Posted on 09/13/2006 5:24:14 AM PDT by shrinkermd
I disagree, we need more classes on diversity, black history, spanish, psychology, and the ever popular: "I hate Bush class"
Someday they'll teach the truth about the post modern witchhunt.
Improving curriculum is only part of what needs to be done. As long as our public schools are being used as liberal re-education camps, the schools are going to be the part of the problem, not the solution. Just as the country of Turkey learned that they had to shut down all of their islamic fundamentalist schools, we have to shut down all of our liberal fundamentalist schools in the United States.
Gee, ya mean all us "high school only" old fogies who thought that "new math" and everything that followed was junk were right?
Singapore Math -- very good curriculum.
Ping to one of ya'll.
You left out the "Condoms on Cucumbers" class.
It will vary greatly on how much 'education' is taught in each of these schools, and it has varied for years. When you have 'professors' who are against 'change' because they may actually have to 'teach', you get some of what we have now in our public schools.
(I say this as a public school teacher who graduated just in time to start teaching the 'new math' - which was never taught to me.)
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, The Constitution, Geography, the Periodic Table, Gym, Music and a Foreign Language should be the only thing taught until Junior High School.
One problem with mathematics education in K-12 is that 'back to basics' emphasis on rote learning vs. 'fuzzy' discovery learning is a false dichotomy. Students need both. The rote stuff should be front-loaded into the curriculum so that it takes place when children are young enough to take delight in knowing things learned by rote. That means addition starting in kindergarden, with addition, subtraction and multiplication fact all learned by the end of second grade at latest, preferably by the middle of second grade.
At that point, letting kids discover things, showing them multiple ways to do problems and puzzle out why they all work to give the right answer, starting to teach them or better let them discover why things are the way they are, and 'fuzzy' things like that become not just appropriate, but ideal.
The other problem is, regardless of the curriculum used, giving a monopoly on teaching to education majors, 85-90% of whom are math-phobic ditzes who picked the major because it was the most content-free one offered by their university, was really stupid. Right to teach laws need to be enacted in all of the several states.
Kids learn to hate mathematics, an attitude that serves them ill by the time they reach college, for one of three reasons: they got bored when the rote phase went on too long, or it doesn't make sense to them (a result either of only having drill and never seeing how it fits together--the thing the 'fuzzy' methods properly used fixes--or of not having a firm foundation in the rote facts before trying to think about them more deeply--a problem the 'fuzzy' methods used alone causes), or because they absorbed their teachers' math-phobic attitudes.
My son just started 3rd grade, and last year I told his teacher that the methods they were using to teach math made no sense. She basically told me that that is what they are told to teach. My husband and I have fairly strong math backgrounds and I have been teaching him multiplication tables and proper terminology for math problems. I have mentioned this to quite a few parents and although they may agree with me, do not feel as strong with their convictions. I do no want my kids relying on a calculator to solve math problems and I do not want them using terminology that is inappropriate for math.
This article is refreshing to see - thanks for sharing.
They don't teach long division any more?
(This ole fhart still remembers how to extract square roots with paper and pencil.)
No way, all that PLUS living, breathing real life science. :)
I was at Wendy's when the cash registers crashed. They had the past retirement age woman who usually keeps the dining area clean going back and forth between the cashiers helping them figure out what to charge and how to make change.
Apparently no one else could do the math in their heads, or even on paper.
I wonder how many of those "...math-phobic ditzes" learned mathematics by the "...'fuzzy' discovery learning" process?
But of course, I'm one of those "high school only" old fogies, so what do I know?
I was in a Math for Teachers class with other math teachers. One guy had a PhD in Math, but he still had to take these 8 courses!! The teacher was a drama major. "There are many ways to get the right answer. Let's talk about some of them." The Phd guy was groaning and rolling his eyes. I was so confused I had to drop the class.
It is a wonderful idea to teach math in the 'old-fashioned' way. The sooner the better. It teaches kids how to think clearly and calculations are simply calculations. The kids are as confused as I was by this kind of teaching.
Homeschool -- the math teaching just gets worse. The teachers don't understand math either. I tutored a 5th grader this summer. Her mom brought in her book -- 'this is what they are using.' I looked at it and returned it to her the following week -- "I cannot make heads nor tails of this book, it is so confusing." She said, "Yes, all the students are totally confused and so is the teacher." This, they are paying for this school to boot.
It is imperative that kids learn to think clearly, and math is one of the ways that is done best.
Teach your kid math at home.
bump
How many kids' educations have been ruined by these "Designer Classes"?
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