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Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

latimes.com

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Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#21

Post by _7fvc »

The author of this article does not understand math :). Learning math is difficult. There're two things you need to learn: fundamental concepts and skills. These two things are related and commingled. Mastering both requires extraordinary effort.

I come from a skill-focused math education. I was pretty good with skills. But I didn't understand fundamental concepts. I still remember my struggle with prime numbers. Those problems were the hardest for me. I didn't understand why prime numbers are popular. In college, I discovered the meaning of prime numbers and their applications. Then, I was reading a lot about prime numbers just for fun.

My kids are now learning in the American education system. I feel like there is a shift to skill-focused math education. I suppose American educators feel like we need to "catch up" with other countries in terms of test scores. I find those objectives silly. Comparing test score is very easy. Gauging concept understanding is much harder. I myself will encourage my kids to understand the fundamental concepts.

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#23

Post by buzzkillington »

analog31 wrote: post #14
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #3

On the flipside, I was in a Calculus lecture at uni and turned to the girl next to me who was crying. I asked her if she was ok, and she said she didn't understand why she had to sit in the lecture learning Laplace transforms when she "only wanted to be a primary school teacher". From the sounds of it, it was a prerequisite? Edit: Oh :) I just worked it out - I was taught to fold the subtraction and carry right in on…

Seems unlikely, though it may vary from one country to another. Here in the states, you would probably need to take a year of math, but there are levels of math "below" calculus that you can take to get a K-12 general education certificate. Also in the states, engineering students ask the same question about Laplace transforms. ;-)

>Also in the states, engineering students ask the same question about Laplace transforms. ;-)

Because I want you to build things that don't fall apart because of resonance?

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#24

Post by BubRoss »

elchief wrote: post #22

My ex taught grade 6 geography. Is a principal now. Thought the seasons were due to earth tilting back and forth. Didn't get that the tilt was the same, but the position around the sun was different

That doesn't seem so bad in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#25

Post by analog31 »

acollins1331 wrote: post #5

I feel like anyone should be anxious if they don't understand math. How does one get through life without understanding math? Probably by getting had a lot.

Math is taught so badly, that it may seem more complicated than it really is. For instance, many students come away from their math classes, convinced that math is subjective. They believe that, like in English class, the correct answer is the one that the teacher wants to see, and that there is a "trick" for producing this answer.

I saw this, teaching college math for one semester long ago, and also in talking with adults about their experience in high school and college math.

As a consequence, a person may be completely functional at basic math, such as balancing their checkbook, while simultaneously believing that they don't understand math.

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#26

Post by _bxg1 »

buzzkillington wrote: post #20
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I still don't know why long-division works. I don't think I even remember how to do it as an adult. I've always had a very intuitive grasp of math, which meant I excelled at solving things in my head but struggled with (and resented) having to show my work in the arbitrary algorithms we were taught. I understand division despite my education. They really should try to come up with algorithms that are more intuitively…

You should probably read about it as an adult: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_division Children are mostly idiots. Education is the process of painfully breaking them out of their idiocy. Bonus points if you implement a long division algorithm that works on strings in your favorite language.

Thing is, even now I find it useless. I can do nearly any division in my head whose digits themselves fit in my head (Miller's Law). For anything bigger, I have a pocket supercomputer with me at all times.

You're right that it could be a fun programming exercise, though

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#27

Post by analog31 »

buzzkillington wrote: post #23
analog31 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems unlikely, though it may vary from one country to another. Here in the states, you would probably need to take a year of math, but there are levels of math "below" calculus that you can take to get a K-12 general education certificate. Also in the states, engineering students ask the same question about Laplace transforms. ;-)

>Also in the states, engineering students ask the same question about Laplace transforms. ;-) Because I want you to build things that don't fall apart because of resonance?

I'm playing devils advocate here, but the argument you'll get is that there's software for that. Also, in a typical department, there may be one or two engineers who handle the quantitative problems for the team.

Many engineering students go through their education, having heard from someone, that they won't need their math after they graduate. And things do fall apart.

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#28

Post by dboreham »

In my kids elementary school time. I had the interesting situation that while the teachers weren't strong in math, their boss the principal was an actual mathematician (or at least he had a real degree in Mathematics). Generally principals seem to have a psych background but not this one. Good times!

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#29

Post by dboreham »

pjscott wrote: post #16
geomark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why long division would be a mystery. It's just repeated subtraction - you are finding how many times you can subtract the divisor from the dividend, in a systematic way.

It's almost never explained with such lucidity. If you find a hundred people who can perform long division, I would be surprised if twenty of them have any idea how it works.

You're never going to find 100 people who can perform long division.

Re: Many elementary teachers don’t understand math, and it makes them anxious

#30

Post by pjscott »

ravenstine wrote: post #10
pjscott wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents invented a simplified division algorithm so they could teach me the four basic arithmetic operations by third grade, and it was so much easier than long division that I could never remember how to do things the conventional way. I just pretended to follow the teachers' instructions for the next few years. (All these methods had the same asymptotic complexity. Mine was slower by a small constant factor; on…

My mom got in trouble with the teacher for doing that kind of thing with me.

Teachers are a very mixed bag. Some of them are delighted to see a student learning, in whatever way that learning may happen -- and some are just annoyed that the classroom's reality fails to match up perfectly with their lesson plans. If you're a nail that sticks up, some will try to uplift you further and others will angrily try to nail you down. (And most are somewhere in between.)
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