As Math Scores Lag, a New Push for the Basics

 

 

It's stunning to me to see how the teaching of math in this country got highjacked by some terrible thinking.  Math is not like interpreting Shakespeare, in which there are many valid answers.  For all but the highest math, there is only one answer to a problem and, generally, only a few sensible ways to get to that answer.  Thus, teachers need to TEACH this, and students need to do lots of drills to learn it.  To a former math geek (through high school anyway) like me, this is so obvious! 

 

Eventually, of course, students who go on to higher math need to become more creative and flexible, BUT you can't get to this point without a solid foundation in the basics -- like knowing the multiplication tables!  Sadly, study after study shows that most of our students don't even know the basics...  Needless to say, I'm delighted by the shift on this issue...

For the second time in a generation, education officials are rethinking the teaching of math in American schools.

The changes are being driven by students’ lagging performance on international tests and mathematicians’ warnings that more than a decade of so-called reform math — critics call it fuzzy math — has crippled students with its de-emphasizing of basic drills and memorization in favor of allowing children to find their own ways to solve problems.

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As Math Scores Lag, a New Push for the Basics

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: November 14, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/education/14math.html

SEATTLE — For the second time in a generation, education officials are rethinking the teaching of math in American schools. The changes are being driven by students’ lagging performance on international tests and mathematicians’ warnings that more than a decade of so-called reform math — critics call it fuzzy math — has crippled students with its de-emphasizing of basic drills and memorization in favor of allowing children to find their own ways to solve problems.