What's math got to do with it?

[djedi]

I recently read the book What's math got to do with it?. The title is a bit misleading; the book is about K-12 math education and how math education and performance in the US is very poor (when compared to other countries, esp when you take into account $$ spent

Comments

[quijax]

I don't actually do that adding thing. Even in my head, I apply the formula. Does that make me bad at math?

[flamingophoenix]

I do the standard formula as well, and I'm pretty good at math. I break numbers down for other sorts of operations, but not for simple addition. I dunno...

[djedi]

If you prefer and can use standard formulas in your head, then that's fine. The point is that you probably understand how addition and multiplication is commutative and you probably would use a shortcut to add 99 and 45. Many kids can't!

[flamingophoenix]

Yeah, 99 and 45 is a better example!

[medryn]

Some level of memorization is necessary, which seems to be proportionate to the numerical base that you choose to use. So maybe we should switch to base 2. That way you only need to "memorize" 0x0, 0x1, 1x1, 0+0, 0+1, 1+1 and everything else is just algorithmic.

I guess basically for a base n, you need to memorize n(n+1)/2 addition and multiplication facts. Yikes. Thank god we don't use base 20.

[gerdemb]

I've heard that in some countries (Korea or India maybe?) they learn the multiplication table up to 20. Who says you have to stop at ten? :)

[djedi]

Memorizing the basic addition and multiplication tables (or practicing them and seeing them from other math problems until you know them by heart) is pretty minor in high school math. I'm talking about people who memorize every rule, property and routine in high school and junior high math. Like that sine is odd and cosine is even. My college kids MEMORIZED this, instead of understanding where the graph came from and what it looks like or what the circle definition implies, etc.

[skimmerduk]

Well, the unfortunate thing is that "teaching to the test" wouldn't be wrong if 1) the test were testing good things and 2) we used that as a measure of what kids should know. In fact, there's a whole system of curriculum design that focuses on isolating the real-life knowledge and skills that you want to impart to kids, designing a way to prove to yourself (dare I say, "test" or assess) that they've mastered it, and then structuring lessons and activities to move them toward that goal. It's not wrong to teach with a goal in mind; in fact, it's imperative. Soooo, the problem above is not teaching to the test; it's the WAY kids are taught to the test

[djedi]

Well, we could get into some hairsplitting discussion about what "teaching to the test" means. I and the author meant anticipating the actual questions (not the curriculum covered) on the test and just practicing those over and over and memorizing (only) the formulas to get those questions right.

As opposed to teaching the general principles and understanding the curriculum the test should cover.