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 ...
I meant they just look at your homework paper and see if it looks complete. If it does, you automatically get full credit. They don't even collect it. Once one of my math teachers asked the kids to hold up their worksheets they did for HW. Since she had no way of specifically seeing them, one kid in the back who hadn't done it held up an English paper and got full credit.
Then my daughter should be making 6 figures. She teaches Math, but even if she taught another subject, she would not ever push her Conservative views on her students. That's the difference between libs and Conservatives.
BTW, an interesting website is ratemyteachers.com
There is a section for parents to give their input.
An answer without presenting the logic just as likely a signal that the student cheated to get the answer. I won't give full credit for an answer in math or chemistry unless the student can demonstrate, either on the test or face-to-face, that they knew what they were doing. Most of the time they can't. It's not idiocy to demand a demonstration of reasoning in the face of the student culture of today.
And if you disaggregate the U.S. data, you find that our Asian kids perform as well as the Chinese/Singaporean/Japanese kids.
That's a mighty big generalization about homework, partner. As G8 points out, there are not enough brain cells in a high school head to absorb chemistry and math (two of my teaching areas) in class alone. HW is to convert short-term memory into long-term by reinforcing.
I believe Singapore is #1. We used Singapore's math program for our two children. My daughter is now 15 and enrolled at a local college because we ran out of math to teach her at home. She's 15. Singapore is NOT rote learning. It teaches problem solving from day 1 of any topic, and it shows several methods so that children who see problems differently can see how to solve them differently. My kids LOVED it, and still go back to the books for fun.
The U.S will continue to rot until people who know math and science are permitted to teach it -- over the dead bodies of math- and science- illiterate teachers and administrators. No offense to teachers, who really are some of my best friends, but as a group, they score in the lowest 50% of college grads. People who are math and science smart typically can't stand the crap that suffices for teacher education courses. I'm one of them. I taught my own kids instead.
Reading is a solitary activity it makes sense to do it outside of class. The rest was malarkey.
And you can't just have something spewed out to you in class and never put it to work.
Then why send them to class in the first place? The teachers apparently do not teach.
If you never do it, how will you know you get it?
You do it IN CLASS where the teacher can explain the concept that you are unclear on.
And even if these kids choose not to do their homework, there are still better uses for their time than watching the sh** they show on TV these days.
None of the teachers business. What the kid does out side of school is none of your business nor of your concern.
You don't get voice or vote. The family may choose to watch TV, tour museums, or stare into space.
It is free time and free time is suppose to be... well, free.
I partially disagree. As you said, you learn by having the concept explained to you in the class room, and by the teacher showing you how to apply it. However, you learn how to apply the concept by working the 50 problems on the worksheet for homework. The rote method of learning is very important in math. A few people are lucky enough to understand the concept, grasp how to apply it immediately, and never forget. The rest of us (including me with my undergrad math major) need to do it several times to learn how to apply the concept.
That said, I always hated teachers who gave homework on a new concept before they explained it in class. Those teachers were just plain lazy!
I was picking up dinner at a carry-out restaurant a week or two ago. Girl behind the counter, looked to be about 17, rang up my order and it was $17.05. I gave her a $20 and she punched it in her cash register which gave her the exact amount of change I was due - $2.95. She counted some coins into her hand and then, to my utter amazement, turned to her supervisor and asked, "Is this 95 cents?" The supervisor looked, said "Nope", and picked out a dime to which this moron says, "I keep doing that!"
In all fairness I don't blame the teachers for situations like this, I blame the student and the student's parents. A teacher as 20 plus students to deal with, maybe 20% of which could not care less about the subject material. The teacher, any person at all for that matter, would give their attention to those students who actually are there to learn something. It makes sense, and it's human nature. If kids like this dolt at the chicken joint can't count or make change then we have to ask why she didn't bother to learn it and where were her parents when she was blowing math so completely.
And I admit that as soon as I got home I dumped a handful of coins on the counter and told my daughter to count out 95 cents. She gave me her patented "Dad, you're freaking me out again" look and immediately selected three quarters and two dimes. At least she won't starve.
My daughter just started HS (Catholic/private) and is in Honors Algebra II and she tells me "Just like middle school, we don't get homework in Algebra but we are encouraged to work problems at home until we understand them".
...the United States will need to abandon its destructive practice of having so many math and science courses taught by people who have not majored in the subjects — or even studied them seriously.
We also need to fix the current patchwork system of standards and measurement for academic achievement, and make sure that students everywhere have access to both high-quality teachers and high-quality math and science curriculums that aspire to clearly articulated goals.
Until we bite the bullet on those basic, critical reforms, we will continue to lose ground to the countries with which we must compete in the global information economy.
No. It is the truth about the how and why of the excessive homework that is loaded onto kids.
there are not enough brain cells in a high school head to absorb chemistry and math (two of my teaching areas) in class alone.
Funny but my older niece never has homework aside from reading chapters and yet is on the Presidents Honor Roll. Somehow her teachers manage to actually teach in class.
Yea they do, but only because they have ways to work AROUND the disastrous US educational system (like after school learning centers; formal Saturday Asian-only study groups, etc.) Do not, for a minute, give the US educational system ANY credit for their outcomes. It is strictly of their making, IN SPITE of what they have to put up with.
Not only is it the case that the lower 80% of students are prohibited from attending "high school" in China (for example).... but the bottom 80% of students are required to attend high school in the US.
Whatever else this says, it includes our teachers and students having to deal with mostly scum all day.
Frankly, I think it's amazing that anything gets accomplished.
Sounds like the program my older niece is in.
There is a reason that many kids hate math. They are not taught to understand it, just to do it.
The two are worlds apart.
Just checked out your profile, my daughter would be honored to have you as a student...
I guess this girl would be really be sucking if she had to count out change like I did when I worked at a store in high school.
The reason the teachers are now so bad is that their profession requires continuous lying, which is dispiriting and attracts losers.
Approximately 25% of the white young adult population is capable of an academic high school diploma with appropriate courses and proper evaluation. The remainder should not be required to go to high school (actually, I believe they should not be allowed to go, but you have to start somewhere).
Let the losers out at age 14, and lots of problems will improve, as if by magic.
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