http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/A Better Way to Teach Math
New York Times
April 18, 2011
By DAVID BORNSTEIN
Is it possible to eliminate the bell curve in math class?
Imagine if someone at a dinner party casually announced, �I�m illiterate.� It would never happen, of course; the shame would be too great. But it�s not unusual to hear a successful adult say, �I can�t do math.� That�s because we think of math ability as something we�re born with, as if there�s a �math gene� that you either inherit or you don�t.
School experiences appear to bear this out. In every math class I�ve taken, there have been slow kids, average kids and whiz kids. It never occurred to me that this hierarchy might be avoidable. No doubt, math comes more easily to some people than to others. But the question is: Can we improve the methods we use to teach math in schools � so that everyone develops proficiency?
Looking at current math achievement levels in the United States, this goal might seem out of reach. But the experience of some educators in Canada and England, using a curriculum called Jump Math, suggests that we seriously underestimate the potential of most students and teachers.
<rest of article at link>
Breaking math problems into small pieces may be effective for children of average or below-average intelligence, but it may bore gifted children to tears. The message I draw from this article is that children of different abilities need different kinds of teaching. I'm concerned that many people will assume that the math instruction that is best for the left half of the bell curve is also best for the right tail.
