CHAPTER I Introduction The Congress has for generations heard arguments on the advantages and disadvantages of making the metric system the primary system of weights and measures in this country. The issue for the United States will soon become critical as the customary system disappears from international usage; that is, as the other English-speaking nations go metric. The United Kingdom is now in the midst of a 10-year program of conversion from the Imperial system of measurement (pints and pounds, yards and miles) to the metric system (liters, kilograms, and meters): their national program is proceeding under the coordination of a widely representative Metrication Board at the same time that the decimalization of coinage is proceeding under the guidance of a Decimalization Board.1 India undertook in 1956, in the political climate of independence and with the support of Nehru, the double task of going over to a decimal coinage and the metric system of measurement. Many other members of the British Commonwealth of nations have made commitments to change to the metric system. The Secretary of Commerce has been directed by the Congress (Public Law 90-472, 8 August 1968) to report to them on the impact of this increasing worldwide usage of the metric system on the United States. The National Bureau of Standards has been assigned the task of carrying out a study of the questions raised by the Congress and of preparing a report. The U.S. Metric Study has been developed by the National Bureau of Standards in the form of 14 components, which are described in the first 1 On 15 February 1971, the United Kingdom officially converted to a decimal coinage with the introduction of 1⁄2, 1, and 2 new pence coins. A month later it was described as the “nonevent of the century." U.S. Metric Study Report, "International Standards." It includes a number of surveys and investigations of a wide range of topics and a series of conferences, including a conference on education.3 Perhaps the most important single contribution to the Education Conference was the comprehensive position paper of the National Education Association (NEA). It covers the history of the support of organized education for the metric system, and summarizes usage, educational advantages, adjustments to be expected, and costs; and offers a tentative schedule for going metric. This paper is reprinted as appendix II of this report. Another valuable contribution was the report of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) to the Education Conference. It addresses itself to the questions of classroom activities and instruction, possible future effects of going metric, and submits the official position of the Association on this issue and the opinion of its leaders. This report appears as appendix III. Education Development Center (EDC) was asked to undertake a study of the effects of going metric upon education in the U.S., and to determine: (1) The current usage of the metric system and trends in its usage, and the advantages and disadvantages of current practice. (2) The consequences of increased international usage in the event that no national program is undertaken. (3) The problems which would have to be faced in implementing a positive national policy and program over a 10-year period of conversion or over some "optimum" period. EDC was asked also to develop recommendations and guidelines for minimizing the difficulties of the transition and for best realizing the longterm benefits. In the course of this Study it has become clear that in the area of education there will be difficulties associated with the transition but they would not be great. On the other hand, it seems clear that the advantages to be gained are significant but not overwhelming. The major problems to be faced in education are the replacement of textbooks and other instructional materials, the modification or replacement of equipment, and teacher training (quite aside from a national THINK METRIC campaign, see ch. VI). The chief subsidiary advantage to be gained, aside from the simplification of teaching and learning measurement, appears to lie in the opportunity to make curriculum reforms, particularly in elementary mathematics. The task of the Education Development Center is to assay the extent of the problems and implications of a change to SI units, and to develop the information upon which guidelines and recommendations can be based. 2 National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 345-1, Washington, D.C., (December 1970); pp. 43-45. Hereafter we shall refer to this report as "International Standards." 3 Held at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 14 and 15 October 1970. Hereafter we shall refer to this Conference as "the Education Conference." The program is included as app. I. Summary of Current Usage and Trends in Use Organized education has long been enthusiastic about the metric system, and they have been on record in favor of it for many generations. With the introduction of the metric system they have seen essential simplificauons of teaching and learning tasks. At this time, in a planned period of going metric, they see, in addition, a chance for another round of curriculum reform. However, the current usage of the metric system in education in the United States is limited, and students do not learn to think metric because they are living in a totally nonmetric environment. Only about 10 percent of elementary and intermediate school students are exposed to the new science curricula in which metric units of measure are used in substantial amounts. The trend toward increase in the usage of the metric system is small but noticeable; it appears mainly in the new science curriculum developments, but the commitment of these new science curricula to metric measurement appears to be at the peril of introducing a language barrier between science and the real world. In contrast, conventional science texts for the elementary and intermediate grades do not use significant amounts of metric measurement, nor is there promise of any