Math Instruction Seems Skillfully Designed NOT To Work

Hubpages.com ^ | August 15, 2010 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

For a few years I thought the worst possible gimmick in education was Whole Word, basically a device to make sure kids don't learn to read.

In the last few months, the clamor grew about Core Standards and National Standards, and I started to focus on arithmetic. More and more I’m struck by the parallel with Whole Word. The Education Establishment seems to specialize in coming up with techniques that are almost guaranteed not to work.

I know there are cynics who will say, well, of course, everyone knows this. Even so, the thing that fascinates me is the amount of skill and intelligence needed to create something that is not what it appears to be. I’m still stunned. Did people really go into a room and say: how do we teach math so that nobody learns math??? Well, it sure seems that way.

I think we can see the phenomenon best in New Math. Experts said it was the perfect way to teach math; but it was trashed only a few years later. The flaw was that easy arithmetic was mixed in with advanced concepts so that kids were too confused to learn even the basic stuff. Unfortunately, that central flaw was rolled forward into all the subsequent programs, for example, the many programs within Reform Math.

As so often happens in education, the public has to deal with this weird choice: are the people in charge hopelessly stupid or hopelessly subversive?

For a sense of how bad things are, here is a scary report from C. F. Navarro, PhD (on the excellent site Illinoisloop.org):

“At the George Washington Middle school where I taught eight-grade math in 1998, only a few of my math students were at grade level. The rest were at a fourth-grade level, or lower. Most had not yet learned their multiplication tables and were still counting with their fingers. By the end of the year some had progressed to about a fifth-grade level, a substantial improvement, but far short of the comprehension and skills required for algebra. Nonetheless, all were required to register for algebra the following year.

More troublesome still was my algebra class. The students in that class were all nice kids, mainly from middle-class families and, therefore, on the school's "talented and gifted," program. Yet, with few exceptions, they didn't know how to work with fractions, decimals or integers. They lacked the power of concentration to set up and solve multiple-step problems. They were incapable of manipulating symbols and reasoning in abstract terms. Like most of my general math students, some had not yet learned their multiplication tables and were still counting with their fingers.”

Could things really be that bad if the Education Establishment were sincerely trying to teach math? Hard to imagine.

So what is the answer? Many businesses and parents (with kids in public schools) have to consider tutoring (e.g., Saxon Math, Singapore Math, Math Mammoth, MathUSee). Next, the more I look at the National Standards and Core Standards, the more I hope that states will reject these federal proposals. If you’re curious, go to corestandards.org to read some of these bizarre so-called Standards.

One of the distinguishing traits in the newer Standards is a gimmick called spiraling. Children are moved quickly from topic to topic. Teachers introduce as much variety as possible. Just as a “thought experiment” I wondered, well, what would total simplicity look like?? I wrote a piece for hubpages called “Price’s Easy Arithmetic For First Graders.”

( http://hubpages.com/hub/PricesEasyArithmetic )

For a more studious look at the whole problem, see “53: One Thing We Know For Sure: The Education Establishment Hates Math” on Improve-Education.org.

( www.improve-education.org/id78.html )

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For anyone curious about New Math, here's my review of a book published about 1964 to tell parents how to understand New Math. Funny in a grim way. See the one review of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/teachers-parents-elementary-school-children/dp/B0007DO4K2/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

. .

[wintertime]

The real danger to the country is the destruction, for the past three generations, of the public education system.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Please read post #40.

The destruction of our education system began the very first day that modern government schools opened in the mid-1800s to early 1900s.

Our modern government schools are NOT NOT BROKEN! They are doing EXACTLY what Horace Mann and John Dewey and the other “progressives” intended!

[netmilsmom]

Show off. XD

[netmilsmom]

I love how Saxon and Singapore are considered afterschool tutors.

We use Saxon. Why bother with teaching in class, then teaching right after school?

[TheOldLady]

Gosh, you’re right. I recall school (HS class of 1964, lots of night school after that) actually teaching me stuff, but when I really think back on it, the problem was already there. Justifications for communism, sympathy for the “poor,” and the “greed” of the free-market system were inserted in the fine education in math, science, English, history, et.al.

Now even the fine education is gone.

[OneWingedShark]

LOL / Thanks! [?]

[aberaussie]

I cannot understand why it is so difficult to teach children to read. My three could read before they enrolled in first grade. I could have prevented this, of course, if I had kept books and alphabet related toys away from them. Failing that, their learning to read was inevitable, especially with their mother regularly reading books to them.

