<p>Seattle Public Schools has decided to stick with reform math. With the School Board’s 4-3 vote May 6 for the “Discovering Algebra” and “Discovering Geometry” textbooks, the battle is finished. Reform won.</p>
<p>It was an odd battle. The side that lost wanted to define terms, make distinctions and fight. The side that won the establishment’s side did not want to do any of that.</p>
<p>Ya know. There is a place for self discovery and manipulation in math. Sometimes you remember things better when you work them out on your own. Sometimes (OK, most times) memorizing definitions is dull repetitve work, made all that more difficult when you can’t relate the definition to something concrete or familiar or self-learned. BUT, to do all of geometry based on the Eureka principle or the Archimedes method or the Euclid method - whatever you would call re-discovery would take forever, and leave a bunch of kids, who are wondering what does this have to do with math, in the dust.</p>
<p>My DH the retired schoolteacher says something very true about educational theories and fads. He says there usually some value in all educational theories and innovative teaching methods, the problem is in the “ramping up”, the “industrialization” of the idea, if you will. He would say (he was a chemist) in chemistry when you develop a potential industrial process in the lab or in the test tube, that is one accomplishment, but you often encounter a whole separate set of problems when you start to ramp the chemical reaction to industrial level production. He saw the same thing with new teaching ideas - they work well in the “test tube”, but you hit a whole nother set of issues when you try to use them in a textbook or all the time.</p>
<p>THis style of math- may work ok for the kids whose parents can help them and who have teachers that will supplement the material with what they need to know for college math- but for the kids who need more structure and clear guidelines as a reference and who don’t have teachers who will seek out additional material or parents who can fill in the gaping holes- they will be left far behind.</p>
<p>One parent put it like this’ The school district is telling the teachers it is OK to throw the kids out the window, because they will catch them".</p>
<p>Seems a very muddled way to choose curriculum.</p>
<p>This is where the “No Child Left Behind Act” proved useful in our case.</p>
<p>D1 took the state math test in 4th grade and achieved the “Needs Improvement” level – ie, one step above failing.</p>
<p>It caused me to look into the math curriculum – Internet searches revealed expert assessment of the program used in our school district as “F – if your kid uses these textbooks, you must teach them at home” – and follow up with the principal to discuss the test was less than reassuring (principal felt D didn’t answer the question “3 x 4 = ?” correctly because she didn’t have a chance to “set up the problem” or some such nonsense).</p>
<p>I bought math textbooks and my husband drilled them at home. Fortunately the middle school and high school approach to math is not “progressive” and therefore much more successful.</p>
<p>Yikes. My youngest daughter went through the “Everyday Math” program in the early grades. There was a whole lot of “drawing your own conclusions”, etc. It made me crazy. She had the biggest problem with the “estimate the answer” questions. “Why can’t I just figure out the answer and write it?” She actually had points taken off a test when she was supposed to estimate something—the “right” answer was 4,000. Her answer was 4013 (or something similar), which was, mathematically correct.</p>
<p>Everyday Math is used in elementary school by all of the top-scoring school districts in our area. According to what I’ve heard, it is key that the teachers be really trained to use it, which sometimes does not happen. It is also usually supplemented with some classic “math facts” drill activities.</p>
<p>According to my sources, gifted kids usually like it, and it enables them to move ahead more rapidly because the curriculum can be “compacted” for them. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of this because it was put in place after S was in those grades.</p>
<p>I think that the problem with estimating comes when the kid could just as easily do the math in their head. Estimating is a valuable skill, but if the numbers aren’t big enough the exercise is meaningless. My father is an engineer, and he convinced me of the value of being able to do mental math and estimating at an early age. </p>
<p>It seems to that this is like the whole language vs phonics debate. Both have valuable elements, and most good teachers use elements of both.</p>
<p>I think this is key.
