Barry Garelick captures my thoughts and experience perfectly regarding the sorry state of math educatation in todays school system. He hits the “nail on the head” so many times I don’t even know where to start. Here’s a small outake that I can identify with:
At the time I started tutoring, my daughter was in 2nd grade. I was concerned that she was not learning her addition and subtraction facts. Other parents we knew were saying the same thing. Teachers told them not to worry because kids eventually “get it.”
One teacher told me her understanding of the new method. “It used to be that if you missed a concept or method in math, then you were lost for the rest of the year. But the way we do it now, kids have a lot of ways to do things, like adding and subtracting, so that math topics from day to day aren’t dependent on kids’ mastering a previous lesson.”
In a world where it doesn’t matter when you learn something, because you’ll get it eventually, there seem to be few if any critical junctures, no mastery of procedure, no building on what you’ve learned—no learning
The addition example above I can identify with from personal experience. The “fuzzy math” folks absolutely hate the concept of “algorithm” and they expect students to “discover” how to add and multiply (or subtract and divide). A “carry” or “borrow” operation is avoided at all costs. It’s fine for the students to “discover” how to do math as long as they don’t discover the old algorithms! Be sure to read the “Anything-Goes Math” sidebar.
I believe the way “New math” is taught today is nothing short of an absolute abomination. Engineering and Science shortages are bound to happen as students simply are NOT learning math in such a way that they will become successful. Both of my children are in Kumon math in an effort to counterattack the effects of National Science Foundation (Connected Math) backed math programs.
Thanks to Joanne Jacobs, one of the best education bloggers on the planet, for steering me to Barry’s article.
