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STEM Education - Parent Perceptions
A new report from Public Agenda finds that "while there's broad support from parents and the general public for K–12 national standards, more than half of parents (52%) say the math and science their child is getting in school is "fine as it is." More highlights from the report - the general public favors a “national curriculum” as one way of improving STEM education; seventy percent of parents surveyed said they would also like to see their local schools spend more money on up-to-date and well-equipped science labs, more equipment for hands-on learning (69%) and more equipment to help students learn computer and technology skills (68%). The majority of parents with children in grades 6–12 say they want to see more emphasis in their child’s school on STEM topics such as computer programming (65%), basic engineering principles (52%), and statistics and probability (49%). Read the full report at: http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/math-and-science-ed-2010.
What are the implications of parent perceptions on our national agenda for STEM education? Do these sentiments echo what you are seeing in your classrooms and communities?
What are the implications of parent perceptions on our national agenda for STEM education? Do these sentiments echo what you are seeing in your classrooms and communities?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tom Jenkins on -
I think that parent perception is a big deal as they are the ones that are paying the taxes and can help apply positive pressure to cause a paradigm shift within districts. In my experience as an educator- things won't change unless they are pushed from multiple directions.
An example would be STEM in my building. This past year we had a “trial run” of a STEM program involving 40, 5th/6th graders. I made sure that the parents were educated through my blog and even good old fashioned handouts. Periodically, I would update the blog concerning educational projects, service learning, and the media. The amount of interaction that I had with this group of parents was much more so than I have ever had with my group of 180 Science students.
The end result was is that there was such a “buzz” in our community, that I was asked to plan for about 100 STEM students in grades 5-8 for next year. Parents make for a wonderful ally, they just need to feel involved in the process.
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Permalink Reply by Sarita Pillai on -
Thanks Tom, this is a really great example of how to engage with and involve parents in a meaningful way! I agree that the more informed parents are the better allies they can be in effecting systemic changes and paradigm shifts within individual schools as well as across districts. It's really a win-win for educators and parents.
Sarita
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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on -
I think those are some interesting statistics (of course I think a lot of statistics are interesting but that's another matter!) I think one part of the perception problem with parents is that when they were going to school it was "okay" to not be good at math and/or science and they are applying that same logic to their kids. Essentially they felt they weren't a "math" person and neither is their child. Its funny because no one would be alright with their kid not being able to read but they seem fine with them not knowing their times tables by heart. I would be interested in having a look at what jobs the parents survived had (how many of them were involved in STEM type of jobs say) and how those parents did in school in STEM type classes.
That being said I think schools don't do enough to hype their STEM type programs. The way Tom talked about what he did is a good example of what needs to happen. Again, schools in my area are very big on their literacy programs and have literacy nights, etc but the math and science seem to almost be second class citizens. Possibly with a change in this attitude from schools we might see a change in parental attitude toward math and science as well.
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