Hooked on Metrics: Why Learning Can and Should Be Measured

Hi everyone,

Here are 2 additional links about STEM teaching:

-> What Is STEM Education?

-> Education Schools Innovate to Supply STEM Teachers

Again, this subject is bloody important: any innovation in the US will come to Europe after a certain period of time.

Instead of "any innovation", I should have said "anything new". Here we're speaking about education and it's volunteer but it's similar for violence at school or anything, good or bad.

MurielB a écrit:... That's the reason why we lag behind in scientific innovation.

Decades ago, we were not behind: TGV, Concorde, Caravelle, computing before the 1970s...
Centuries ago, at the beginnings of planes, car engines, steam engines, air baloons, Suez canal, Panama canal, Eiffel Tower, etc, the French were there.
French engineers are often considered as the best in the world.

I'm not sure what Obama may have said about STEMs on FR2.

But I imagine I disagree with it. He probably said that there are a shortage of workers and that we need to do more to train people for these careers.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/09/03/the_myth_of_the_stem_shortage_in_detail.php

The reason why I think there is no shortage in the supply of STEMs workers comes from the STEM field of Economics. If there are a shortage of workers to fill positions, then companies will compete by raising wages, both to retain the workers they already have and to attract more workers. What we've seen is that the salaries of STEM workers have not risen.

In fact, companies are keeping the salaries artificially low by claiming there is a shortage and requesting H1B visas so they can hire foreigner workers. These foreign workers make more here than they would in their home country, so they come. But they are tied to the company that requested the H1B visa for them. These companies can pay them less than they would an American worker because it is difficult for these foreign workers to seek jobs elsewhere with more competitive pay. And if the foreign worker was fired, they would have to return to their home country, so they stay in the US as basically indentured servants.

If companies would raise salaries, more people would aspire to be STEMs workers (instead of investment bankers). The companies have been raising salaries, but for their presidents, CEOs, not the engineers who work so hard to design their products.

Scientific innovation comes from basic research. Which the US government underfunds. That is why CERN was built in Europe and the projects here to build a high energy collider all died. We don't take basic scientific research seriously here.

You want France to be innovative? Fund basic research. And then have your scientists publish their findings IN FRENCH (not in English/American) scientific journals. Let sharp French engineers and business people see and capitalize on the ideas first. Then let the rest of the world play catch up.

MurielB a écrit:Gérard I have just read in "courrier international number 1244" about the model schools. what type of education these model schools provide as compared to other schools and to what extent these models are of worth to be replicated?

When you say "what type of education these model schools provide," are you talking about the subjects being studied or the way the subjects are taught?

When you're talking about the entire collection of subjects being taught, you're talking about the school's curriculum.

"...as compared to other schools, and whether it is worthwhile to replicate them/it." ('them' if referring to model schools, 'it' if referring to the curriculum).

When you speak of the "worth" of the model schools, I assume you're talking about the worth to society (not necessarily the individual studies).

I want to react on the preceeding sentence of Barnetto :

You want France to be innovative? Fund basic research. And then have your scientists publish their findings IN FRENCH (not in English/American) scientific journals. Let sharp French engineers and business people see and capitalize on the ideas first. Then let the rest of the world play catch up.

It would be better for us if the things were like that. Unfortunately, all the international scientific journals are now in English, and even national journals are published in English. If you publish the results of your research in your national language (for instance in French), you cannot be read by any scientist of others countries and thus you cannnot be known. I think that, in France, we don't encourage enough the curses, conférences, ... in English. May be it is unfortunate, but we cannot change the things !

Hi everyone,
However, barnetto is right.
Obama and Cameron want French to disappear as a global language. Publishing in English is to shoot ourselves in the foot... the result is that French language is forgotten in the Olympics, except for fencing.

To have your French scientists abandon publishing in their native language would be short sighted.

For example, here are the requirements for Harvard's mathematics program:
http://www.math.harvard.edu/graduate/
"Mathematics is an international subject in which the principal languages are English, French, German, and Russian. Almost all important work is published in one of these four languages. Accordingly, every student is advised to acquire an ability to read mathematics in French, German, and Russian and is required to demonstrate it by passing a two-hour, written language examination in two of these three languages. Usually students are asked to translate one page of mathematics into English with the help of a dictionary. A student who thinks it is pertinent to his or her field of interest may substitute Italian for one of the languages mentioned above. The first language requirement should be fulfilled by the end of the second year; the second language requirement should be fulfilled by the end of the third year."

There was a time in the not too distant past when a significant amount of important work was published in languages other than English. Thus many universities in the United States still have a significant foreign language component in their science and mathematics programs.

There is still a window of opportunity now, because students are still required to learn foreign languages (a friend of mine in an undergraduate mathematics program had to choose one language, and she choose German). If all your scientists publish in English because that is the way they think their work will get recognized, then there will come a time when institutes such as Harvard will do away with requiring their students to learn French in order to read publications in their field.

To publish in your own language is not to deny the importance of English. But stop publishing in your own language, and English speaking scientists will cease to consider French of any importance at all.

Exactly right!