American kids suck at math but feel good about themselves

U.S. math students feel good despite their lagging scores

WASHINGTON — American students get more pats on the back than their counterparts in many other countries but aren't necessarily learning more, according to a new study.

Where student confidence is emphasized, countries such as the United States have lower achievement scores than in nations that may not put as much focus on happiness, according to the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think tank.(emphasis ours)

Indeed, countries with the least happy students have the highest math scores, according to the study released Wednesday.

Forty percent of U.S. eighth-grade students believe they do well in math, far higher than the 4 percent of Japanese students and 6 percent of Korean students.

However, U.S. students scored much worse than their counterparts in the two countries.

Even Singaporean students, who say they are lousy at learning math, outperform the most confident American students, the study found.

The results show that American teachers overestimate how much "feeling good" plays into student learning, said Tom Loveless, the study's author and director of the institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.

"I'm not urging to make kids unhappy. We don't want kids who aren't confident," Loveless said.

"But we should make sure our kids get feedback on how they compare to the rest of the world."


Teaching relevance
Showing students that math is relevant to their daily lives, a common teaching tactic, may be futile, Loveless said.

Instead, he said, teachers need to stick to the basics.

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We recall a similar study from 15 or 20 years ago.

When we got perfect marks on our math tests, we felt pretty good about ourselves, at least for the moment. After all, there was always another test around the corner and we'd have to prove ourselves again.

Never can we recall feeling fine about crapping out (95% or below) on a math test.

And never did we wonder "how is math relevant to our lives?".

We simply understood that it must be, given the emphasis put on it by our Old School (sorry) teachers whose mission was to educate, not indoctrinate.

In a selfish sense, the results of this study are great, as the children of the Ponderosa will never fall into the "as long as you feel good all's well no matter how much you fail" tarpit and will surely succeed over their lesser motivated but self-satisfied peers.

But as Americans, we worry about the long term economic health of the nation. Will we produce enough of the best and brightest to prevail in a century that clearly will be ruled by those who master technology?

Well, at least America's kids can properly fit a banana with a condom.