We went through the whole language vs. phonics debate with S1 (who already knew his alphabet and some basic syllable combinations before K. His teacher stuck the whole time with the WL method as mandated. By the time S2 was in K, the same teacher had become less rigid in her application of whole language and combined it with phonics, with the blessing of the curriculum coordinator.</p>
<p>The school was also a very early adopter of reform math TERC, Everyday Math, Connected Math. It was introduced after S1. S2 did not go through the curriculum because he was very advanced, but I used to talk to his teachers. In the first couple of years of using TERC, the teachers were very dubious. By year 3, they were more familiar with the curriculum and more comfortable teaching it; but they also reinforced that approach with a more traditional approach. Our school used to do quite well on math tests. </p>
<p>Whatever math curriculum is adopted, teachers’ knowledge is crucial. But with reform math, this is not always the case; teachers are not really trained in the new curriculum and they cannot fall back on what they know since they learned a different way. Another big problem with reform math is that parents do not know what their role is in supporting their children and they did not learn math the same way, so they feel very frustrated.</p>
<p>The discovery method can be very valuable, but it needs to be reinforced by more traditional methods. The teacher needs to be able to guide the students so that not too much time is wasted and to get the students to get the right answer, and to do some practicing. One study of the drawbacks of the discovery method suggested that even when teachers receive training in how to teach a new curriculum when it is introduced, later hires are not similarly trained. Given the high turnover among teachers, this is a real concern. This is especially true for k-8 teachers who are often generalists and must familiarize themselves not only with the math curriculum but also the social studies/humanities and science curriculum. </p>
<p>We once hired a teacher in mid-August for an early September start time and she had to devote most of her time familiarizing herself with our social studies curriculum, leaving no time to learn how to teach science and math. This is a very common occurrence.</p>
<p>There was nothing wrong with the new math except for the teachers.</p>
<p>One of the authors of Discovering Geometry is Patrick Suppes. Professor Emeritus at Stanford that founded the Educational Program for Gifted Students. I’m sure that many parents at CC are familiar with the program. EPGY is also used at CTY at John Hopkins (it was when I looked around many years ago). There are public high-schools that use EPGY to teach advanced courses when there aren’t enough students to justify a classroom course.</p>
<p>He was a pioneer in computer-based instruction. The other well-known pioneer was Seymour Papert, known for Logo which used a discovery approach.</p>
<p>We took more of a traditional approach (Harold Jacobs) to Geometry but I do know a lot of homeschoolers that use KCP and like it. We used Suppes’ New Math materials in addition to a traditional curriculum with our kids.</p>
<p>The “new math” came out in the early '60’s. Black and white public television programs we watched in grade school math class. Still remember the popsicle sticks and base 8 and other bases which got us thinking outside the base 10 box. I was good in math so I haven’t a clue as to how good it was for teaching. Hope they still teach arithmetic as well as mathematics to the kids.</p>
<p>[Still remember the popsicle sticks and base 8 and other bases which got us thinking outside the base 10 box.]</p>
<p>Standard fare in a discrete mathematics course today. I think that schools should offer discrete math in addition to calculus and statistics as it is useful in several areas of university study.</p>
<p>This approach is very similar to the one used at my daughters montessori school. My sophomore son also went to the same montessori school and ended up way ahead of his traditionally taught peers, in math, when he reached middle school. My kids are proof that this can work, if the teacher knows what they are doing.</p>
<p>Ss learned about base 8 (and different bases) in 3rd grade. Math and science were integrated with the social studies curriculum, so they learned about different bases as they learned about the Maya.</p>
<p>marite mentions TERC – that is the program that did not work for my daughter – marite and I are in the same state, so maybe that is why we both have experience with it.</p>
<p>My younger d’s 3rd grade teacher was trained as the TERC subject matter expert, so some attention had been paid to the special training aspect in our case.</p>
<p>I was a child of new math - they introduced it to us in 6th grade - and, perhaps not coincidentally, it was in the 6th grade that I tuned out of math and NEVER tuned back in. I found it confusing and frustrating. I ended up struggling through high school math and never took math in college (I took stats instead). </p>
<p>My younger brother was a “victim” of the initial teaching alphabet in which they learned to read with an alphabet consisting of something like 38 letters. That lasted until 3rd grade when they went back to the good, old English alphabet. To this day, he and his friends have terrible problems spelling. Despite the fact they are successful professionals, unless they take great pains with their spelling, their writing makes them seem illiterate!</p>
<p>I agree there is some merit in some of these educational initiatives BUT the training of teachers is key and, in my experience, that doesn’t happen often enough. As a result, cohorts of kids get left in the dust.</p>
<p><< Yikes. My youngest daughter went through the “Everyday Math” program in the early grades. There was a whole lot of “drawing your own conclusions”, etc. It made me crazy. She had the biggest problem with the “estimate the answer” questions.>></p>
<p>Astrophysicsmom, years ago my DD would drive me nuts when I’d ask her for a"guesstimation" and she couldn’t give me one. She’d wail, “I hate estimating! They always make us do that (she was in fourth grade)!” She didn’t see the point of it if you had a way to find an exact answer, and the teacher apparently didn’t clarify why you might ever need to estimate. I did, and so do millions of other parents, but what of the millions who can’t or don’t?</p>
<p>This chord example echoes what I deal with as a teacher all the time: my students have to take a writing exam that consists of one compare/contrast essay. Nearly all of them lack the crucial ability to discern what elements of most anything are worth comparing/contrasting; for example, in an early practice I had them compare freedom in high school vs. freedom in college. Several of them compared having to raise your hand to go to the bathroom vs. just leaving when you want to as an important difference. In other words, they aren’t equipped to see the spirit of a question or to consider the proverbial bigger picture. I believe this lack stems from misguided education approaches such as the one OP describes.</p>
<p>I did not hear a lot of complaints about TERC in my school, though perhaps it was because I was not attuned to them. But I know that parents in many other schools, including in our own district, expressed concern about it; one school organized several meetings to explain it to parents, but some parents were still befuddled about it.</p>
They’ll just be “standing back”.</p>