Want kids to learn math? START teaching it

religion.Rantrave.com ^ | April 11, 2015 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Prof. Susan Engel, a psychologist, author and educator, published a controversial article in Bloomberg. The headline was "Want kids to learn math? STOP teaching it."

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-06/want-kids-to-learn-math-stop-teaching-it

My local paper picked it up and I had a very violent reaction: that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen in a newspaper and, as you know, that covers a lot of ground.

Later, when I went to Bloomberg to check on the comments, I was pleased to see many other people reacted as I did.

Independent George wrote: 'This is quite possibly the worst educational advice I've ever read. I don't even know where to start. Math is cumulative. You can't do algebra without mastering arithmetic, you can't skip algebra and go directly to trig, etc….'

Richard screamed: 'I could not disagree more vehemently with the writer of this article. Math SHOULD be a required course EVERY year of elementary & high school, just like English. Math is WAY more important that history, or civics, or any other elective course. Plus...get rid of all those computers...students MUST be able to do the math by hand, without using a calculator or other device.'

However, as I looked more closely at the article and reflected on its many carefully hedged statements, I realized that the author did not say stop teaching math. More exactly, she said, stop requiring the teaching of math. But that's a distinction that wouldn't gain many recruits.

Here is the idea, it seems to me, she was really promoting: stop teaching math as it has been taught for the last 50 years. Oh, in that case, she is making sense. This is something I can celebrate like the Fourth of July. The last 50 years means the tidal wave of stupidity that brought us New Math (circa 1965) / Reform Math (circa 1985) / and Common Core Math (now). All of these are child-abuse, anti-math, and basically what it looks like when the barbarians are in your gates.

Of course, we should stop teaching math THOSE ways.

It seems to me the psychologist was merely stating obvious wisdom. Let us stop teaching math in the many dumb and counterproductive ways that only ruthless hacks can devise.

Unfortunately, Susan Engel did not come right out and say this obvious wisdom. She successful avoided saying obvious wisdom. She went on a circumlocutionary detour from the obvious, saying things like this: 'Those interested in highly quantitative fields such as technology, finance or research are likely to have a natural inclination for math. They can obtain the knowledge they need later, in a much more effective and profound way, in college or beyond.'

Read that over again. Some have a natural information so they don't need to study it. And if they do not pick it up until after college, that is okay too.

Well, at this point the psychologist entered the realm of the fatuous. She proceeded to give a litany of lame excuses why you would not want to burden kids with learning math in a thorough and systematic way, as has always been done historically. The Education Establishment will enjoy using such excuses to wipe arithmetic right out of the K-12 system. Maybe Susan Engel herself is the first salient in this effort. Maybe she is the trial balloon.

My point is that she did not prove what she set out to prove: that we should not require math. That is a goofy idea. What she proved was that we should not teach math as our exalted experts prefer to teach it. They are all engaged in what some authors have called the 'deliberate dumbing down of America.' They tend to specialize in really bad ideas. If Susan Engel is going to provide ammunition for these people, then we want to call her on it.

If you've never seen 'An Inconvenient Truth,' a somewhat famous video by M J McDermott, please watch it. It is about 16 minutes but then you will know for yourself that the people in charge of math education are what I can best describe as intellectual reprobates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

So, yes, let us get rid of everything that the National Council of Teachers of Math and Arne Duncan want. Let us get rid of everything that Bill Gates and Jeb Bush seem to want.

Let us instead start teaching math in a way that every child can benefit from. Our golden rule should be to lift every child as far as each can be lifted. First step, set that goal. Second step, find the best program available.

There are two major programs available to serious schools: Saxon Math and Singapore Math. Pick one and your days will be blessed. Kids will know how to do basic arithmetic. That could almost fundamentally transform America right there. That and children learning how to read with phonics.

Sensible math instruction is under attack from every direction. Just when you think Common Core is doing a bang-up job of total destruction, along comes a psychologist to suggest, oh no, that's not low enough. Why bother to even try. Let's just give up!!!

I'm still not sure exactly where Susan Engel ended up. But I can promise you there are many in our Education Establishment who want the result just stated. Don't teach anything. Quit now. Whatever smidgen of knowledge they need, they can find it later 'in a much more effective and profound way.'!

The only hope is that every American take a few minutes to study the nonsense that Common Core prefers. You will be disgusted. At that point we will be saved.

-----------------------

Here is a good, very short COMMON CORE EXPOSED video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKXMblyqzx4

Here is another good place to start: PARENTS AGAINST EVERYDAY MATH: https://www.facebook.com/Parents-Against-Everyday-Math-37453309495/

Here's a good general article "COMMON CORE: ANATOMY OF A FAILURE." http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/common_core_anatomy_of_a_failure.html

Note: there is a lot of great stuff showing how complicated Common Core is. Hunt around, find your own examples. Search: problems with common core.

[max americana]

Kids nowadays could barely speak and write coherent English in college, so what’s another subject?

[gorush]

Public School is child abuse. Sure, you can find a great teacher here and there, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Public schools epitomize the inevitable result of government control, horrible results at great expense.

[ETL]

Via an e-mail some years ago, with some minor modification by myself...

Teaching Math In 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 2010:
A logger cuts down some beautiful forest trees because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit. How do you feel about this way of making a living?
________________________________

[JudyinCanada]

Absolutely correct. I home-schooled my own kids for as long as I could, then sent them to Christian high school. I am now home-schooling my little granddaughter and grandson 3 days a week.

