Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Common Core Mathematics: background

What's funny, is that I think my radical acceleration in math is what saved me from learning stuff wrong. I puttered along in school, taking Algebra I in 8th grade, then did Algebra II, Trig, Geometry, and Analytical Geometry that summer at a camp for gifted kids, and took Calculus in the fall. (Actually, I didn't take Geometry, I just tested out of it. They didn't teach Geometry, and the test was really, really hard. I pestered the head of the program to let me take the test, which was in two parts. She agreed to give me part one, and told me that part two would depend on how I did on part one. I'm sure she expected me to bomb it and then she could tell me she told me so. Instead I got 100%, and a 96% on part two, so they had to support me in not taking it.)

My school gave me credit for all of them, but only after I slogged through every homework assignment and test. My calculus teacher very kindly agreed to grade it all (which I bet he regretted when I didn't do much of it until after the Calculus AP exam, and then I started blowing through multiple chapter tests and homework per day). Thirty years later, I still vividly remember fretting all night because I knew I had fudged a step in a proof when I couldn't figure out a way to do it rigorously, and him marking it correct without even noticing.

But it all meant that all my teaching before calculus was from math graduate students who knew exactly how to do the math right and didn't know anything about pedagogical reasons for dumbing it down. It was awesome.

All of these recent comments are true, but the problem is that his blog post didn't distinguish between gifted learners and tiger cubs. Unfortunately, his post may make things even harder for MG+ kids. Yes, the standards that I've seen are good, but their value is diminished if MG+ kids are still stuck listening to the same lesson again and again while they wait for the rest of the class to get it.

I've been going through his Common Core fractions with my daughter. The differences between CC fractions and bog standard math textbooks are subtle. They're really important, but so far they're nothing that would take a year for her to learn.

This seems to be what he is talking about here, The Common Core Mathematics Standards Implications for Administrators :


But in his Huffington Post blog, he links to this article Common Core Math in North Carolina Would Keep Elementary Students From Taking Middle School Courses which specifically mentions gifted students.


Whether he means to include gifted students or is just talking about tiger cubs, I believe that many (if not most) school administrators interpret the shift to Common Core as eliminating the need for acceleration.

This is a charitable interpretation, but I take his article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hunghsi-wu/math-education_b_1901299.html
at face value. I am sure he is highly articulate and capable of clearly expressing what he wants to say, so if he had meant to say something different he surely would have done so. The article is unambiguously vehemently anti-acceleration. Based on this article I certainly don't see him as one of the good guys. I also question the ability of someone who thinks this way to construct a good set of standards. His reasoning is so totally non-sensical.

I disagree; I've started going through his stuff and he seems to really get it as far as the curriculum is concerned. Read the document I posted earlier in ths thread and you'll see what I mean. Remember, this guy is a professor emeritus of mathematics at UC Berkeley. I looked through the titles of his his non-education papers and they seemed like serious stuff.

I agree that the blog post comes across as being essentially clueless about HG+ students and is lumping them in with the tiger cubs. It's possible that he really has no idea about giftedness and levels thereof. Many of us here are HG+ and didn't understand the topic before we had kids and/or arrived here. Not knowing something is okay, but what I don't like is that he made sweeping pronouncements without examining the problem thoroughly. Someone in his position should know better than to do that. Especially someone who has put so much effort into fixing mistaken assumptions about math education.

Agreed.

Can I just say that ElizabethN's post up there made me SMILE a mile wide?? I love that anecdote.


Well THAT is clearly nonsense. But then again, this is school administrators talking-- not necessarily those who "get" what gifted can mean... and honestly, I place Dr. Wu in that category as well.


Good point. But that's not to say that the architects intended such a thing-- but that they are tired of TigerParents push-push-pushing kids who really can't master material at rapid rates or young ages, and eventually need remediation in post-secondary. Some of those kids probably COULD become competent in STEM, but by the time they get their math deficiencies sorted, they're a couple of years into college. Bummer.

I think that Wu would probably maintain that districts need to stop "vanity-identification" of kids who are in fact candidates for acceleration in subjects like mathematics, and resist pressure to accelerate when it IS NOT appropriate. Not that they should move all kids in lockstep with the mean.

I think that Sho Yano's quote is pretty apt here ( not directly related to Maths but does hit the nail on the head wrt holding back or accelerating )


See story here:-

NBC coverage

To Val's point I had no clue of how quickly true gifties grok things until DD came along even though it seems normal until it became obvious that it wasn't. I think that Dr Wu is talking about skipping in terms of leaping over parts of a curriculum without having had experience of kids with such a prodigious appetite that n whole year's curricula can be consumed within a given year.

From Wu's article:

The word "correct" is used often above. What does it mean? Were 5th grade students previously not taught to multiply fractions using the formula

a/b * c/d = (a*c)/(b*d) ?

My 8yo is learning to do this in EPGY 5th grade math.

Many scientists, engineers, and economists will use calculus and other math as a tool. I wonder how much rigor they need. I don't see how a year of geometry with proofs helped me in my academic or working career. A benefit of acceleration through calculus is that it enables you to study physics, statistics, economics, and other subjects at a higher level.