[Hobsonphile]

Why Johnny can't compute.

[Hobsonphile]

Another answer to the "progressive" crowd would be the following:

Given that until this century, most children were educated by some form of "drill-and-kill," how might you explain the innovative intellects of the Wright brothers, Edison, or even the Founding Fathers? How do explain the existence of undeniable masterpieces in art and literature pre-dating 1900?

*****
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[cosine]

Want to check your child's math progress? See the antidote for Fuzzy Math, the Mathematically Correct curriculum standards at http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/

[netmilsmom]

Where do they come up with this stuff???
I taught my 5 year old how to compute simple equations on a number line over Christmas break. When I proudly told this to her teacher when she returned to school, the lady gave me a blank stare. To this moment, I'm not sure if she did not approve of what I had done or did not know what a number line was.

[Illbay]

Unfortunately such garbage "education" theories as these get foisted on the inner-city and lower-income kids, because those school systems tend to be more dependent upon Federal dollars for their operation, and Federal programs tend to make these theory-laden programs mandatory (because they are mostly developed by Educrats working under Federal grants--your money and mine).

There IS racism inherent in the system, but it doesn't come from the citizenry. It comes from the bureaucrats in the government.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

When a middle schooler is learning to factor equations in eighth grade, it’s a crippling waste of mental energy if he needs to figure out how many times four goes into 20.

Sadly, and this may sound snobbish, but I bet that the vast majority of people (not necessarily Freepers) will not even understand this statement, which puts a serious limit on their ability to see it as persuasive evidence.

[The Great RJ]

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 exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a Set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?

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 2000:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?

Teaching Math in 2010:

El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es.............

[Jim Noble]

>>Maybe this approach wouldn?t lead to utter disaster in a wealthy suburban classroom<<

Oh, it most certainly does-trust me.

[dasboot]

Saxon Math Curriculum is the answer to the question.

Public schools hate it.

I flunked Algebra in HS.

I trained myself, using Saxon, up to the Calculus in two years.

My daughter completed the entire course, including Calculus and Physics, after two years....working on her own..by age 16.

Now graduating from engineering school (#1 in class), she says that all the top students are Saxon kids.

If you want to homeschool, or want to supplement a PS education, go Saxon. PROVEN RESULTS!

[txzman]

One of our best set of friends are from Xian, CHina. Their son arrived in the US 4 years ago and started the 4th grade speaking almost no English.

He has now skipped a grade, is at the top end of his class in Math and Science and speaks very fluent English. How?

He kept on using his Chinese study books which were full of simple but non-stop memorization, tables, repetitive exercises and graduated approaches to learning the basics.

Another prime example on how the liberal, "we know what's best" approach to education is killing this country.

[r9etb]

There's nothing particularly new here. Back in the Korean War days, they discovered from testing that many more soldiers were illiterate than had been the case during WWII -- less than 10 years earlier.

The primary factor, it turned out, was that phonics had gone out of fashion in the interim, to be replaced by the "look-say" method whereby kids memorize words. Many couldn't do it, and thus couldn't read.

The major problem here is that we Americans tend to rely overmuch on what "experts" say, even when it runs counter to experience and common sense. Sometimes the experts are right -- even in education. But often they're wrong, and people still cannot or will not challenge them.

My personal opinion is that many of our educational problems would be taken care of by requiring incoming teachers to earn a real college degree, followed by a few methods classes. As it is now, one can (must?) become a teacher by taking years of "methods" classes, and only a few real subjects.

[Black Agnes]

ping pong.

[Sloth]

Kids should get jobs as plumbers or electricians... yes, they need to know basic accounting / algebra, but the trig / calculus / differential equations / Laplace transform / etc. is a waste of time.

[Ichneumon]

What will happen to kids who never adequately learned basic operations like long division—or even their times tables? How will they succeed in the knowledge-based twenty-first century economy?

I sometimes think that that's the whole *point* of many of the "new" methods of teaching. If a Socialist wanted to destroy America's strength so that they could make the public more receptive to Socialist "solutions", one of the most effective ways they could do it, if they weren't in a hurry, would be to undermine educational standards or effectiveness in the US (while pretending that they changes are for the purpose of *improving* education so that nobody objects).

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[coramdeo]

Good post -sad but more common than you think.

