Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy I just went to a spiel by Ruth Parker

Hmmm... I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens next year. They are going to pilot Everyday Math and one other text (not a reform math text.)

I talked to some teachers this afternoon to find out what they thought of Dr. Parker. A few were really taken with her ideas but most seemed to think that good teachers already use these techniques when they teach the regular curriculum. I think most are inclined to use her methods as an enrichment or in addition to teaching the regular methods. That makes me feel a bit better.

Most teachers don't feel like they have much say in which curriculum is chosen--even the ones on the textbook adoption committee!

I hope California isn't leading the nation in math education. This page has a few sample questions from the exam; note that numerical answers are not required for each question:



Sample questions on CA exit exam

My kids are at a private school that uses Everyday Mathematics(EM). I've analyzed the program pretty carefully. EM is part of a new overall wave in education that aims to teach concepts before details. This wave is beginning to make its way into colleges, which I think is dangerous.

The idea of teaching concepts first is seductive, but I think it ultimately fails. For example, EM works hard to avoid traditional algorithmic approaches to learning how to manipulate numbers.

Instead, EM uses concept-based approaches. One is "Rule-in, Rule-out." The EM book gives a rule (input: "+2") and the kids give the answer (output: add 2 to some numbers they provide). From what I can figure, EM is trying to teach the concept of functions/domains/ranges here. This is seductive because the program can claim to be teaching high level "critical thinking skills."

Thing is, to me, it all seems a bit abstract for a first grader. Many of these kids are still learning what addition and subtraction are. How can they be expected to abstract the idea of functions what they still don't fully understand ideas about simple mathematical operations? To me, this is a case of trying to get a kid to figure out what a forest is before he really knows what trees and animals are.

And even if a 6-year-old is ready to understand what a function is, I think it's better to be explicit about it and then use examples. I taught my eldest about exponents by providing a definition ("It's a fast way of multiplying. The little number up high tells you how many times to multiply the other number by itself") and then examples. Then we did square roots by working backwards from there.

But of course, the vast, vast majority of 6-year-olds are not ready to understand f(x), its domain, and its range.

This is one reason why I think EM and similar approaches fail and leave American students clueless about mathematics.

Val

I guess a lot of this is a moot point since whatever they use it will be quite a bit below my DS' level. I was looking at DD's third grade book (Harcourt) and I was not happy about how they introduced long division. I think that we need to teach the standard algorithms, but the books we have teach them so poorly that people think there's something wrong with teaching algorithms!

DS school uses TERC, Everyday Math. He is completely unengaged by it and it is so terribly slow moving. They only got to multiplication (or should I say, multiplication concepts?) in March and have not yet covered long division. School ends 6/26 so I guess they won't be learning it this year.

The worst for him, with handwriting issues, is when he has to write a sentence explaining how he got his answer and why it worked, for such simple concepts that seem far too obvious to write about. A typical answer: "I got four. Because you needed to add two and two." So enlightening!

bk1 - I keep thinking Burger King

LOL-- Code name explained in PM!