I say the parents are better off with no education, then having their kids indoctrinated. It’s much easier to home-school now - lots of stuff online (not that way 25 years ago) and lots of programs you can buy (I had to write my own lol).

Not sending your kids to public schools is the best thing you can do for them.

[vladimir998]

I’ve always heard that the teaching of math changed in the 1960s (i.e. with the introduction of New Math). Can any Freeper tell me exactly what changed? How was math taught differently in the 1940s or 50s compared to the 1960s???

[jjotto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

[hanamizu]

I taught elementary and jr hi for over 30 years. I taught math for about half that time. The problem, as I see it with math teaching as it is done today, is that math teachers, who usually are good at math and enjoy it, asked each other how they should have been taught. They thought (and probably correctly for themselves) that students should be allowed to discover the beauty and patterns of math on their own. So, in the sixties we had “modern math”. I was told to teach 4th graders base-six mathematics so that the little ones would discover how base 10 works on their own. The forced memorization of the times table as I had learned them was forbidden. The children of the seventies as a result could do much less with math than the generations that preceded them. It is even worse today.

The problem with this approach is the simple fact that the large majority of humans don’t particularly like math and are unlikely to ever enjoy the beauty of it. They will have to know how to use it their lives, of course, but for most of us, math is just a tool to get things done, not a “language” for understanding the universe. I believe science teachers tend to make the same error. Today basic science facts are not taught, but are hopefully discovered by the student. Most don’t discover anything and know very few science facts.

[Jonty30]

As it has been taught, until the era of New Math, it was taught very well.

[yarddog]

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Math was my best subject.

A combination of age and using calculators for 40 years has ruined my ability.

BTW I was in Wal-Mart the other day and they had a calculator for a dollar! It looked sort of plastic but it had a solar charger built in.

You can’t buy the battery for that.

[Redleg Duke]

When my son was in 3rd grade, he showed me what he was being taught in school for math, and I made him math tables to memorize and learn.

He apparently took them to school to show his friends. His performance improved dramatically, until I received a call at home from his teacher telling me that math tables were not approved as a teaching method. I asked her if she had a child. She said she did, a year ahead of my son. I asked her if she helped her at home. She said she did. I asked her how, and she sheepishly told me, “Math tables”.

I asked her the purpose of the call. She said her principal ordered her to call me. I called the principal and took her to task. We reached an understanding.

The first department President Trump needs to eliminate is the Education Department. The NEA and AFT need to be outlawed.

[Redleg Duke]

When I was in grade school in the 50s, it was “5”. Now, it is whatever makes you feel good.

[IronJack]

Math should be taught by rote. Kids in the first or second grade should have to memorize addition tables up to 100. By third or fourth grade, it should be multiplication tables. By memory. No more of this “memorization is bad” nonsense. Start with the basics and build on them. And quit trying to be so clever about how you teach the basics.

[BenLurkin]

typo second sentence paragraph 8

[US Navy Vet]

“I called the principal and took HER to task”, Houston I think we MAY have found the Problem!

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

My cynical view is that New Math, like Reform Math and Common Core Math later, was carefully designed NOT to work, precisely as Whole Word is designed not to work.

See the video mentioned: An Inconvenient Truth, which is about Reform Math but shows you how a program can be designed not to do what it’s supposedly designed to do.

Here is an article titled “The assault on math,” making the same points.

http://www.improve-education.org/id60.html

[tbw2]

Abandon Common Core and use Saxon math.

[Mark]

Humor and old-— 2011 Miss USA -Should math be taught in our schools-— very funny if not seen yet. At Yahoo search page**
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=should+we+teach+math+miss+usa&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“BTW I was in Wal-Mart the other day and they had a calculator for a dollar! It looked sort of plastic but it had a solar charger built in.

You can’t buy the battery for that.”

It don’t have no battery! It has to be (minimally) in a lit room to work!

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I’m not a teacher but as a youngster I tutored young kids in reading.

My cousin is a math teacher in Va. His district has seen a massive influx of immigrant kids most of whom speak English but are remarkably unmotivated students. The stories he tells are just gruesome. Kids in 9th grade who do not know how to use a ruler to measure the size of the paper their test is printed on. (just one example among many) And many many other incidents of really not being able to teach the kids much of anything.

The problem? The kids simply do not care about it. It’s not that they think they may need it or want it or not; it’s that they care only about getting a passing grade on the exam and many simply do not care about that. They are conditioned by the proliferation of “participation trophies” and the like to believe there is no reward for excellence or even pretty-good performance, and that just by showing up, they’ll get “something”. [using old timers voice] When I was a lad, there were people in math who did not care about math, the same as I viewed history. There were those who were not adept at it. But dammit, Jim, there was a minimum prevailing attitude that ‘this stuff should be learned’. I don’t think there is any societal impetus to learn math (or much else) or to do anything but show up and get the participation trophy.

I hated history in school but absolutely obliterated math. I was certainly no better than an average student in history and was probably tough to teach as I was (and am) a wiseass. I never saw much value in history other than the “bound to repeat it” mantra. Maybe given my sensibilities at the time I was hardly teachable.

I view this very simply. People, even young people, generally like to receive some kind of reward for their efforts and conversely, if they get no reward, lose interest.

This Common Core stuff seems to about inculcating kids with some sort of arcane procedure, adherence to which being the teaching goal rather than mastery or competence in the subject matter. I find CC examples really arcane. Math excites when it is shown to be a powerful tool. Kids get interested in math if and when they see they acquire some sort of power for working it. CC utterly foils that.