BC Prof Suggests Young Children Need Less Formal Math, Not More

DesScorp writes "Professor Peter Gray, a developmental psychologist and researcher at Boston College, recounts an experiment done in New Hampshire schools in 1929, where math was completely taken out of the curriculum of the poorest schools from the area until the sixth grade. The results were surprising; with just one year of math under their belts, the poor students did as well or better than students from better schools by the end of the sixth grade year, despite the fact that the better schools had math in their curriculum all throughout elementary school. Professor Gray thinks children are not mentally wired for the kind of formal math instruction that is taught in schools, and that we'd be better served by putting off the teaching of theory until the seventh grade. He scoffs at the notion that if children are failing with current levels of math instructions then we should double down and make them do more math in school."

Comments

Let's fix all of the academics!

[InsaneProcessor]

We don't need to teach the truth about history either. Let's just teach the kids racially sensitive, altered history instead.

We need math, but cultural differences persist.

[reporter]

One problem with this study by the professor at Boston College is that the study does not include adequate numbers of people of non-European ancestry.

Intelligence -- and the ability to absorb mathematical knowledge -- depends on 2 factors: culture and genetics. For example, Americans of Japanese ancestry have a slight advantage over other ethnic groups in comprehending mathematical concepts. Delaying the introduction of mathematics would deprive Japanese-Americans of an opportunity to learn the subject.

Americans of African ancestry are at the other extreme. They have much greater difficulty in comprehending mathematics. Delaying the introduction of mathematics in primary school may actually not impact their comprehension of the subject.

By the way, these ethnic differences are one strong argument in favor of maintaining schools that are independent of the federal government. School districts where Japanese-Americans predominate would be free to build a curriculum that is best suited for their ethnic group. The same goes for African-Americans.

The only role that Washington should play is to (1) create national tests of academic knowledge, (2) require that all students up to the 12th grade take the tests, and (3) publish the results. How to respond to the results is left to the school districts. Washington merely measures and publishes. This approach avoids the problem of certain ethnic groups's using lawyers to terminate national standards because certain ethnic groups underperform due to cultural and genetic reasons.

My idea is that Washington does not mandate any national standards. Washington merely measures and publishes.

Re:most people arent wired for math

[Thud457]

You'd never get the subject "critical thinking" past the Texas State Educumacashun Schoolbook Board.