current concerns. Standards are like gravity; they exist whether or not we support them or understand them. Further, although the title of this editorial seems to imply otherwise, the topic to be addressed is not technology or its instructional uses.

Amidst the backdrop of prolific content and teaching standards development, the shortage of science and mathematics teachers is ever increasing. This shortage is especially acute in mathematics and the physical sciences, although shortages exist in the life sciences as well. Here in the hinterlands of the Northwest, secondary biology teachers, who comprise the majority of our preservice teachers, have had virtually no difficulty obtaining teaching positions either in Oregon or throughout the nation. Numerous national surveys, and even the Clinton administration, have echoed concerns about shortages of K-12 teachers.

Concurrent with the shortage of teachers is an increasing shortage of K-12 mathematics and science teacher educators. Surely, some of this is a consequence of the increased need for teachers, but more is involved. One need only to have occasionally perused the pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education last fall to realize that there were more announced positions in mathematics and science education from September through November than is typical for the entire year. Not much media attention has been given to the oncoming shortage of teacher educators because, as we all know, teacher education programs are of little value.

So we have a shortage of science and mathematics teachers and teacher educators within a milieu of subject matter content and teaching standards development. Related to the development of standards is a current movement to increase the quality of teachers' knowledge and skills. This is quite logical, because one of the primary reasons for the standards movement, if we ignore economics and "saving face" at the international level, is that parents, business, government, and the general public are not pleased with the education our young receive. Naturally, the culprit in all of this mess must be the teacher.

Laying blame on teachers for all of society's woes is nothing new. You can even find such rhetoric in the 1893 Report of the Committee of Ten. Calls for increasing teachers' knowledge and skills have been manifest in increased requirements for admission to and graduation from teacher education programs. Such increased requirements include the familiar 3.0 grade point average, minimum of a BS in subject matter specialty for secondary teachers, academic degrees (with the assumption that Education is not an academic area) required for elementary teachers, more disciplined-based credit hours, and a plethora of entrance and exit examinations. (Imagine the price we would pay if we forgot to line the pockets of the testing industry.)

An interesting irony has been that increased admissions and graduation requirements have created a corps of preservice teachers with significantly more subject matter knowledge and skills, who are now more capable of seeking and gaining more lucrative employment in business and industry. This state of affairs has hit the science and mathematics education communities particularly hard. After all, in the mathematics and science-based industry, individuals have the highest earning power.

In a very real way, the displeasure with K-12 instruction and subsequent standards movement has exacerbated the shortage of mathematics and science teachers. Those who do choose to remain in teaching tend to be those less qualified to enact the increased subject matter rigor advocated for curricula within the reform visions (i.e., inquiry and critical thinking within subject matter disciplines). And given the shortage of well-qualified mathematics and science teacher educators, who is educating our future teachers? It sounds like a mess, and it is!