A report on math education fuels the debate about the Singapore model. What is it--and would it work here?
Comment: Whether the Singapore model works here or not, our kids need a better education in math.
Comment: I could'nt help but reply to the teacher. Does he know wht the NCTM and what does it stand for? Are'nt they providing the guidelines? But typical of a teacher, "we're not the one writting the curriculum" always absolving themselves from any responsibilities. Ask any kid who loves math and the answer is always because of the teacher who taught it differently than what the books recommended, and those are the one to be commanded day in and day out for their love of teaching and their courage to look outside the box. But a "union" mind will always remind you that it's not their job to think differently, that is not their job. The subject is as good as the teacher makes it to be. A good teacher makes a good student not the other way around, and mediocrity is the norm in our classrooms.
Mario
Comment: This entire issue is misdirected. They want more homegrown engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. That is their concern, right? Well, it is not the future engineers, scientists, and mathematicians that are struggling with math in high school or even college for that matter. It is the majority of people which would not ever go into those fields (or ever want to or probably ever be successful at them) that are struggling with math in high school. Let's face it. A majority of people have historically struggled with math, and that was also the case 50 and 100 years ago. These who struggle with math at the lower levels are not realistically going to go on to be great mathematicians or engineers. They may go on to be great in other things, but it probably will not be highly dependent upon skills in mathematics. To get more homegrown engineers, mathematicians, and scientists we need to dump more money into the higher end of these professions. If you want to attract smart people to a field, make it pay well. Otherwise they will find outlets for the passion they have for using their analytical minds in other professions that pay better (yes, engineers earn good money, but not mathematicians).
Comment: Excuse me. As a teacher I want to point out an important fact everyone seems to miss. When Germany and Japan and other developed countries post their math scores, they are NOT including their trade schools. If you do not score at a prescribed level you don't go to a high school, you are sent to a trade school. Not a bad thing. But the point is this, we include ALL our children in the test scores, the English language learners, special education, poverty, abused...every student. If we just compared our Honors class students the comparison would be even if not better. We have the best education system in the world, but that fact is not realized because these test scores are comparing apples and oranges.
As a teacher I'm always pleased to received better curriculum books (especially since teachers are not the ones who decide what text's are bought for schools) but not because our math is worse than other countries.
American Teacher
Comment: Why are they still looking for "the one best way?" If the educrats can't figure out that <i>there is no one best way</i>, then they should be immediately fired (no, wait, boil them in oil first).
The perpetual Snark-hunt for an imaginary magic bullet keeps us from the main issue - prepare teachers well, give them the means and the time to do what you've prepared them to do, and let them do it. And for pity's sake, keep the damned text-book lobbyists out of it! (No, wait, boil them in the same pot of oil as the educrats.)
Those vampires are vicious predators who have essentially sucked the education value out of the public schools. Don't trust them to fix what they created.
If you care at all about math education and it's true value, check out <a href="http://mathmojo.com/chronicles/2008/03/27/mathematicians-lament-a-must-read/"> A Mathematician's Lament </a>. You'll be very glad you did.
Comment: As a Chinese girl of 21 years-old, I have to admit the difficulties following Mathematics are growing at a rapid speed all the time. Come back a little bit to my childhood, the materials assigned by my professor were greatly obsure to understand. But nowadays, it seemed getting worse. I read some textbooks and exercises the poor kids should handle with, that really astonished me! I just remember one question is what I learnt in University! But the kid was just a student in primary school`that is unbelievable! Still not sure whether this teaching way is valid or not. Will the kids with unbearable burden be the successful men later catering to the wishes from their parents?
Comment: As a junior in a Washington high school, I can see around me the different threads that this article discusses. I am in AP Calculus, but there are only 10 students at my grade level enrolled in the class...10 out of a class of 300+. In the 05-06 school year, only 38% of sophomores passed the math portion of the standardized WASL test; mind you, the math that we are tested on is based off of average 8th grade material.
My youngest brother is currently learning the "new" math, and even I have trouble comprehending it; whether or not it is teaching him anything beyond the mere minimum WASL standards, it is too early to tell. I just hope that things improve, on a national level, by any means necessary.
