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Children's Mental Health Ontario
International Edubloggers Directory
The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
Jul
5
I’m always amazed by the fact that so many teenagers and young adults today cannot even do the simplest math calculations without using a calculator. I teach kids in grades nine and ten who use the calculator to multiply single digit numbers together and cannot do long division without a calculator.
A few summers ago, when I was teaching math to students who were retaking their grade nine and ten math because they failed it during the school year, the kids actually thanked me for showing them how how to multiply and divide the way I did. Imagine that- thanking me for showing them how to multiply and divide. They told me that they hadn’t been taught that way. I didn’t believe them, of course. I thought they had been taught that way but for some reason didn’t learn or remember the lesson. After all, a teacher teaching something doesn’t necessarily translate into a student learning it. We all know that.
When talking to students about their struggles with math, I tell them about “the use it or loose it principle” and that I think that’s part of the problem. The use it or lose it principle may explain why they can’t do math as well as they might.
Let me try to explain what I mean and why. I show a PBS video to my Advanced Learning Strategies Class called the “Inside The Teenage Brain” It’s excellent. My students really enjoy watching it and tell me that they’re glad I showed the video to them because it explains why teenagers act the way they do and why they see things differently than adults. My colleagues and friends enjoy watching it for the same reason. It helps adults understand teenagers better and that’s a good thing when you’re surrounded by teenagers.
At one point in the video, we’re told how the brain prunes away brain cells that aren’t being used. It’s the use it or loose it principle. I think that’s what’s happening to my students when they use a calculator to do simple math and not their brain. They loose those mental math brain cells. That’s what’s happening to me because of speed dialing. I’ve lost lots of my telephone number brain cells.They’ve been pruned away because I don’t use them. At least I can remember my mom’s telephone number. I don’t use speed dial for her number for some reason.
OK, OK before anyone has a fit about my logic here. I’m not a brain expert so maybe I shouldn’t be drawing these conclusions, but it makes sense to me after watching “Inside the Teenage Brain” and listening to all those experts and my own experience. I encourage you to see the video so you can see where I’m coming from.
If I’m way out in left field, just let me know. Then I’ll tell my students that I used to think…..
Let me get back on track here. Until today, I’d thought the lack of math skills and/or math fluency was due to students’ over reliance on calculators to do simple math. As a special education teacher, of course I know that some students’ brains are wired in such a way that makes math challenging for them to do. That could account for some student having difficulty, but not for the huge number of students that actually do.
Today saw M.J. MCDermott’s “Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth” which you can see below. Her video helps shed further light on the problem.
I’m astonished by what I saw and heard - the different algorithms for teaching math and the wisdom of advising teachers to encourage their junior grade students to use calculators because it is too onerous to and time consuming not to.
I hope, because I really don’t know, that this isn’t a wide spread practice and that where kids are being taught math using these methods things will change. It’s not fair to our kids to do this to them.
Please watch the video and tell me what you think.
Jun
14
I’d like to thank Karen Brooks for creating this Slideshare with all these wonderful resources. I know that I will be using some of them come next September with my grade nine class and I’ll be sharing this treasure with my colleagues.
Jun
8
Math education in America is failing to prepare students for the 21st century
Filed Under math | 5 Comments
Math education in America is failing to prepare students for the 21st century. That’s the message that comes across loud and clear in the video The State of Education- A look at the state of education in America. Although I’m Canadian and teach in a Canadian secondary school, I believe the points the video makes applies to both Canadian and American education systems.
Bob Compton executive producer of the video 2 000 000 minutes and Molly Brand President of the American Counsel of Education offer some explanations. Bob Compton, notes that in China and India students focus on academics and set very high goals and then strive to achieve these goals while in America students divide their focus on sports, academics, extra curricular activity and jobs. In America, the goal for students is to be well rounded. In China and India high academic achievement is valued and rewarded- different cultures, different values, different outcomes.
Students in China and India take four years of chemistry, four years of physics, four years of biology and four years of math while in American students take one year of chemistry, one year of physics, and one year of biology. Almost all Chinese students take calculus yet only 13% of American students take it. Clearly, American students aren’t well prepared for the high wage , high technology, high growth industries for the 21st century.
Molly Brand argues that the education system in particular is failing kids when it comes to math education. Forty percent of high school seniors can’t understand grade 8 math. Brand says that if she could change one thing it would be for teachers at the middle school level to be qualified, certified math teachers to give students a better grounding in math. Not having a good grounding in math has huge repercussions
Students know that they need to be able to do algebra in order to graduate. Since many students can’t do algebra, they drop out in grade 10. Surprisingly, at least to me, students who graduate from high school earn the same money as kids who drop out in grade 10. It takes post secondary education to earn big money. Yet, half of highschool students don’t graduate.
Brand ends on an optimistic note by saying that American graduates are more competitive, more creative and more entrepreneurial than their counterparts in Indian and China. That’s the advantage American’s have over Indian and Chinese graduates, and that ’s what American schools need to nurture because that is their strength.
Now, I have a couple of questions? First, if it is the case that we can only compete in the more creative and entrepreneurial areas , what are school doing to nurture students’ right brains. Schools seem to value the creative arts less and less. Programs in the arts are getting cut all the time in favour of “the basics”.The art program at our school will take a hit nextyear and classes were canceled. Second, why do we have to specialize in either left brain activities or right brain activities. Why can’t we be excellent at both?
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