Review_Author: Qingfeng Liang
Book_Author: J. Stigler, J. Hiebert
Book_Title: The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas From the World's Teachers for
Improving Education in the Classroom
Reference: NewYork: Free Press. 1999
Date: 5/23/00
Time: 3:11:24 PM
Remote Name: 128.175.100.33
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As part of the 41-country Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), James Stigler (psychology, UCLA) and James Hiebert (education, University of Delaware, Newark) offer a detailed comparison of the educational methods of Germany, Japan and the United States, along with suggestions for educational reform in the United States. The authors analyzed the information collected from a pioneering effort to videotape instruction in a representative sample of 231 eighth-grade math classrooms of middle schools in the three countries.
From the results they analyzed, Stigler and Hiebert conclude that American teachers of mathematics teach the way they always have, focusing instruction an a narrow band of procedural skills rather than on real-world applications and problem-solving. The international samples emphasize weaknesses in the American educational process that may not be overcome by reducing class size or adding school choice and vouchers, more technology or charter schools.
Comparing the teaching methods of mathematics in the three countries, Stigler and Hiebert found that American teachers present about twice as many as definitions as Japanese and German teachers and American lessons were devoid of mathematical proofs. About 10 percent of German lessons and more than half of the Japanese lessons contained such proofs. American teachers stated concepts, but did not develop them. Only 22 percent of the lessons in this country contained developed topics, compared to 77 percent in Germany and 83 percent in Japan. Not only did German and Japanese teachers develop topics; they linked them to other topics.
American and Japanese teachers organized their classrooms in different ways. In a typical American lesson, a teacher reviewed homework, demonstrated how to solve the problem of the day, gave students classroom practice, corrected that work, and assigned homework. Japanese teachers reviewed the previous lesson, presented the problem of the day, and set students to working on its solution either individually or in groups. The class then discussed problem solutions which can successfully solved the problem. American students almost never led such a discussion. American and Japanese teachers organize their lessons differently because they believe that mathematics is a set of procedures; they want their students to become skilled at these procedures. Japanese teachers, by contrast, "act as if mathematics is a set of relationships between concepts, facts, and procedures. Japanese teachers wanted their students to think about these relationship in new ways."
Stigler and Hiebert claim that most American efforts to improve education fail because they simply have no effect on the quality of teaching inside classrooms. So they argue that teaching in cultural activity in the chapter 6, "Teaching Is a Cultural Activity". Because they believe teaching as a cultural activity, we need to change the "cultural scripts" teachers are using. Teaching should be treated as something akin to family dinners. Educator ought to emulate German and Japanese teachers, who foster a productive classroom culture instead of relying so heavily on computers and overhead projectors. American teachers are competent, but the teaching methods they used are no system and severely limited. It is teaching, not teachers, that must be changed.
The authors' use of research from the TIMSS study brings clarity to the underlying cultural assumptions that determine the teaching methods of each nation. They note that in the last 50 years Japanese educators have taken in incremental approach to improving teaching by working together to enrich individual lessons. Japanese teachers are given the time and resources to do the action research essential to improving daily lessons for all students. By contrast, American teachers are typically told what and how to teach, and they most often work in isolation. The authors claim that the United States schools can be restructured as places where teachers engage in career-long learning and the United States classrooms can become laboratories for developing new, teaching-centered ideas. If teachers are provided the time they need during the school day for collaborative lesson study and planning, they can change the ways students learn.
This book is written for general readers with clear, jargon-free prose. Especially illuminating are the recommendations in its final chapters, which call for overhauling the teaching profession with higher status, greater pay, more accountability, better peer review and more demanding academic standards.