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Dennis Theobald
In some respects, it seems so trivial.
Why should Alberta Education’s decision to remove a few written-response questions from its mathematics and science diploma examinations matter? After all, these sections of the Grade 12 exams take only an hour or so at the very end of years of learning, and more weight is already given to the multiple-choice and numerical response sections of the exam. Furthermore, the diploma exams themselves account for one-half of the student’s final course mark, the remainder being based on the teacher’s assessment of the student’s performance throughout the course. And, as the department claims in defence of its decision, the knowledge content of each course is already covered by the “fill-in-the-bubble” questions, students’ performance on which, at least in aggregate, closely correlates to their performance on written response questions.
Of course, the decision still raises bothersome issues of process, test validity, legitimacy and fairness to students. There is also another consequence that has been largely ignored in the debate so far and that involves the message that the government is sending through this decision about the role that science and mathematics play in public conversation.
The provincial programs of study for mathematics and science have always emphasized the importance of communicating effectively the nature of the problems, processes and conclusions that are integral to these disciplines as they are applied to real-world situations. At least until this decision was made, the diploma examinations have always honoured this aspect of curriculum, as illustrated in the directions in the written portion of the Pure Mathematics 30 examination:
For full marks, your responses must address all aspects of the question.
• Descriptions and/or explanations of concepts must include pertinent ideas, diagrams, calculations, and formulas.
• Your responses must be presented in a well-organized manner using complete sentences and correct units.
What Alberta Education chooses to include or exclude from its diploma examinations sends a powerful and compelling message to teachers and students about what is important.
By eliminating the written portion of the mathematics and science examinations, the department is, however inadvertently, saying that clear communication about mathematics and science just doesn’t matter that much.
In 1959, British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow gave a lecture titled “The Two Cultures,” in which he decried the failure of the two intellectual cultures of modern society—the sciences and the humanities—to communicate with and inform each other. He warned that this failure was a major obstacle to solving global problems and advocated for greater scientific literacy, and he placed the responsibility on both scientists and “literary intellectuals” to meet in the public square.
Snow’s remarks were prescient and remain relevant today. Serious and meaningful public discourse about such issues as climate change, the environmental impact of oilsands development and the threat of pandemic influenza must be informed by science and mathematics. For this to happen, scientists and mathematicians must be able to communicate effectively with the public.
It follows that discontinuing the written portion of the mathematics and science diploma examinations sends exactly the wrong message at exactly the wrong time. If in the evaluation of our public education system we are articulating a vision of the sort of citizens and society we want to create, I am sad to say that the Alberta of the future just became a slightly more stupid place.
I welcome your comments—contact me at dennis.theobald@ata.ab.ca.