For those interested in a better way to teach math and other disciplines to children, I highly recommend the essay The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers, and the book Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson (which was inspired by the Sayers' essay and includes the essay as an appendix). Wilson's polemic style can be a bit difficult to take, but stick with it and you'll find he makes a great deal of sense. He was one of the influential founders of the relatively recent Classical Christian School movement (ACCS) and makes a strong case.

In a nutshell, Sayers advocated a return to the OLD style of teaching in accordance with the Latin trivium, which matched the way you to teach to the way children learn at the developmental stage they are in: roughly, teaching grammar to students in grade school, teaching logic to students in middle school and teaching rhetoric to students in high school. Each subject has a grammar - for history, it's facts, dates, names, events, etc. For math it's the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc. Children at that stage enjoy memorizing, and are VERY good at it. As they progress to the logic stage, they naturally become more inquisitive and argumentative, wanting to challenge, compare, contrast etc., so you teach them the logical skills to do so in an appropriate way. At the rhetoric stage, children (rapidly becoming young adults) are concerned with how they present themselves to others, so through rhetoric you teach them to take the grammar and logic they have learned and express it verbally and in writing in ways that are attractive and persuasive. Sayers called these the "tools of learning" because the grammar/logic/rhetoric skills can be applied to new areas throughtout a person's lifetime.

My wife and I pulled our kids out of the public schools years ago because of the kind of nonsense this article addresses (and associated worldview reasons that explain why this sort of nonsense finds its way into the public schools in the first place). We are home-schooling the two oldest and have the two younger ones in a Classical Christian School, and the difference is unbelievable.

[Old Professer]

As long as this piece is, I felt a couple of corrections/questions were in order:

I felt that pursing cooperative learning with my students was asking for trouble,

I believe this should have read, ..."that pursuing..."

At a grade conference one day, one our most respected fourth-grade teachers...

This should obviously be, "one of our most..."

These coupled with some questionable uses of colons vs semicolons and misspellings of Everyday Mathematics (once, the "day" was omitted and in the second case, Mathematics was pluralized with " 's.") allow me to think that there is room for a bit of remedial language course instruction as well.

But these are minor criticisms compared to the gross ignorance of standard mathematics demonstrated by so many of our current students.

[TankerKC]

Maybe this approach wouldn’t lead to utter disaster in a wealthy suburban classroom.

Yes it would. Don't play that game.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Here are links to various education threads (also containing numerous helpful links)

FReegards

Government Schools Have U.S. On The Fast Track To Third-World Status
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: March 6, 2003; Author: Bob Ellis

Sodom and Gomorrah University
Source: WorldNetDaily.com: Published: February 19, 2003; Author: Michelle Malkin

The Union That Killed Education
Source: newsmax.com; Published: February. 17, 2003; Author: Paul Craig Roberts

Walter E. Williams: Inferior Education of Black Americans
Source:CNSNews.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Walter E. Williams

Union Fraud Underscores Need for School Vouchers
Source: CNSNEWS.com; Published: February 05, 2003; Author: Linda Chavez

Time for public schools to throw in the towel?
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: January 27, 2003; Author: Dr. Laura Schlessinger

My Classroom From Hell
Source: The Wall Street Journal; Published: January 24, 2003; Author: Joshua Kaplowitz

Can more money make schools better?
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 21, 2003; Author: Phyllis Schlafly

Are public schools constitutional?
Source: NewsWithViews; Published: JANUARY 20, 2003; Auythor: Lynn M. Stuter

The intellectual rape of Oakland's schools
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 17, 2003; Author: David Horowitz

Hip-hop hogwash in the schools (Michelle Malkin)
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 15, 2003; Author: Michelle Malkin

Dumbed Down and Dumber Still
Source: The American Prowler; Published: January 15, 2003; Author: By George Neumayr

Washington's education establishment
Source: TownHall.com; Published: January 8, 2003; Author:Walter Williams

NEA Hastens Death of American Education
Source: INSIGHT magazine; Published: January 6, 2003; Author: Ralph de Toledano

White Teachers Fleeing Black Schools
Source: Newsmax; Published:January 1, 2003; Author: Chad Roedemeier

Fiddling whilst Rome burns
Source: TownHall.com; Published: December 26, 2002; Author: Walter Williams

Government School Monopolies Leave Children Behind
Source: Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; Published: December 4, 2002; Author: Clint Green

