Posted on 12/04/2002 9:41:55 AM PST by Lizavetta
Goshen – A new math curriculum plus confused students equals angry parents. At least when that new math curriculum is the Interactive Mathematics Program.
Under IMP, high school students learn from books that have more word problems than equations. Instead of traditional math instruction, IMP emphasizes students working in groups to solve a problem over the course of a few weeks.
Goshen has been using IMP for the past three years in its freshman, sophomore and junior classes. The district plans to add it to its 12th-grade curriculum next year.
But some parents want it gone.
"The whole program is a travesty," said parent Traude Ellert, who has made it her personal mission to convince the district to ax IMP. "It's like a cancer. We are using language arts books to teach math. I'm outraged as a taxpayer. Part of my money was used here."
IMP replaces the algebra, geometry, trigonometry and pre-calculus found in traditional math, where students are taught in a more structured setting and a teacher drills formulas. Students of IMP are taught in groups and spend weeks on one central problem or theme.
An IMP textbook states that it "does not teach directly." There is no index in the book for math concepts. Called "fuzzy math," IMP has received mixed reviews. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Education named it one of the nation's top five exemplary math programs in the country. But some Web sites call it a scam that frustrates parents and turns A and B students into C and D students.
Math is an exact science and IMP makes it cloudy, Ellert said.
"Don't mess with math," she said. "They messed with math and that's not OK."
Ellert, who teaches pre-GED courses at a state prison, began her own math group. Every Tuesday night for 90 minutes, she teaches math to a group of 16 freshmen, including her daughter, from a Math A Barron's Review Book.
The students meet in the art room of the high school, where Ellert gives homework assignments and rewards them with saltine crackers for correct answers. She doesn't get paid to teach and the students go on their own time, many sacrificing extra-curricular activities.
But they don't mind. It's better than learning what they call "CHIMP" math. "We call it CHIMP because it's so easy monkeys could do it," said freshman Katey Bischof, 14, an honors student. "We learned more in three weeks here (with Ellert) than we learned in three months in IMP class," said freshman Hillary Quinn, 14.
The students complain that there are no lessons, just stories; parents can't help them if they have questions because the book does not explain the math problems and the Math A Regents exam has nothing to do with IMP.
Goshen isn't the only school district with IMP. Newburgh also has the program but it is under review, said spokeswoman Rebecca Foster. By the end of next year, the Goshen School District will have spent about $65,000 funding IMP, said Superintendent James Langlois. The district added the program to adapt to changing Regents requirements.
By the time current freshmen graduate, they will have to pass English, U.S. history and global studies, math and science.
"We can no longer allow kids to slide by with the same understanding of math as they did in the past," Langlois said. "Everyone has to pass the Math A (Regents) exam." And that concerns parents.
"We're giving the tutors in the area a lot of business," said a mother, whose son is part of Ellert's group. "As soon as I saw the book, I saw a problem. I said, 'This is not math.' We need a blending of the old math and new math. I don't think anyone is against new and innovative ideas. But you need a basis."
But for Ellert, it's become a personal goal to get rid of the program. "I'm not stopping until this is gone," she said. "It's a travesty to the Goshen School District."
IMP word problem
IMP was created in 1989 by San Francisco State University professors Dan Fendel and Diane Resek. The program uses an integrated problem-based approach to teach algebra, geometry, trigonometry, probability and statistics. It is used in more than 350 schools across the country.
For more information, visit the IMP Web site at www.mathimp.org or contact Dan Fendel at 415-338-1805 or Diane Resek at 415-338-2071.
This is an example of an IMP word problem:
"Pick any answer"
Lai Yee has a new trick. He tells someone:
--Pick any number.
--Multiply by 2.
--Now add 8.
--Divide by 2.
--Subtract the number you started with.
--Your answer is 4.
1. Try out Lai Yee's trick. Is the answer always 4? If you think it always is, explain why. If not, explain why it sometimes will be something else.
2. Make up a trick whose answer will always be 5.
3. Pretend that someone gives you a number that he or she wants to be the answer. Using the variable A to stand for that number, make up a trick whose answer will always be A.
Source: Interactive Mathematics Program text book
Learned responses can lead to creative and inventive outcomes. We know that Edison wasn't the "genius" that is portrayed in the movie, "Beautiful Mind". But Edison did invent the 20th Century. I visited that little lab in New Jersey as a high school student. What a marvelous place!
He gave the world light, sound, camera, and action!!!! His talent was to surround himself with intelligent and creative individuals and then he made his dreams a reality!
Social/socialist math. In a few years they can meet as a group when they try to calculate change for a dollar at McDonalds.
And in a few more after that they'll meet as a group to calculate what your allotment of McDonalds Vegan Delux Gruel should be based upon your race, enthusiasm for social justice, and footprint upon the earth mother...
He dropped out of school in the 3rd or 4th grade. His mother DID educated him for some limited period of time.
My daughter, last year in 8th grade, spent two weeks writing an essay for her math class. Why? I never quite figured that out.
This same school, a Catholic elementary school, wasted years of these students lives with the Univ of Chicago Math books. My youngest had it from 1st grade, by the 4th grade could not even add single digit numbers. And she was the norm for the class. They did finally get rid of this stuff, but it took a lot of complaining. My hubby and I went to a kids' book store that carried homeschooling supplies and got Saxon math books to get her up to speed.
Okay; but his mother's participation in his education was also fairly limited in the sense that he was doing experiments on his own at a very young age, building telegraphs and such, and was employed by the Railroad by the age of 12. Beyond the first few years, he was for all practical purposes self-educated.
I "figured" that you would be interested in this.
That's the problem: 4 freeloaders and 1 worker.
That's how I see it. Problem solving will be a great tool for my children to have........later. Having "problem solving" stuck in your face before you are totally grounded in the basics is asking for that deer in the headlights math phobia that I, for one, wound up with. I can't help but feel that scrambling with abstracts before you have the methods is teaching math out of order.
This reminds me of the "whole language" sham that is being thrust upon children learning to read, where the "context" is supposed to be the guide for what the word is, NOT the sounds each letter makes. In my opinion, context reading can be used for definitions of words, NOT the actual reading of the word. Yet another fraud the government schools use that make me madder than a wet hen.
I repeat - PROBLEM SOLVING IS NOT JUST ANOTHER WORD PROBLEM. IT IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO.
So many people equate word problems with problem solving. They are not the same thing!
There is so very much truth to what you say. The NEA loves little groups - communes if you will - where each may provide according to his ability while supplying the non-contributors according to their need. In other words, the ambitious end up carrying the dead wood until they finally tire of it and fall in line with the lowest common denominator.
Incidentally, this method has crept into colleges as well. They tell us that they are teaching "socialization" but what they are really teaching is socialism.
Whatever reason parents send their children to public school, it isn't for academic benefit. The only way public school students can do well is if, as in the article above, their parents provide homeschooling or tutoring outside the school.
When are the taxpayers going to wise up?
I'm thinking that many people's perceptions of what constitutes word problems v. problem solving may be different than the perceptions of others. I've always described math problems that involve words as "story problems", even in calculus and physics classes. Many of those problems involved the cumulative knowledge of previous chapters' lessons along with the new lesson. These problems, at least in the math arena, always followed some increasingly difficult repitition in the functions being studied as well as those studied prior.
I'm kind of hoping that you could provide some kind of example of what you are describing when you refer to each. Not nit-picking; rather, I'm just trying to discern what you are thinking when you compare the two.
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