Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Math pedagogy outside the US

I'm away from home right now, and am staying with a good friend who's a teacher in a non-English-speaking western European country. We were talking about how math is taught over here vs. the US, and it was a fascinating discussion. She had a second grade book and a fourth grade book that we were looking at.

The biggest differences that we identified are that 1) the curriculum here goes into depth and focuses on understanding, and 2) children are shown different methods for doing something and taught to pick the one that suits them best.

Take addition of two-digit numbers, for example. A page in the textbook shows that Nico sees 44 + 28 as 40+20 and 4 + 8. Anna sees it as 42 + 30. Yoli prefers 44 + 20 + 8. Etc.

The kids then practice a few (literally) problems and are encouraged to find the method that works best for them, with the understanding that different methods might work best at different times.

Homework in grade 6 or below is generally in the range of 5-7 problems, with the philosophy being, "for us, that's the optimal number to encourage learning."

I was contrasting with systems like Everyday Mathematics, which also introduce different approaches, but at different times, and without explicitly stating that there are different ways of doing things and that each child should use the one that works best. Well, at least this approach wasn't used in my son's 2nd grade EM book/class or in the fifth grade book his friend used.

I also contrasted with mainstream books that show an algorithm and expect the kids to follow it (no one here gets worksheets with 20-30 problems, ever).

Interestingly, the math textbooks are just over 100 pages long (as were the French math books DS had). My friend said that they don't generally get through even that in a year, because they're so focused on understanding over getting through new topics.

Food for thought. I was really impressed with the approach here.

Wow. Jealous.

Can I just say that if I'd known that Anna's method was okay, I'd have been a lot less angsty as a child while learning mathematics?

That method really reminds me of the Singapore Mathematics approach-- it's largely visual, and relies very very little upon learnt algorithms so much as on concepts that underlie those algorithms.

For example, the notion that dividing by a fraction is the same thing as multiplying by the inverse of that fraction-- that is a thing that few children now ever learn. They know HOW to do it mechanically, all right-- but the ones that don't know WHY tend to (IME) struggle to retain it without ongoing practice. It's crippling when they begin to do advanced algebra or basic quantitative science.



On the one hand, I'm glad that someone, somewhere is doing it right. {sigh}

On the other, it just makes me feel sulky toward-- well, the US system, I suppose.