My first two were just like that, reading came very easily to them. My third one did not read much at all until third grade. My fourth read by the end of first grade. I read to all of them and they all grew up in a reading/language rich home. The first two went to public school until the older one started third grade and the younger one started first. The third one went to private kindergarten and other than that, they were all homeschooled. I think each child is ready to read on his or her own schedule. I think Raymond Moore was right about this....

The first two graduated from college summa cum laude. The third one will do so as well, with an almost perfect grade point average (he just made his first A- which loses the perfect 4.0 at his school). He reads much heavier stuff and writes better than any of the others, despite the fact that he could not read much before third grade and could not write a coherent paragraph before middle school. My fourth one is a junior and is just now actually enjoying reading but is a very good writer - I always thought that for kids to be good writers they needed to read a lot. Kids are good at blowing away our preconceptions!

[netmilsmom]

It was a complement from a math dummy. ;)

[jiggyboy]

It’s a big list, but I have to quibble with you on round-off errors. Check your last result as a test — I get 6.75 + 84 + 10 = 100.75

[WorldviewDad]

“actually, only a Mom”...I am glad to see you made the best choice for your children. Being a mom is a lot more important then being an engineer. You are doing something a could never do...being a mom :)

Worldview DAD

[latina4dubya]

I cannot understand why it is so difficult to teach children to read.

i know... "they" make it difficult... i taught my older son, who as five when we adopted him, to read within eight months of his moving in with us... on top of that, he couldn't talk when he came to live with us... i taught our younger son, who was six months when he came to live with us, all of his letter sounds and blends by the time he was two... i left him alone after that, and he began reading on his own by the time he was three... i've taught a couple of other kindergarteners how to read (family members)... we homeschool...

as for math, i spent the first 3-4 years teaching my kids the fundamentals... inside and out... now both pretty much do math on their own... one is eighth grade, the other is fifth...

[latina4dubya]

We use Saxon.

so do we... i have to say, i'm glad they added a separate geometry course to their math curriculum...

[bvw]

Under the Rules of Affirmative action I have an answer:

1/2*3+4*5*6/7+8*9 = 100 !

I’m a black farmer and/or small businessWOMAN for the purposes of giving this answer.

In other words, you MUST accept it as a correct answer or be fined and.or jailed.

[Tired of Taxes]

Afterschooling - saxon, singapore, and key curriculum are my favorites. The spiraling, group-work, reflective, reform math is garbage.

Homeschool parent here. We've also used Saxon and Key-To. Saxon does use the spiral method, which seems to work for some people but not for everyone. Every student is unique.

[netmilsmom]

>>i have to say, i’m glad they added a separate geometry course to their math curriculum<<

We’re not there yet, but Saxon has been a life saver in Algebra. I’m pretty math illiterate. We were using Switched on Schoolhouse and they explained NOTHING! We would have to wait for the Principal (dad) to get home to teach the lesson. When my older daughter was almost finished with 9th grade, we gave up and bought Saxon with the DIVE video. Now, after watching her work for hours (I used to cut her off after four) I see her and she flies through her work. In fact, she has been able to make up so much that she will be done in January, then on to Algebra 2.

I’ve heard Singapore is great too but you have to start at the beginning. They refer to past grades.

[bvw]

Have you tried an abacus for your estudantes?

[Tired of Taxes]

No, but I always wanted to. The only one they’ve ever tried was online. Do you know how to use an abacus? Do you know where someone can buy one?

[Clintonfatigued]

I believe this readily. I believe that the math books are intentionally confusing. We already know that reading instruction is defective.

[little jeremiah]

I did a lot of homeschooling of my kids and others’ kids. Started in the late 70s actually.

I decided by the mid 80s that not only reading but also math texts were created to be purposely confusing. The writers of textbooks want children to be confused, unable to think clearly or rationally, and of course every text is saturated with mind numbing boredom and leftist ideology.

I basically invented my own lessons much of the time. My own reading pamphets, simple arithmatic problems, spelling, comprehension, etc. And I am a high school dropout/kickout.

My 13 yr old daughter finally found a college algebra book and did it herself (I was too dumb at math to assist her) for her own amusement.

[SunkenCiv]

The destruction of education *begins* with hiring quotas — they destroy the incentive for doing well in school. Add to that the near-total destruction of industrial jobs, AND the widespread employment of illegal aliens, and the value of a good education (even where such is available) is degraded to near-nothing.

And you’re right of course, the public schools are a disaster.

[wintertime]

I believe this readily. I believe that the math books are intentionally confusing. We already know that reading instruction is defective.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Reading instruction is**INTENTIONALLY** defective, as well!