Math Teachers' Shortcomings

Yep,

My mother in law taught in public elementary school for years, and she cannot do simple sums....

I am certain that few if any of the children she taught can do them either...... Sad.

John Bachmann's article is largely on target.

"Discovery learning" is what the first, naive investigators of an idea must do. It can be slow, painful, and frustrating; and fraught with false starts and dead ends--with the occasional thrill of finding something new. But if every generation has to go through this same process, progress will be mighty slow (reinventing wheels).

The whole point of culture is that that one generation can distill the knowledge gained thus far and transmit it economically to the next generation, who can then go on to discover newer things. The flip side of this is that the "established" knowledge can become boring, rote, and even moribund.

Thus there arises a balancing act. Most instruction should be expository, but there should also be opportunities for open-ended, creative discovery. But just any old random crap should not be deemed "creative." Genuine creativity is more disciplined than that, and is generally rooted strongly in the best of the past, yet with openness to fresh ideas.

I don't know if it is still available, but one of the best books on this is/was David Ausubel's Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. (Ca. 1970)

Great to see that there are still sane people around.

A son and daughter at very exclusive private school - only discovery teaching. Daughter thrived - son sank. Son to school that specialised in "teaching" with some creativity and research and he too began to thrive. Both now have University degrees, so both systems can work.

Remember the British with their "New Maths" - an entire genration that does not even know their multiplication tables because to learn them by rote was thought to be "very bad". The world watched the system fail and then started to copy it because it was fashionable.

*nod* I am a victim of an 'open school system' I was taught 'new math' and how to spell phonetically. This went on for about 4 years during my primary education (4th through 8th grade) They abandoned it just as I was reaching High School. Four years of feel-good unstructured education, where I got an A if I drew everywhere but on the paper and then dropped into a high school that was ran the old way with teachers that did not know how to cope with a whole freshman class of kids that could not spell, do math, diagram sentences, or new any technical aspect of science at all.

I floundered my first two years of high school, along with the majority of my class-mates, and then threw in the towel and went to the vocational school for the remaining two, specializing in carpentry. It says a lot of the quality of the school system when almost 80% of an entire class goes to the vocational trade school just to be able to graduate.

Going to my high school reunion is like going to a rehab center... about 20% of us have become moderately successful while the balance still struggle to survive in the lower income brackets.

I still suffer to this day, spelling is a struggle... math... even though I have since moved on to higher math through my higher education... basic principles are still a struggle and I dread it... I have become quite proficient at using MathCAD and spreadsheets in order just to survive in my chosen field.

Honestly, I can truly say that I have spent most of my adult life relearning and teaching myself all those things I should have learned in elementary and high school.

JavaHead

It is too bad that more school boards do not hire more science and engineering people to teach at the elementary level. It may be that these are the type of people that "do" and are not available to teach.

I was fortunate to catch my own kids floundering at basic math early. My wife and I played lots of games at dinner time based on knowing the basic multiplication tables. It worked well. The school told us as parents that there were more important priorities than learning tables and spelling by rote. These functions were available to all kids with a computer...alas very true. However,we found that once they memorized simple times tables that their ability to solve arithmetic problems eased considerably. Their writing is very good except when "texting".

I don't want to paint all teachers with the same brush but the vast majority do come from arts backgrounds and a better balance is needed. This problem is more to important to resolve in today's global competitive markets. On the whole, I find children today much better informed than we were at the same age. I am an old f**t from old school but that is my 10 cents in binary.