My backblog has once again achieved unmanageable proportions, so it's time to bring back—ta da!—Casting the Net, in which I collect related—or unrelated—snippets of items that have caught my attention. Today's post was inspired by a series of videos on math education in the U. S. sent to me by my sister-in-law. (Um, back in March 2011; I told you I'm behind.)
First, Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth, by M. J. McDermott, who is neither a teacher nor a mathematician, but with a degree in atmospheric sciences it's safe to say she has a pretty good grip on the kind of math elementary and secondary school students should be learning. And she doesn't like what she sees being taught in schools today, in particular the approaches of Investigations in Number, Data, and Space (aka TERC) and Everyday Mathematics. (duration 15:27)
I like your points about math. I was recently pointed to a video explaining why teaching "fact families" is so confusing and difficult for children, but by using Cuisenaire rods everything becomes refreshingly simple. It's interesting to note that as this mother teachers her daughter, it's clear that her daughter may have no more understanding of this 'simple' method than she would being taught a traditional method. The problem is that in explaining we have the 'curse of knowledge' and we say silly things like "this and that means this, right?" and we fish until the child (or adult) agrees or gives us the answer we want. You don't understand math until you can explain it yourself. Joseph (2) is too young for me to 'explain' anything to him with manipulatives, but he is not too young to learn the facts of math. The will do him no harm, and more than that, knowing the facts he can figure out a lot of the rules, and perhapse most importantly, math will never be scary because he is already so familiar with numbers and counting. It is noble to want to teach understanding, but it is impossible. Understanding comes from within and teachers can either help or hinder the process. No one method is the magic key, even if it was the magic key for you when you finally understood math. Everything is confusing if you don't understand it, and everything is simple once you understand it. Saying "it's so simple" only makes your audience feel stupid and afraid to ask questions. Thanks for posting about math so I could highjack!!! (And I have to figure out how to get spellcheck in firefox. I know you're all hoping I'm better in math than in spelling...)
You're always welcome to hijack (or highjack; both are correct). :)
"Understanding comes from within and teachers can either help or hinder the process." Well said.
Joseph may be too young for you to explain anything with manipulatives, but I'm certain he's not too young to internalize some of their properties merely by having fun playing with them. I can see, though, that for him the bare facts are just as much fun!