appreciable increase. At all levels of mathematics instruction, the metric system has a low priority. In the typical elementary mathematics curriculum, little time is spent on measurement, and of that, at most 20 percent is spent on the metric system When the metric system is introduced, it is taught as a second measurement language, and students learn it by translation with no chance to develop an instinctive use. In high school, the teaching of measurement is not a mathematics topic, and it is left to the science courses. The metric system is used to an appreciable extent only in the chemistry and physics courses taught in high school and college. Small increases in metric usage are noticeable in high school physics, but so long as engineering colleges expect their students to learn about pounds force and pounds mass and Btu's, many college physics teachers will feel obliged to teach in those units. Chemistry is completely metric (cgs) and has for generations reflected the practice of that profession. Conclusion: Despite the enthusiastic support of organized education, the current usage of metric measurement in elementary science and mathematics is very limited. Its increase is confined to the new science curricula which now reach about 10 percent of the students in grades K-9. Forty percent of 11th graders see the metric system (cgs mainly) in chemistry. In the classrooms, laboratories, and workshops of occupational education, both the instruction and usage of measurement are tightly linked to the practices of the occupations for which they train. Leaders in occupational educa 5 See app. II, for a history of the National Education Association's support from 1870 to 1970, and app. III for the National Science Teachers Association's statement. 6 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, presentation at the Education Conference. tion generally are not in favor of having education take the lead in metric conversion until there is evidence that the country as a whole is converting. In each occupation, there will be a reluctance to teach metric units of measurement until it is clear that that occupation is about to go metric. When the time comes to introduce metric units into an occupational curriculum, a transition period will be needed during which both metric and English systems will be used in the schools. Occupational educators feel that such a bilingual stage and a coordinated and orderly transition would neither produce confusion nor require expensive alterations in present instructional equipment. Educational Advantages and Disadvantages of the Customary and The chief educational advantage of the customary system of measurements is that it is familiar. Its other advantages are seldom recognized - the units are body-related and finger-sized. Young fingers can easily manipulate one-inch tiles and cubes and ounce weights, but millimeters, centimeters, grams and cubic centimeters are just too small and the kilogram is too large.7 Young minds have difficulty in comprehending numbers as large as 300.8 And in general there is a loss associated with the rejection of the measurement-related parts of a thousand years of post-Anglo-Saxon culture, as epitomized in the last verse of Robert Frost's famous "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. The disadvantages of the customary system are that there are many unrelated units, that the conversion factors from unit to unit are arbitrary and various, that the same names are used for different units (for example, dry and liquid quarts, ounces of weight and capacity), and that similar units have entirely different names (for example, minim, dram, ounce, gill, [cup"], pint, quart, [pottle1], and gallon). The present style of measurement is to work mainly with common fractions and mixed numbers, so that computations are complex and lengthy. 7 School experience in the UK has led to preferences for 5- and 10-gram plastic weights and larger-than-centimeter blocks and tiles. 8 300 mm= of length. 1 foot. In education at least, the "nonpreferred" centimeter must be used as a unit 9 A cupful is half a pint - a kitchen measure but not a legal one. 10 "two quarts make a pottle; two pottles make a gallon." A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Nineteenth Century, R. E. Zupko, University of The chief educational advantage of using the metric system lies in the simplification of teaching and learning how to measure. This advantage arises from the simple interrelations of units mainly based on multiplication by 10, and from the ease of computing with decimal fractions and whole numbers. An obvious educational advantage would be that the educational system would no longer be burdened with teaching two systems of measurement, and would be able to concentrate on the one which is simpler and more easily understood. Time saved due to teaching a simpler system could be used for the introduction of valuable new materials. Another advantage of metric usage is that the teaching of decimal fractions, now much delayed, must occur earlier. (It is remarkable that the first nation to adopt a decimal coinage should after 180 years still not teach decimal fractions in the early elementary years.) At the same time, much of the customary drill in fractions could be reduced, although we should of course retain an easy familiarity with halves, thirds, quarters, and fifths (and perhaps sixths and eighths). The only disadvantage of teaching the metric system is that it is totally unfamiliar to most people, and metric measurement is almost totally absent from the surroundings at present. In spite of the fact that the U.S. has a decimal coinage, its decimal-fraction nature is not related to measurement: decimal fractions are used only in very special contexts. For example, machine shop practice uses the decimal inch notation, and surveyors measure to the nearest hundredth of a foot. More commonly, gasoline is measured in tenths of gallons (but nobody ever notices because the computing pump permits you to buy by the dollar's worth or by the "fill'erup"). |