Renegade parents teach old math on the sly/ Government schools

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Jul15/0,4670,MathontheSly,00.html ^ | July 15, 2008 | JOCELYN NOVECK

[wintertime]

This article is about parents who are teaching traditional math at home on the sly to their children.

The previous article was pulled. Perhaps it was due to quoting Fox. I hope this thread is not pulled, the topic deserves discussion.

Wintertime

[Roccus]

What if the customer wanted to break his $40 bill?

[wintertime]

Oh!.....I get it!

I was wondering about this.

[Amelia]

Gee! Amelia, I see that you have changed your policy of not pinging my threads. How nice of you! ( Really)

Stop being asinine, and stop lying.

Your threads get pinged by me when (1)I'm aware of them, and (2)they meet the Public School ping list guidelines.

But you knew that already.

[JenB]

The thing that really frosts me about this story is the attitude - professional teachers know best, if fearful parents are going to teach their kids outdated stuff they’d better check with the teacher, most parents are too stupid to teach fourth grade math.

Scary!

[dfwgator]

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 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees. (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005:
El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es.............

[bboop]

I tutor Middle School math — pre-algebra, algebra, 6th grade math. I ALWAYS teach the kids the old-fashioned way — “It has to make sense. It is binary, right or wrong.” These are liberating concepts. The parents hate the ‘new’ math, no one can help their kids. AND it is absolutely imperative that our kids learn how to do math.

One could think there was a conspiracy behind it.

[CholeraJoe]

You’re correct. My first job in high school was working the cash register at Burger King. No computerized entry - I shouted out the orders. No automatic change machine or calculator, I calculated the cost on the order pad and counted change out by hand. If I made a mistake, it was taken out of my meager pay of $1 per hour. I was 17.

I doubt 1 out of 100 17 year olds today could do that job effectively.

[Citizen Blade]

One problem, Cooney says, is that parents remember math as offering only one way to solve a problem. "We're saying that there's more than one way," Cooney says. "The outcome will be the same, but how we get there will be different." Thus, when a parent is asked to multiply 88 by 5, we'll do it with pen and paper, multiplying 8 by 5 and carrying over the 4, etc. But a child today might reason that 5 is half of 10, and 88 times 10 is 880, so 88 times 5 is half of that, 440 _ poof, no pen, no paper.

That's actually how I handle simple multiplication. I do this with tips, especially- divide the bill by ten then multiply by two to get a 20% tip. I don't actually see anything wrong with teaching kids these types of shortcuts.

[Ingtar]

The funny thing about avoiding pennies/extra change for me is that it is completely intuitive. There is no thought involved in calculating change for me. I feel for the register person at times: they really look confused if I give them a dime to get a nickel instead of 95 cents.

[Alia]

I used Saxon for my kids' education. Saxon employs not only traditional forms but includes many of the newer math methods.

It's an excellent math curriculum. Very comprehensive and inclusive.

Did you know that the folks at Saxon, years past, offered to GIVE textbooks to California schools? The CA schools refused the offer. I remember reading where a teacher thought the Saxon curriculum was "too right wing".

[wintertime]

The parents hate the ‘new’ math, no one can help their kids.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is just one more way in which the Gramscian Marxists running our government schools can drive a wedge between parents and children.

It is one more means to make the parents look foolish and old fashioned and one more way to make the children more dependent on the state rather than on their parents and family.

[wintertime]

I had the same type of job in a diner.

Wow! I made $1/ hr. and any mistakes were taken out of my pay. I didn’t make many mistakes.

[Alia]

Good post! As I said above, different methods of math are useful for different applications.

And this is why I fought so hard, years ago, against the schools "labelling" children in STUDENT PROFILING, as to what those children might become one day.