The silence of the lambs: McMillan blasts bureaucrats for destroying public education
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: August 15, 2002; Author: Craige McMillan

Taking Charge: Let's Stop Aiding and Abetting Academicians' Folly
Source: HOME EDUCATION magazine; Published: July-August 2002; Author: Larry and Susan Kaseman

’Open Directory’ --Society/Issues/Education/Education_Reform

Deconstructing Public Education
Source: www.newsmax.com; Published: July 26, 2002; Author: Diane Alden

Specious Science In Our Schools
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: July 9, 2002; Author: Alan Caruba

SYMPOSIUM Q: Is the National Education Association Being Fair to Its Religious Objectors?
Source: INSIGHT magazine; Published: June 10, 2002; Authors NO: Stefan Gleason ////\\\\ YES: Bob Chase

Public Sector Subverting Productive Industry
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: May 16, 2002; Author: Henry Pelifian

History of America's Education Part 2: Noah Webster and Early America
Source: Sierra Times; Published: March 27, 2002; Author: April Shenandoah

How Communist is Public Education?
Source: sierratimes.com; Published:March 22, 2002; Author: Chuck Morse

History of America's Education Part 1: Johnny is in trouble
Source: Sierra Times; Published: March 20, 2002; Author: April Shenandoah

Audit rips Georgia schools' curriculum
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Published: March 11, 2002; Author:JAMES SALZER

Why schools fail: Samuel Blumenfeld warns Bush's education legislation is ineffective
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: March 2, 2002; Author: Samuel Blumenfeld

Public School Isn't Like I Remember It
Source: Too Good Reports; Published: February 28, 2002; Author: Phyllis Schlafly

What Is Lacking In Our Educational System
Source: Too Good Reports; Published: February 28, 2002; Author: Ben Cerruti

The charade of education reform
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: February 2, 2002; Author: Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld

American public schools: Working just as designed
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: January 21, 2002; Author: Vox Day

High Schools Fail Thanks To Grade Inflation And Social Promotion
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: December 5, 2001; Author: Vin Suprynowicz

WHY AMERICANS CAN’T READ
Source: Accuracy in Media; Published: December 4, 2001; Author: Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid

The Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: December 3, 2001; Author: Glenn Sacks

Time for outrage! Linda Bowles reports latest results in America's public schools
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: November 27, 2001; Author: Linda Bowles

Illiterate in Boston: Samuel Blumenfeld explains U.S.'s ongoing reading problem
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: July 20, 2001; Author: Samuel Blumenfeld

NEA - Let our children go!
Source: WorldNet Daily; Published: June 23. 2001; Author: Linda Harvey

COOKING THE BOOKS AT EDUCATION
Source: Accuracy In Media; Published: June 5, 2001; Author: Cliff Kincaid

Why Do Schools Play Games With Students' Minds ?
Source: The Detroit News; Published: April 1, 2001; Author: Thomas Sowell

The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
Source: http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/patt/homeschl.htm; Author: John Taylor Gatto

Dumbing down teachers
Source: USNews.com; Published: February 21, 2001; Author: John Leo

Free Republic links to education related articles (thread#8)
Source: Free Republic; Published: 3-20-2001; Author: Various

Are children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? {YES!!!}
Source: World Net Daily; Published: May 13, 2001; Author: Geoff Metcalf {Interview}

Could they really have done it on purpose?
Source: THE LIBERTARIAN; Published: 07/28/2000; Author: Vin Suprynowicz

New Book Explores America's Education Catastrophe
Source: Christian Citizen USA; Published: April 2000; Author: William H. Wild

Deliberately dumbing us down (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: December 2,1999; Author: Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Deconstructing the Western Mind: Gramscian-Marxist Subversion of Faith and Education
Source: www.petersnet; Published: Winter 1997; Author: Frank Morriss

Littleton Crisis to Government Control

The UN Plan for Your Mental Health

Lexington Institute

NonPartisan Action For a Better Redding

Quality of Education Commentary, Opinion, and Book Reviews

[freepy smurf]

My wife is a liberal and a former public school teacher yet she insists that our daughter attend a private school. Among her fellow teachers, we hardly ever met one who didn't send their kids to a private school. I've tried to get her and them to admit why and I've never gotten a straight answer. Hmmmmm.

[Cuttnhorse]

bump for later...great article. Will send to all my teacher pals.