Comment: I hope this report is the beginning of a long overdue need to teach kids the math they need. Schools have worried about "engagement" and "fun" and forgotten about content. The failures of math education go beyond cashiers that can't make change. The failures extend all the way to our best and brightest. Some estimates put the number of entering college freshmen that need remedial math at 1/3 or more. Doors slam shut when you have to take remedial courses in college. Too many kids never make it to college. Of those that do, too many fail to get a degree. All due to poor k-12 math education. Throw out Everyday Math and TERC (Investigations). Singapore Math is an answer every school can benefit from.
Comment: I have several conflicts with this article. The extras like charts, graphs, did-you-knows, puzzles, and factoids are specially chosen to enrich and support the topic of the chapter whether it be statistics, ratios, decimals, and so on. If the reporter pored over the texts more carefully, he would have seen the topics are well supported. The other is that text book mills are hugh money makers in education. A single text costs about 50-70 dollars. When you consider the disfunctionalism of public education, "covering a text from cover to cover" is an impossibility. A teacher is lucky if he can have the same number of texts or even the shape of it from the beginning to the end of the year. In a typical school the shelf lief of a text is about three years. By then the publisher reps come to a school to pander the latest, "the best" texts.
The other conflict is the idea that we can adopt "Singapore Math" into US math classes. Teachers in Asian countries and cultures have tremendou respect for teachers, nothing like the US where parents complain that their Junior is not inspired by his teacher. Parents actually believe that they can neglect their interests in education and expect a single teacher to inspire motivation. In Singapore or Hong Kong, a parent would never make such near-stupid demands, but in the US we actually complain about teachers and schools. Oh yes, I forget the ever elusive misnomer self-esteem. It doesn't matter if we adopt whatever math program. US students do not possess any of the drive that Asian students typically depict. A teacher there could be using beans or rice, and could still teach a thing or two. But in the US we equip classes with the highest technology and texts, and we're still stuck with an eroded tired results--low tests scores.
Give us a break. Public education is on a downward spiral. Ask your legislator how much the state is putting aside for education and then contrast that with the militiary budget. While you're at that, find out if the Army and Marines have a stringent standards for admissions into their sections. You shouldn't be at all surprised to find out that lately they've taken any warm body. Just the fact that the majority of you write without spell check, punctuations, grammartical rules shows you are the proud product of what most call "public education." You haven't shown any value or interest in education in any of these blogs. However, you are interest in your negativity, racism, and inane muddled mind meanderings.
Comment: I think mixing the two (Singapore and American) is a good way to go. That's what I am doing as a homeschool mom, I got the idea to drill addition from my Asian mother, who was taught this method by my American school 20 years ago. But in comparing American and Singapore, I saw Singapore had higher expectations of grade outcomes than America does, and I figured I can do my best to mix the 2 together, drill my son with addition in first grade, but not just up adding up to 10 like American curriculum, but all the way to 9 + 9 as the Singapore curriculum. I am also doing my best to keep it in an organized fashion and really try to build on top of previous learning, one step at a time as what I've seen from the Japanese and Singapore models. The American way (and sometimes from the Asian) has been a bit confused, keeping it organized and really knowing it is building on previous learning I think really helps a lot too.
Comment: I was a product of the NY State public education system in the '60's and early 70's. We spend the entire 1st grade learning simple addition and subtraction, the entiere 2nd grade learning complex addition and subtraction, the entire 3rd grade learning multiplication and division. Period. Lots of timed drills, lots of flash cards, lots and lots of repitition.
We didn't start to get away from drills and repitiion and start to branch out until the 4th grade, learning complex multiplication and division and measurements, 5th grade learning fractions and decimals, including adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing/ fractions and decimals, 6th grade was the start of word problems, sets, and logic, 7th grade was probability and more complex word problems, 8th grade was set theory and still more word problems.
9th grade was alegbra, 10th grade geometry, 11th grade trigonometry, and 12 grade calculus, or what would probably now be called algebra II.
Not only did I have to pass a state-wide exam called a Regents exam, (NY was one of the only states in the country back then to have end-of-grade tests you had to pass in order to graduate) I also tested out of Algebra I as a freshman in college.
I don't know if this was the Singapore system or not, but my kids, who grew up in a different state, had no such coherent math plan, and they had the addition/subtraction, multiplication/division drills only because I insisted on it.
Why did we mess with what worked?