They had pegged my daughter as a "teacher" by 3rd grade. Her LSATs were in the 98% percentile locally, slightly lower nationally. So, she began to enter 4th grade. STOP! No, the school put my daughter as a "peer teacher" inside a mixed 3rd/4th grade class for two reasons:

1. So she could learning valuable "teaching" skills (teaching others).

2. So it would allow her own peer age group time to catch up with her, then they could all enter 5th grade together and be "even".

Yep. I pulled her home to school with me.

[Will88]

“I doubt 1 out of 100 17 year olds today could do that job effectively.”

I’m fairly skeptical of the praise being heaped on new math by some in this thread, but I haven’t had enough exposure to it really evaluate.

I remember “set theory” being incorporated into math education. I’ve always scored very high on math aptitude and had no problem with the courses I took, but I still don’t know what in the hell set theory was all about, or why it was even taught.

Is set theory still part of math education?

[JenB]

Actually, I heard an interview on the radio two days ago by a guy who’s published a book called something like “Condoms not Crayons” (it definitely had those two words in the title) who was a former California lawmaker who had been on the textbook selection committee, and he said that regardless of the evidence he brought of the effectiveness of phonics and Saxon math, the educrats insisted on using new math and whole word methods.

[wintertime]

You are not always running the list.

And,...No, in the past my threads are **not** routinely pinged. I hope that today’s ping is due to a change of policy by the three of you managing your list.

And,...I have just checked my pings. You have not included me on your Public Education Ping list.

[airborne]

"I poop on the AP!"

[Alia]

I've seen this many times. It's entirely possible that the person at the cash register has been schooled/taught a different math method curriculum than you were. Sure, they might not be good at math; it may be that their synapses were trained to processing numbers in a less expedient manner.

This is where new math excels - speed in computation.

I argued against manipulatives when my children were in school. My argument was not against manipulatives, per se; but that they hadn't yet learned the BASIS for using manipulatives, yet. And this is the biggest reason why US does so poorly on Math scores across the world.

Math is not stressed. Rote math learning is not allowed. Kids are fast tracked into newer math without understanding WHY the newer math works.

[Will88]

“They had pegged my daughter as a “teacher” by 3rd grade. Her LSATs were in the 98% percentile locally, slightly lower nationally. So, she began to enter 4th grade. STOP! No, the school put my daughter as a “peer teacher” inside a mixed 3rd/4th grade class for two reasons:”

This practice of trying to track kids toward certain careers so young is insane. It’s just one more example of how so many in this nation no longer think in terms of individual freedom, but think everyone should be manipulated for the “greater good”. Maybe some college prep and industrial education makes sense in high school, but screwing around with kids ideas of what they want to do in elementary school should be illegal.

And, as I said in another post, I’m highly skeptical that new math or any other new teaching methods adopted since about 1975 are any sort of improvement. The ‘60s loonies started influencing curricula and teaching methods in the seventies, and not much good has come from any of it. And a great deal of harm has resulted by replacing reality with political correctness.

[slowhandluke]

One problem, Cooney says, is that parents remember math as offering only one way to solve a problem. "We're saying that there's more than one way," Cooney says. "The outcome will be the same, but how we get there will be different." Thus, when a parent is asked to multiply 88 by 5, we'll do it with pen and paper, multiplying 8 by 5 and carrying over the 4, etc. But a child today might reason that 5 is half of 10, and 88 times 10 is 880, so 88 times 5 is half of that, 440 _ poof, no pen, no paper.

"The traditional way is really a shortcut," Cooney says. "We want kids to be so confident with numbers that it becomes intuitive."

Cooney is an idiot and has it backwards. The traditional way works for any pair of operands, and takes a consistent time, it's not a short cut. The trick he suggested is a short cut, that works only for 5 times something. You'd have to come up with different trick for other operands. And what trick would he suggest for 357 x 482?

You teach the traditional method as it works, and works for all operands - then you teach the speed-up tricks for common operands.

It's a real good thing when the 'one way' solves the problem correctly everytime, and everybody else knows the one way, and can check your work.