From: elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 5 Nov 92 19:31:12 CDT
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.bio,sci.chem,misc.education
Subject: Re: Is Math Hard?
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <Bx79Lo.LG1@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, by hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin):
> In article <1992Nov4.044300.15766@cbfsb.cb.att.com> wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) writes:
> From the experiences when people who had an understanding of mathematics
> taught it, most of the children could get some grasp of the subject.  But
> failure of the attempts to teach the teachers was what killed the new math.
>
> Teachers who can only teach rote can only do harm to those who want more.

On the other hand...

I'm currently teaching math to 4th graders. Of the kids in my room, only
one of them really has any conception of numbers. The rest... 10-2=12 makes
perfect sense to them ("0-2 is 2, isn't it, Mr. Green?"). Simple word
problems like "Jake has 46 cents, he loses a quarter out of his pocket, how
much money does he have now?" absolutely mystify them. I have the one kid
who knows math playing with a problem-solving deck (a bunch of "story
problems"), which he loves to do because he can take problems that are
simple to him, show them to another member of the class, and the other
member just doesn't get it. He loves that feeling, being able to do
something no other member of the class can do. Not to mention that it's
more "fun" than plodding through the same old rote stuff :-). In fact, he
does it for entertainment during his free time! But the other kids...

The district-mandated textbook doesn't help. It has all sorts of fancy
number theory -- but it just touches lightly upon it. The kids learn how to
manipulate a few things, but they don't UNDERSTAND. I taught them how to do
rounding via a rote algorithm, for example, because they don't have the
"number sense" to see that 5 is pretty much halfway between 0 and 10 and
thus doing it visually via a number line just doesn't work (except for the
one kid, of course!). I apologize in advance to Mr. Rubin for teaching
rounding in that way... but I tried teaching it in a couple of different
ways, and the rote algorithm is the only way they could round numbers.
They've been doing rote for so many years that anything that actually
requires THOUGHT just confuses them. (Before Mr. Rubin flames me for
short-changing the math wiz of the class -- he got it the first time
through, with the non-rote explanation about going to the nearest
hundred/thousand/etc. on the number line, and thereafter entertained
himself with math games on the computer and the problem-solving deck while
the rest of the class struggled).

I'm not sure what the solution is. I don't know what to do, given the
limitations I'm placed under in terms of text and mandated curriculum. Any
hints, Mr. Rubin and others?

> The system is broke.  There is no way that we can get enough competent
> teachers NOW.  These teachers can only dumb down thinking children.
           ^^^

Sure there is.

All you have to do is get enough retired engineers, old mathematicians,
etc., then put them into the schools with adequate curriculum and support.
What we may need to do is go to the German elementary school system, where
each child has two teachers -- one teacher teaches math and science and the
other teaches "soft" subjects. This accomplishes two things -- it gives the
regular teacher a 2 hour break to recharge and plan for the next day (and
believe me, we need it!), and it turns math and science into something like
PE, where one teacher can serve many students (though a typical elementary
school would need 4 or 5 math/science teachers to serve all its students --
an added expense that many districts won't want to bear, given current
administrative costs of having so many extra teachers :-).

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.taronga.com   Dodson Elementary
 (713) 664-6446                             Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"