<p>“New and Improved” are scary words from teachers with new complicated curriculums. PH’d educators are stressing “understanding” and teacher are skipping 7x8. My D still would not know how to add, subtract multiply or divide if I had not dragged out the workbooks. How the teacher did scream when I taught my daughter long division. That was D’s first lesson in sanctioned lying. “Dont’ tell your teacher, but this is how to do the problem.” Some of the methods taught in school were arcane to the point of pointlessness.</p>
<p>Balance is needed; understand AND learning basic processes.</p>
<p>Isn’t that the major issue? What are our K-12 math books today? Bloated 1000 pages books filled with pictures, stories, and a lot of BS! Such books are written to allow teachers who are NOT math teachers (and might actually have failed math their entire life) to be able to teach our youner minds. A feat they might never accomplish without the necessary Teacher’s Edition and access to the publishers’ website for quizzes, tests, and homework. </p>
<p>This is the main issue that precludes our country to simply go “look” at the countries that beat us to a pulp in international tests such as PISA. Most countries that are successful have “skinny” books that contain the essential tools and cover what IS necessary. </p>
<p>Speaking about teaching to the test … perhaps we should demand that our math teachers take the same tests and make THEIR results public every year. Of course, without having access to the answer books!</p>
<p>xiggi, it’s unfortunate but true.
Some teachers should never teach math.
My D had a 3 out of a possible 4 on the state exam (when she was in fourth grade). This is a kid who is very good in math.
When I went over the questions she had wrong, it turned out she answered them the same way the teacher taught her.
The Everyday Math books are he worst ones I seen. We have to thank U of Chicago for them.:mad:</p>
<p>My kids never spent even one minute in K-5, and we did almost nothing around the kitchen table. They learned virtually all their math K-6 in the supermarket. It just wasn’t a big deal. One is an Ivy graduate student who, having not taken a stitch in math in 5 years, had a GRE math score higher than the average entering CalTech graduate engineer. The other wants to be an accountant. Go figure.</p>
<p>95% of kids would learn math simply by being in a math-literate culture, if we didn’t get in the way.</p>
<p>Want the kids to learn to multiply? Before you give 'em the tables, give 'em $2.00. Tell them they can buy as much candy as they want, but if they go one penny over, they lose it all. If you catch them when they are developmentally ready, you’d be amazed at how quick and painless it is - though be sure to have dental insurance.</p>
<p>Haha, that must be the perfect exhibit for the folks who love to throw that “correlation is not causation” line because the cashiers who toil in the obscurity of your favorite supermarkets do not seem to pick up basic math skills by … osmosis. After showing you a bill of $12.56 cents, they expect you to give them a 20.00 and have their trusted Litton-progeny show them the magical $7.44. First giving the crisp “twenty” bill, letting her type 20.00, and THEN giving her an extra 6 cents amounts to a mental torture that is only mitigated by calling a supervisor to erase the 20.00 and type 20.06! </p>
<p>I think that it is time for Mini to accept that the SAT/GRE Bubble Queen is simply a very gifted individual who would have survived the travails of a public K-12 education without losing too darn much of her God given abilities.</p>
<p>“Haha, that must be the perfect exhibit for the folks who love to throw that “correlation is not causation” line because the cashiers who toil in the obscurity of your favorite supermarkets do not seem to pick up basic math skills by … osmosis.”</p>
<p>Actually, I expect, based on experience, that many of them would have, but were never permitted the opportunity.</p>
<p>Mathson learned addition and subtraction playing Monopoly, and figured out multiplication looking at a clock, but his younger brother wasn’t nearly as interested in osmosis.</p>
<p>i feel bad for the kids. i have a little cousin who is in 4th grade and she has been doing multiplying and dividing for at least a year now, with multiple digits (not like 2 x 5)… and as far as reading, she’s been doing full chapter books since 1st grade… her bedroom is practically a library… she has an entire room full of books (literally…) I know they have some word problems (we had them when i was young too) but nothing like what’s being described here.</p>