Posted on 12/13/2006 5:59:04 AM PST by IrishMike
As it usually does, the fall season brought another shower of blue-ribbon reports about the sorry state of American education. You could hear the cluck-clucking and tut-tutting from one coast to the other.
But two reports in particular caught my eye, one for what it didn't say and one for what it did, boldly. Strangest of all, both reports came out of sectors of the education establishment that are not accustomed to self-criticism.
The first was the work of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which issued a paper calling for "more coherence (in) the very diverse mathematics curricula currently in use" in America.
The paper was a tacit acknowledgment that math instruction in American primary schools is a ghastly failure. By the time they reach eighth-grade, American students trail their counterparts in most of the developed world in their ability to perform rudimentary math.
The council's call for more rigor in the curriculum — a return to basics, almost, though they were careful not to call it that — carries an irony. For a generation now, conservative critics have placed blame for the sorry state of math education on the curricula that have been forced on public schools by professional organizations like the council.
Going under the banner of "reform math"— known popularly as "fuzzy math" — these instructional methods ignored drills and memorization in favor of allowing students maximum room for "self-expression" in the development of "problem-solving strategies." Our precious ignoramuses thus drew pictures, made up stories, and sometimes even graded themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Hmmm. I guess we're still searching for those "weapons of math instruction."
Mathematicians should teach math, chemists should teach chemistry, English major graduates should teach English, musicians should teach music etc ...
Educators should go back to study some real subject if they want to teach anything beside Celebrating Diversity.
Can I get an AMEN??
D-
Celebrating Diversity and the trashing of America
.... the goals of the education establishment.
And it is.
I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!
Yesterday, I trying to teach about compound inequalities in Algebra class. And I'm using a real world problem, adjusted slightly (as in, I removed any decimal points that might freak them out.)
Basically, here was the problem: A five-pound box of chocolate won't weigh exactly five pounds. It might be off a little bit, but as long as the weight is isn't off by more than one ounce, then it's considered okay. (I explained that the average box is five pounds and that machinery gets adjusted and blah, blah, blah, because the topic of chocolate perked them up a bit.)
Anyway, knowing that students are bad with unit conversion, I did the following: I wrote down "5 pounds". I asked how many ounces were in a pound (Happily, I heard "16" immediately, and I wrote the conversion on the board myself and gave them the answer "80 ounces". I shouldn't have, but hell, that was last week's struggle and I didn't want to lose this lesson in a repeat of that one. But I digress...)
I asked, "So what would be within 1 of 80?"
Blank stares. Let me rephrase a little:
"What number would be within 1 ounce of 80 ounces?"
Ah, "ounces", right, they know this one...
"Sixteen??"
The next sound you will hear is that of a teacher pounding his own head against the chalkboard because that is the only head that I'm allowed to band against the chalkboard.
They try to memorize rules and formulas, and then aren't too sure which to use, or when or how to apply them (when they know them correctly) because they don't understand them.
Give them a worksheet and they'll just do it. (or they'll fill it in from what the next guy did.)
And I have been told, "You the teacher. Teach!"
So I know what they're expecting. Granted, I'm not teaching the brainiacs this term.
That was the case at my U.
Celebrating Diversity and the trashing of America
.... the goals of the education establishment.
Let's not forget 'self hatred' if you are white- or the evils of whitey if you are anything else.
and of course, how to have gay sex.
Who needs to learn reading, writing and arithmatic? That's not "fun".
LOL!
Having recently sat in on a college class with younguns I will say that it's amazing how much they are worried about the perception they are stupid. More than one would tell me, "I'm really not stupid" and then go on and argue a fuzzy bunny point in economics.
One even said, "I can't believe Bush is allowed to let Fox News broadcast such far-right news." No lie.
This is one of those things that just makes you want to smack your head and say, "Well, duh!"
Never made sense to me why education majors in college were awful at the subject they were about to teach.
And I can't even count how many times a friend of mine would change majors from something a little more difficult to education. Same people that went out from Thursday night until Monday night and took a few nights off to recover.
Try this on your students. Say, "Ok, everyone, right now, POINT to the NORTH!"
See how many students point straight up at the ceiling. And I'm talking high school.
Not surprising at all. I work with people who believe Bush controls the oil prices. Or that the Dems are experts on creating strong economies. I just stare at these people in wonder. Of course they're all Dems.
bookmark bump
Your daughter at 15 is not beyond hope, mathematically speaking.
I could not get my head around anything but simple math until I hit college. I don't know if my brain just needed catching up, or if I had a great teacher (which I did) - but my first year in college, algebra finally MADE SENSE.
It can happen.
*************
LOL! I guess not.
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