It's mastery that counts

By Boston Herald editorial staff
Saturday, October 21, 2006

There's important new evidence that aiming at self-esteem, self-confidence or classroom enjoyment rather than mastery of a subject is a dubious strategy.

The Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, reports that students in high-scoring nations on an international eighth-grade mathematics competition generally show less satisfaction with their own performance and less enjoyment in the subject.

The 10 nations whose students enjoyed math the most all scored below average in the study. The 10 nations whose students enjoyed math the least all excelled. (They include Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Singapore, always top-ranked no matter what the particular competition.) The least confident students in Singapore outscored the most confident Americans.

Trying to make math enjoyable may not cause low test scores. But it sure looks as if such an approach is not the whole story.

It's a bit of a surprise that nations trying to make math relevant to everyday life showed lower scores than those that don't. But if you've mastered the math, the applications are a piece of cake.

Math is special. The deeper you go into it, the more rewarding it can be. But our bet is that the lesson of the study really applies to all academic subjects, from art history through physics.

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