I just got this good piece of news today. The school district that I used to work for recently threw out that awful system of teaching math that I was forced to use from 01-03.
The short version, I got in trouble with my administration for teaching with “dated” methods that they deemed ineffective instead of following the district approved methods. My response was, “if I’m doing such a bad job, how is it that in just my third year of teaching My kids have the highest scores in the school?”
Anyway, if you want to know how to get it removed from your school, follow this example:
That looks like what they tried to foist off as “Math” to my daughter when she was in elementary.
When she brought it home it I understood the “Concept” of what they were trying to teach but seemed like they were trying to teach “Math tricks” rather than math.
What I ended up doing was sitting down and showing her the old fashion method and once she understood that she picked up on the “Math tricks” right away.
Yes the system was short of awful and seemed far more complex to learn than just doing it the old method.
If I send my kids to catholic school will they get the old-school math or this new BS?
They’ll learn math the right way, they just might not learn evolution. :-o
I LOVE math tricks, but for me the only time they made sense is when I had a basic understanding of underlying values being taught.
So a math trick using addition while teaching multiplication made sense, but a math trick using multiplication while teaching multiplication made no sense at all.
I didn’t get to far into it but it seemed like they were trying to use “Easy” addition math tricks to do more complex math addition problems all while trying to teach addition. Seemed far more complex than just working on the easy math problems until they get it. Once the student gets it the complex addition problems are a lot easier.
None the less in my case my daughter clearly did not understand the basics of what was needed in order to work the math tricks. Once she did get the basics she didn’t seem to need the math trick anymore…which kind of defeats the purpose of the trick.
My only concern here is that in the past I’ve encountered people who dismissed such matters as learning alternative number bases (binary, hexadecimal, etc.) as impractical “new math.” As most of us here are aware, such number bases are a valid and important part of the modern world. Let’s just be sure we’re not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, if you’ll pardon the cliché.
In high school I was taught under a program known as SMSG, and I notice that the Wikipedia article puts it under the umbrella of “new math.” The emphasis was on proving theorems and understanding the reasoning rather than merely learning by rote. That approach certainly didn’t hinder my understanding of math, to put it mildly.
Argh!! Thanks for posting this. I watched the hyperlinks that you posted. I’ll be more wary of these math “innovations.”
I have a fourth grader who attends one of the better Illiinois public elementary schools. She brought home something just like this either last year or this year (I can’t remember). I’m not big on being disruptive to the methods that she was learning from her teachers as sometimes that undermines the effectiveness of the teacher-to-student relationship. Also, I didn’t want to be the “in my day we used to do math in pouring snow” dad. Yet, it was very clear that she didn’t get the big picture of multiplication. So, with the support of her teacher, I started having her do problems at home the way I learned years ago from patient and gentle 80-year-old nuns wielding yardsticks. Over about two months, she got much better and her math aptitude increased as she was then moved from the struggling group into the advanced group in her grade.
Additionally, I’m very skeptical of the “well, they’ll just be using calculators” rationale. Yet, again, I don’t want to be “that” parent who resists newer methods. Is there anyting else I should be particularly skeptical of? She’s already learning how to type in school (Wow!), but I thought I heard her say that she was told not to worry about misspelled words in typing because the word processor would fix all that. Although that might have come from a non-teacher, I had to squash that one too.
Keep us posted of other things for which to be wary. Raising kids isn’t easy like it was for our parents.
I actually think the methods they teach are useful for estimating purposes. But, for learning how to do multiplication in the first place? No way. If this was taught at the schools my kids went to, I’d be moving them to a new school very fast. We’ve been very lucky with the math program that is used in my kids’ school. It is exceptional. They have been learning not just fundamental math concepts like the times tables, but also how to apply the math at each grade. They were doing word problems in kindergarten! Not only that, but they taught the kids how to break down a word problem, which is something I had to learn on my own.
I was in high school from 2001-2005. Our school offered Integrated Math and the traditional algebra/geometry/trig/calc. At first they only offered IM but after an outcry from parents, they offered both - then phased out IM.
I liked both and learned different things from both; however, if you ever want to get to upper level mathematics - advanced calculus and DiffEq and linear algebra - IM doesn’t cut it. However, for students who STRUGGLE with traditional math, I think IM is a good compromise.
The math textbook that is used at the elementary level is “Math Makes Sense” (I believe). I have been so impressed with this program because it introduces concepts very early (or at least early from when I was learning it), but it introduces things at a very basic level and then covers it again the next year at a deeper level. For example, my daughter in grade 5 has learned basic geometry each year, but it gets more complex each year. She learned how to calculate the volume of some complex geometic shapes this year and it was just a simple step from what she learned last year in the geometry portion, where she learned the area of a circle, square, etc. She’s also learned basic algebra this year, which is pretty cool, IMO.
One of the best things the book teaches is how to break down a word problem. When she’s doing her homework, she has to write down “What I Know” and then “What I Need to Find Out” before she can start working on the problem. So, it teaches the kids to pull out the info that they know and what they don’t know before trying to tackle it. I wasn’t taught that, but learned it on my own. Many kids I went to school with had problems figuring out word problems throughout their entire school career because they didn’t understand how to break it down.
The high school uses a different textbook, but it’s similar. You don’t have a geometry class or algegra class, like I did years ago. Instead, you have math class and you learn geometry, algebra, trig, etc all year long. It’s been fun re-learning everything that my grade 9 daughter has covered in math class. I had to refresh my memory on polynomials and sine and cosine laws this spring to help her with her homework. I love math, but haven’t used it in years, so I’m a bit rusty. I just had to read the textbook, though, to get right back in it.
We now have our kid in a private school. They espouse an “Alternative” type of teaching that is more “involved” and less old school memorization and more experimentation and “Hands on”.
For instance rather than sending a worksheet home and have them memorize what a Penny, Nickle, Dime and Quarter was they set up a store in the classroom that the kids could buy stuff from.
So rather than the kids having to do worksheets for a week the kids took a couple weeks of “Playing store” and at the same time learning the values of money. (Note this is K-1st…not HS :-))
They have this approach for almost everything. For my kid it seems to work great. He actually hates coming home and loves the “Activity” of the classroom which is EXACTLY the opposite of what he was in public school.
I see this method as taking a longer time to learn the information, but at the same time learning it in a method that is more natural and I’m guessing more quickly permanent.
Plenty of other things I absolutely love about the school that is FAR superior to the public education he was getting but I’d be curious to hear your opinion on this type of method for teaching. To me it seems more like they are all in a vocational learning groups or a “Shop class” of some sort rather than a typical class room.
The most annoying thing was not being able to help my 5th grader with her math homework. It wasn’ the right answer they were looking for, it was some whacky way of estimating that I didn’t understand.