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参加Zare教授北大午餐
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参加Zare教授北大午餐
2008.06.03
今天中午有幸和北大化学院、北大工学院、中科院物理所、国家纳米中心的八九位老师一起在北大勺园与Richard Zare教授一起午餐。后来一起喝茶休息时Zare教授打开计算机上给大家看他收集的很多有意思的视屏文件，诸如夏威夷的火山、俄罗斯的雨季泥泞、以及机械动画等等。大家一片童心。
下午Zare教授在北大生命科学院大楼作学术报告，我因为有事就先告辞了。明天他要在化学所作报告，我可能也参加不了。还好我已经听过好几次他的报告，算是比较了解他过去和近期的工作，以及前世今生，所以损失不大。再说，化学所的礼堂也坐不下那么多人。
Zare教授在Stanford大学的网页上有很多他做报告的视屏。其中还有一个叫做How to succeed in Research，还有一个叫做What I think photon is。有趣得紧。
Zare教授的网页链接：http://www.stanford.edu/group/Zarelab/zare/
席间我问Zare教授谁是他今后五年需要大家关注的优秀学生。他说有一个叫黄波，现在在Harvard跟庄小薇做博士后，是北大毕业的。
顺便说一句，Zare教授本来是来北京参加中国科学院外籍院士年会的。据说可能是因为抗震救灾的缘故，今年的院士会临时取消了。
过两天就要开始高考。下面是2005年Zare教授在Chemical & Engineering News上的一篇社论文章，题目叫做：
Test Takers Or Scientists? （考试机器还是科学家）。
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January 31, 2005
Volume 83, Number 5 p. 3
Test Takers Or Scientists? （转帖）
This guest editorial is by Richard N. Zare, Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University's department of chemistry.
We all know that few americans are choosing careers in the sciences, yet we know how critical those careers are to economic growth. But why is that so and what can we do about it?
It’s high time to realize that standardized tests are overhyped. While educational institutions compete in training their students to become even better test takers, skills that are difficult to quantify in test results—like lab talent—are increasingly being neglected. Sure, it’s important to look good next to others, and rankings can be useful sometimes, but please, let’s not forget the reality of science: Students don’t become brilliant scientists by being excellent in doing the same things other people do. They become brilliant scientists by being excellent in doing different things than other people. And we will never be able to measure that in standardized tests
In the U.S. as well as in China, Korea, and Japan, government officials and the public increasingly rely upon local, regional, and national tests to measure scholastic performance. This trend should not be stopped. On the contrary, I welcome standardized testing. Such tests ensure the competency of instruction, and they set standards that can be trusted and that do not depend on geographical locality. Who of us can be opposed to accountability? But all good ideas can be carried to excess.
I find that standardized examinations in high school sharply focus the attention of the students, their parents, the teachers, and the educational administrators on the outcome of those exams. These outcomes are used to assess not only the talent of students but also the skills of the teachers and the quality of the school district. Admission to choice colleges for the students, merit raises for the teachers, and the reputation of the school system for the public depend on student scores.
It’s no wonder that teachers are advised to devote their energies to coaching their students to do well on these exams. And teachers do just that—to the exclusion of many other activities. As a result, our students become ever better test takers. But an unintended consequence is that students lose much creativity, especially the ability to experiment.
Because it is hard to judge laboratory skills and because it costs too much in terms of staff, time, supplies, and safety to maintain meaningful laboratory programs, that component of high school education quickly becomes deemphasized, if not abandoned. Next to go are the skills of inquiry and independent thinking. It is much easier to train students for test taking than it is to foster inquiry and independent thinking. Consequently, it is a natural temptation for overworked teachers to place more emphasis on preparing for standardized tests. As a result, we are producing outstanding test takers, some of whom win chemistry and physics Olympiads, but many of whom cannot take apart and put back together common objects and who cannot design simple experiments.
This emphasis on testing and academic accountability is creating a generation that is very clever and can give quick answers to many problems. But it is also a generation that is not very curious about the world we live in. We need to give each student the opportunity to explore and to pursue the answers to open-ended questions. In that way, we will find and nurture the next generation of independent thinkers, some of whom will become our scientific leaders.
A world-leading industrial society today needs to be excellent in innovation. We pay dearly for the unintended and unwanted consequences of overemphasizing the testing of students in our classrooms. The devaluation of independent inquiry and the lack of a hands-on approach to solving problems affect students as they move into higher education and eventually into the workforce.
As someone who has taught chemistry to entering students at Stanford University for the past 25 years, I am telling you that we cannot afford to play this game of “Jeopardy” with our country’s future. I have seen too many students who have superb book learning yet are disasters in the lab. Standardized tests can help provide a solid floor of academic achievement, but we must be very careful that it doesn’t produce an artificially low ceiling as well!
Richard N. Zare
Stanford University
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Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2005
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