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The case against teaching math

ordinary-gentlemen.com

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Re: The case against teaching math

#31

Post by stralep »

teilo wrote: post #6

This story is dead on. I know this from personal experience and from teaching my own children. I could not add until I was 10. It was painful. I still remember it vividly. Suddenly everything clicked, and I rocketed through all the material I was behind on. I have six children, five of which are old enough to be in school. We have been home schooling them, I believe I have some creds on this. Two of them (both girls)…

I'm still in college, and I won't have kids for some time, but I am terrified by current state of education, especially elementary, in my country (Serbia).

Could you tell me how you have made your kids socially adapted, because that is the main benefit (IMHO) of schools.

Re: The case against teaching math

#32

Post by metamemetics »

No math until after elementary school? what? I remember doing multiplication timed tests in 2nd grade, waiting until 6th grade would seem to be catering to the lowest common denominator and doing a great disservice to many bright students.

Re: The case against teaching math

#33

Post by bokonist »

abstractbill wrote: post #19
teilo wrote: post #6

This story is dead on. I know this from personal experience and from teaching my own children. I could not add until I was 10. It was painful. I still remember it vividly. Suddenly everything clicked, and I rocketed through all the material I was behind on. I have six children, five of which are old enough to be in school. We have been home schooling them, I believe I have some creds on this. Two of them (both girls)…

Just adding my own experience to this: Until the age of 15, maths was considered a real "problem subject" for me. At every parent-teacher conference it was generally accepted that I would never be good at it (and I had no problem with that at all - I found the whole subject very boring and difficult). Then one day, at age 15, a classmate showed me how to do quadratic equations. I have no idea why, but that day a real…

I'm curious - before math clicked for you, were you good at other subjects and generally one of the brightest in your class? IE - did your teachers think you were dumb overall, or just that you were a smart kid who for some reason didn't get math?

Re: The case against teaching math

#34

Post by tokenadult »

teilo wrote: post #6

This story is dead on. I know this from personal experience and from teaching my own children. I could not add until I was 10. It was painful. I still remember it vividly. Suddenly everything clicked, and I rocketed through all the material I was behind on. I have six children, five of which are old enough to be in school. We have been home schooling them, I believe I have some creds on this. Two of them (both girls)…

I'll reply to a homeschooling example with another homeschooling example. The reason I'm not sure that the underlying Psychology Today blog article

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/whe...

cited in this submitted blog post gets things right is that children's readiness to learn this or that is surely influenced by early childhood experiences, and the role of an education (parent at home or teacher in school) is to serve up those experiences.

My wife the music major who is a piano teacher by occupation used to play counting and adding games with dice with our oldest son when he was little. I the Chinese major who was then working mostly as a translator and language teacher began guiding him through the excellent Miquon Math materials

http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml

as he reached typical first-grade age. My son took to math an something fun, not tedious, and eventually at fourth-grade age enrolled in the EPGY math distance learning courses.

http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/elem.html

He enjoyed those, and spurted ahead to finishing the EPGY algebra course by the end of his fifth grade school year. By then he had also tested into the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP),

http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/

his first taste of somewhat conventional classroom instruction in any subject.

Our son of two non-mathy parents has gone on to do a lot of summer programs in math

http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/files/Overseas%20Summer%20Brochure.do...

http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/osmath.html#game

http://www.mathpath.org/newspapers/Colorado.Springs.Gazette....

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/

and upper-division study of math as a dual-enrollment student at our state university. He is awaiting the last bit of college admission and financial aid news before deciding where to enroll for a double major in math and computer science.

To sum up, I'm not sure that homeschooling parents, or any parents, have to decide "not to sweat it" if a child hasn't learned much math yet. Maybe it's time to do activities that are supportive for learning math.

Our second son's strongest personal interest is literature--he loves to participate in National Novel Writing Month

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

but he applies his highly visual brain (very different from his older brother's "natural" way of approaching math) to learning math, and he is right on track to learn algebra at eighth-grade age, and rather more thoroughly than most students in Minnesota do. My two younger children (one boy, one girl) are also enjoying the Miquon Math and the Singapore Primary Mathematics materials that their older siblings used before them, well known for encouraging children to "use their noggins," as one homeschooling parent described them.

P.S. I grew to recover my childhood liking for math so much while observing my oldest son's study of math that I am now an elementary math teacher by occupation.

http://www.ecae.net/category/saturday-school/

Re: The case against teaching math

#35

Post by euroclydon »

cabalamat wrote: post #20
euroclydon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember, since geometry is such a large topic, pre-calculus also teaches the parts of geometry necessary for traditional calculus study. That way, the geometry course can be made more simple.

You don't need any geometry to understand algebra. Though graphs (and therefore cartesian co-ordinates) certainly help).

To understand calculus, not algebra.

Re: The case against teaching math

#36

Post by abstractbill »

bokonist wrote: post #33
abstractbill wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just adding my own experience to this: Until the age of 15, maths was considered a real "problem subject" for me. At every parent-teacher conference it was generally accepted that I would never be good at it (and I had no problem with that at all - I found the whole subject very boring and difficult). Then one day, at age 15, a classmate showed me how to do quadratic equations. I have no idea why, but that day a real…

I'm curious - before math clicked for you, were you good at other subjects and generally one of the brightest in your class? IE - did your teachers think you were dumb overall, or just that you were a smart kid who for some reason didn't get math?

I was always good in the sciences, especially physics, and also in music. My teachers seemed to think I was smart, but they definitely thought I would never get maths.

Re: The case against teaching math

#37

Post by greenlblue »

Completely False. I started to learn mathematics starting in preschool and when I arrived in the US I was shocked by what passed as mathematics education in the US. The stuff American students where doing in 6th grade I had already done in 3rd grade. It might be that starting later is a good idea but the exact opposite was true for me. If I had been forced to learn mathematics the way American students learn it, well then I would have been bored out of my mind and would have given up learning it.

Re: The case against teaching math

#39

Post by Tichy »

rw wrote: post #24
Tichy wrote: post #2

I learned maths AND was able to solve "story problems" in elementary school. Looking back, the maths taught in elementary school is very basic, too. Just multiplication and division of integers, not even fractions yet. To be honest, I don't care that much anymore if somebody doesn't want to learn maths. It's just their loss. But maths was one of the few things I enjoyed at school, so I absolutely see no point in remo…

"Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do."

I am not saying that everybody is like me - but I think one example in this case is enough to show that the suggested way of getting rid of maths education is not the right thing for everybody. That's actually also maths: one counter-example is enough to disprove an assumption.

It seems especially dangerous to me as anti-maths types might dominate in politics and therefore might find the idea especially appealing.

Maybe it then boils down to the bigger question if talented people should be dragged down to the average levels of achievement.

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