What I found quite disconcerting is that the questions seemed to be very imprecise in relation to the pictures. For example, the picture of the pop/water bottle, and asking whether it was bigger/same as/smaller than a liter. That bottle in the picture could have been all 3! I am not sure what current typical practice is in the US, but here in the UK water and pop is sold in plastic bottles of the kind shown anywhere from 250 mL to 2 L. So how can a child know WHY his answer his right or wrong without some sort of size reference in the picture?
This is simply sloppy setting of education standards and materials, and surely exacerbates the problem of poor maths showing by US children. Regards John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Payne To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 4:58 PM Subject: [USMA:45076] Two sytems. I picked up a scrap of paper on the street outside my home the other day, probably blew out of the garbage truck. Anyway it was a sheet filled in by an elementary age school kids on measurement. Shows how US kids have to learn 2 systems and don't know either one. Picture of Rake. a. Longer than 1 foot b. About 1 foot c. longer than 1 foot They got this one right. Picture of single Carrot a. lighter than 1 kilogram b. About 1 kilogram c. Heavier than 1 kilogram They marked about 1 kilogram. How is a kid in the US going to know how much a kilogram is? The interesting question to me was a picture of a green bean with an inch ruler marked in inches only with 3 graduations in between (for 1/4, 1/2 & 3/4 inches). The question was how many inches is the bean? To me it was 3-3/4 inches. The kid marked down 3.3. The teacher put down 3.5 (in red) crossed that out and put 4. Kids see calculators, they count the graduations and that becomes a decimal, hence 3.3. This is a good example of how and why the US does so poorly in math and science when compared to other nations. I think I'll make a copy of the sheet and attach. Apologies for one side being upside down. You can have Adobe rotate it but it does the whole document. I'll also send it to my legislators. If everyone on this list sent this to their Congressional Representative, we might make a difference! Mike Payne
