As the principal of Nobel Elementary School in Chicago, Manuel Adrianzen had no trouble recruiting 16 girls in sixth to eighth grades to attend a recent Saturday workshop aimed at inspiring math- and science-loving Latinas.
But, to Adrianzen, getting their male classmates fired up about math and science remains a far more formidable challenge.
"The young ladies are more easily engaged in their math and science classes," said Adrianzen, a former math teacher who visited Elmhurst College last month with an all-female entourage participating in a Dare to Dream program exploring STEM, or the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
"Especially with math, the young men can easily get their interest turned off in the classroom, which ends up preventing them from going to college and having careers in these fields," Adrianzen said.
For Chicago-area educators such as Adrianzen, empowering Latino boys and girls to enroll in and excel in math and science classes is important to combating relatively high absenteeism and dropout rates, low college enrollment rates and disproportionately low numbers of minorities working in STEM careers.
For Gerard Kovach, teaching at Chicago's Salazar Bilingual Center — a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade school where roughly 80 percent of the students are categorized as ELL, or English language learners — demands a vibrant, hands-on math and science curriculum, not rote learning intended to prepare students for standardized tests.
Kovach, a winner this year of the prestigious Golden Apple teaching award, warns that the nationwide emphasis on test scores as a measurement of student aptitude is punitive for students, particularly those who are learning English and attending schools in low-income communities.
"The amount of time spent in many classrooms these days preparing for standardized tests is demoralizing to kids and demoralizing to teachers," said Kovach, who recently participated in a U.S. Department of Education forum called High Quality STEM Education for English Learners: Best Practices and Challenges.
Instead of spending precious classroom time drilling for standardized tests, Kovach said, ELL students at Salazar are engaged in inquiry-based, creative projects that allow them to use their native language while polishing their English skills.
One recent lesson had second- and third-graders constructing a roller coaster. Another had members of the science club heading outdoors to the school's garden the day before Thanksgiving for an impromptu lesson in composting. READ MORE
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