Posted on 09/18/2006 5:18:06 PM PDT by mathprof
The countries that outperform the United States in math and science education have some things in common. They set national priorities for what public school children should learn and when. They also spend a lot of energy ensuring that every school has a high-quality curriculum that is harnessed to clearly articulated national goals. This country, by contrast, has a wildly uneven system of standards and tests that varies from place to place. We are also notoriously susceptible to educational fads.
One of the most infamous fads took root in the late 1980’s, when many schools moved away from traditional mathematics instruction, which required drills and problem solving. The new system, sometimes derided as “fuzzy math,’’ allowed children to wander through problems in a random way without ever learning basic multiplication or division. As a result, mastery of high-level math and science was unlikely. The new math curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes, touching on dozens of topics each year.
Many people trace this unfortunate development to a 1989 report by an influential group, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. School districts read its recommendations as a call to reject rote learning. Last week the council reversed itself, laying out new recommendations that will focus on a few basic skills at each grade level.
Under the new (old) plan, students will once again move through the basics — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and so on — building the skills that are meant to prepare them for algebra by seventh grade. This new approach is being seen as an attempt to emulate countries like Singapore, which ranks at the top internationally in math.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
>>Do you know that they don't teach the Constitution of the United States in texbooks anymore, even in law school? <<
My constitutional law class in law school would beg to differ.
But I agree about other schools.
Where would I be able to get the Singapore material?
Singapore Math is a favorite, along with Saxon, for homeschoolers.
As a parent, don't let anyone tell you they know what is better for your child than you do. If you even take a passing interest in your children you want better for them than any one else.
Turns out we wanted better for our kids than did "the education experts". We found out that the superintendent was a friend of a professor at University of Texas who wanted to use our kids success or failure on block scheduling as a basis for yet another study. My question for the board was if my child failed, who do I see to get her another chance to make up for what she failed to get under the block schedule. We also found out that most of the teachers had their own children on the tradition schedule. That alone tells you a lot about what they really thought about it. They wanted the better schedule for their own children but wanted to force us to accept the inferior schedule for ours.
More parents should take an interest in their children's education and not leave it to the someone else. The phrase "trust but verify" comes to mind.
As well you should have been. Similarly, you are expected to write in complete sentences, capitalizing proper nouns and the first words of sentences.
Mathematics courses are about methods, not answers. Sans showing steps, there is no way to tell if the student even has an idea about how to solve a problem. The student may have got the answer by working it out, hearing it on the radio, seeing the answer on a nearby student's paper, or guessing. Also, (at least in some of my courses), partial credit would be available for correct methods with some penalty for arithmetic mistakes.
Most of the time you get someone's opinion on the Constitution not the real deal. I would hope that in Consititutional Law you would get to read a full copy. That was told to me by my son-in-law attending Tulane Law. He is in his last year there.
So kind. Thanks!
And lots of breaks for the kids! I just looked at your posts from the last few days, and it's great that you can teach and post on here as well. Lots of "recess time" for the kids, and at that age they deserve them.
Kudos to you!
I remember the "new math" of the '60s.
Sold lots of new textbooks, and put the U.S. on a long slide.
Parents are responsible for setting and enforcing standards for their children....and their childrens' teachers... and their Board of Ed.
Parents are responsible for: not enforcing students' behaviour; not checking homework; not being concerned enough to attend open school nights or be active in their local PTA/PTO. Parents are to blame for relinquishing control of acceptable standards for everything from how teachers are certified to what they are teaching.
Parents...take back your schools.
I have never found even one math program from our country that teaches mathematical thinking as well as Singapore Math. Before I decided to use it, I did a little research into the math program in Singapore.
It is not just the multiple ways of presenting new material that Singapore uses that makes it a good program. In Singapore they do drill math facts. But there is a reason they do this. If a child can automatically recall their math facts, they can use their brains to concentrate on underlying math principles for each problem.
In this country, almost every program I have seen teaches by rote and by learning various steps or methods to work a problem. Children are never taught the meaning behind their methods. They are never taught to think mathematically. Children who learn or understand in ways that are different from the method the teacher uses can become lost. In many cases, with the poor teaching and math phobia rampant in this country, neither the teachers nor the parents have enough understanding to do more than use an answer key to check the student's answers in a book.
In Singapore, even in the early grades, math specialists come into the class to teach the children math. They only teach math, not every other subject and they are specially trained in school to teach math. These are people who actually love math, not fear it, and have a deep understanding of the subject. When a child comes up with a novel approach to solving a problem, instead of brushing them off as being wrong because they did not follow the proper method, the math specialist examines the logic the child used. If the logic is sound and is appropriate to solve the problem, the specialist praises the child for having a new approach. If the child's logic is faulty, the teacher helps the child to find out where his problem lies.
The parents in Singapore who want their children to succeed in math also drill math facts at home.
We loved Singapore Math. Every year we used the program my son was three to four grades ahead on the standardized tests.
To anyone who is interested, this is where we purchased the program (years ago) Singapore Math
If a student is cheating they can just as easily copy all the steps at the same time. You can't guess your way to a good grade on a final exam and I doubt you allow students to listen to "math radio" in class. I'm sure that scholastic format is really big with the youth demographic though.
That's because the ex-Soviet Union has been nothing but chaotic--even before the alleged "fall" of Communism. (rim shot)
Cheers!
The problem stems from more than one root: First, we have the teachers' union and the politicians. Second, we have the parents.
When I was a kid I had to memorize the multiplication table to pass into the fourth grade. My mom drilled me relentlessly for a month until I had it all done. I've met *many* teenagers who have terrible trouble dividing because they never learned how to multiply quickly. The parents blame the teachers for not teaching, but they don't understand that it's still their responsibility to make sure their kids have the proper equipment for life. Many of us get it into our heads that it's the job of the school to attend to our children's education, forgetting that *we* hold the ultimate responsibility in that area.
I've heard too many people say that they couldn't, or would never choose to, homeschool. The fact is that *all* of us are supposed to be homeschooling, even when our kids continue to attend public school. We're supposed to read with them at night, drill them in multiplication and division, teach them phonics if the school isn't already doing that, tell them interesting stories from history, etc.
If the school isn't meeting a child's needs, then the parents need to shut up and meet those needs themselves.
Ahh, but how tough are you on significant figures?
I remember one prof who gave ZERO credit, even if all the steps were flawless, if the sig figs were messed up at the end.
Cheers!
Too bad you're 17 -- that's too old for my son :-)
Cheers!
Depends on the problem and the error.
Although I remember once making an undergrad P-Chem lab estimate and propagate the error for one of their experiments; in an attempt to "better their minds".
Not a single student got it right.
So, by definition, I must not have taught it very well...
In fact, I prob'ly sucked.
Cheers!
Well actually, not recess time, FR is my planning period. Which I feel is just as valuable as my daughter's 1st grade teacher putting in her Scholastic order while the children worked!
I can type while they do sums or read. Sometimes they read along with me. They just have the freedom to get the work done and move on to something else instead of waiting for the others to catch up. That was what school was for them.
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