Comment: I know I can't say the same for the state of Arizona or New Mexico, but over the years I've observed the stringent standards schools in Manhatten schools. Hooray for you. Yes, you fared well, but not every state had or has that. I felt I had a similar experience in the 70s and 80s in Arizona and Utah, but such isn't the case now. Many states have a strong focus on exit tests. The exit tests are at a lower level than calculus aims for. In fact because many students fail the exit test in math only increases the population of the low-end classes. However, that leaves smaller but more quality instruction in the high end math. That spells achievement for a smaller population. In Arizona the department of education has been talking about rigor. Maybe the pendelum will swing for stiffer expectations. But just keep in mind, many topics in education have eroded. I don't remember students ever refusing to dress up for PE, but that's an ever normal response in students. Are the kid beefy because they're couch potatoes or is because they have options, like choosing whether they want to dress up for PE. The lazy fat kids will grown up to cry about their prescriptions of antidepressants and will have other serious health battles. It's the product of our American dream.
Comment: I'm a product of a real bilingual education with 2 sets math subjects using 2 different textbooks and 2 sets of teachers with 2 language instructions - English and Chinese. I believed the Singapore Math was probably based on the Chinese curriculum. I did not grow up here and never knew how math was taught here. I happen to tutor some kids a few years ago and was horrified to discover the wide range of topic a poor child is subjected to even when they have not mastered the basic four functions. Fractions and decimals should only be introduce to kids after they have mastered these functions. The Chinese text follow these structured approach while the English text is quasi structured at it's best. I remember that grade 1 math involves only addition and subtraction. At grade 2, verbal recitation of multiplication table was done before introduction of division. I think fractions was introduced only in grade 3 and started with addition and subtraction first before going into multiplication and division of fractions. I don't remember when decimals was introduced, but unit of measurements and conversions was slowly introduced along in grade 4 onlward. The result was very profound as kids who managed to get educated also in the Chinese curriculum performed much better in higher math than those who only took the English curriculum. Under this true bilingual class, I graduated with 2 diplomas in elementary as well as in high school, with each curriculum totally independent from each other.
Comment: I'm a product of a real bilingual education with 2 sets math subjects under 2 different textbooks and teachers and language instructions - English and Chinese. I believed the Singapore Math was probably based on the Chinese curriculum. I did not grow up here and never knew how math was taught here. I happen to tutor some kids a few years ago and was horrified to discover the wide range of topic a poor child is subjected to even when they have mastered the basic four functions. Fractions and decimals should only introduce to kids after they have mastered these functions. The Chinese text follow these structured approach while the English text is quasi structured at it's best. The result was very profound as kids who managed to get educated also in the Chinese curriculum performed much better in higher math than those who only took the english curriculum.
Comment: There are certain mathematical functions that simply need to be memorized, e.g. the multiplication table. I substitute teach and often see fifth and sixth graders who instead of instantly coming up with the answer, spend 3-4 minutes arriving at the fact that 6*7 is 42. They would be better served by memorizing the multiplication table so that they can spend more time on whatever the real problem is.
Comment: The previous writer suggests "new math" is baffling and that a child should learn multiplication facts instead of repeated division. Kids who know math facts don't know when or how to use them. Proof for a third grade student can simply mean "explain" or justify. Everything parents don't know is "new math" and what little they do know is just fine. Most parents only recall of the Pythagorean Theorem as a^2 +b^2 = c^2 yet we let them vote...
Comment: The beauty of math is that the "correct" answer can be arrived at several ways. That being said, memorizing basic math facts will allow students to better justify their answers, because the time it takes to solve a problem is compounded when finding the correct solution is impeded by using repeated addition every time you want to multiply.
Of course, one of the newest features here in NY state is the use of calculators on almost all math assessments. While I understand the use of the calculator as a tool to aid the student and make sure they do not make careless calculation errors, too many students rely on these calculators and will use them for even the simplest calculations. We need teachers (and I include myself in this, as I teach special ed math in a high school) to be trained in the appropriate way to integrate calculators in the curriculum so they enhance mathematic exploration and solutions, rather than replace knowing basic facts and operations.
Comment: The techniques of the "new math" being taught to kids today is baffling. My son is in the third grade and still has not been introduced to times tables, they teach multiplication but repeated addition and division by repeated substraction. Great for a day or tow to teach the concept, then get on with learning your multiplication tables. Then they require "proofs" for addition problems. I so understand why people want to home shcool their kids.
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