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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."
I graduated high school at 18 with no math, and I turned out fine. Next year, when I turn 16, I'll be able to drive, finally.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
You wouldn't happen to be the guy who does the numbers for Congress?
I've long felt that math taught in grades 1-7~8 could be compressed into a year or two with no repercussions. They just 'teach' the same thing over and over and it's not until middle school that you start really seeing anything different.
grade 1-3 - addition, subtraction, basic shapes (passed off as geometry)
grade 4-6 - addition, subtraction, basic shapes, might see a fraction by grade 6
grade 6-8 - all of the above, fractions, simple geometry.
Then in grade 8-9 where they start to introduce simple algebra.
So is it that children don't do well learning math early, which goes against everything else we know about how the human brain learns, or that you've bored them to tears by grade 3 and they just stop listening?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I think you hit it spot on, it's not the curriculum, it's how they make it as boring as possible. I didn't enjoy math until I was actually out of public school and did that in my private life. When I picked up a Dover math book and learned the mysteries of such things as mathematical abstraction, that was exciting. At least more than learning maths verboten with no end goal in sight.
Another thing is the lack of math history being taught. Yes 1+0=1. But why? Where did zero come from? Where did numerals come from? Why was Algebra invented and where did it come from? What use is it? What about geometry? Who was Euclid? I could go on and on with fascinating topics related to math. These things are rarely answered. It's all about teaching you to understand one function, one algorithm, one technique, etc. Never to understand _why_. It downright sucks, they take all the fun out of a spectacular field. Thanks to their "teaching" me, I thought math had no room for expansion. Boy was I wrong. It's an abstract fun house where you can do whatever you dream up. To a kid, that itself should be reason enough to love any math.
Even if they did re-create the study, and a bunch of schools started doing this, I can assure you that most of them would decide that "less math" was just as good as "no math" and far less scary, and that "6th-7th grade" could be cut back to "2nd grade" without affecting the results of the program.
From what I've seen, school administrators (principals up to and including district supers) are very good at latching on to (possibly useful) fads in pedagogy, but very bad at actually implementing entire programs; they'll go on about how important this is, and how the teachers must follow its principles, then direct them to do things contrary to it either because they don't actually understand it or because those parts are too scary. A couple years later they'll pick some other program to get excited about and it'll start all over.
Most of them also have a damn poor understanding of the scientific process, which might explain some of the above nonsense.
I know someone whose child needs to get book from home during school because the teaching is so slow, boring and dumbed down that there's no point to listening when she grasped everything in the first five minutes.
For once, think of the bright children!
If we don't force kids through things for which they aren't ready, the bright kids - like your friend's child - will stop suffering the endless days of boredom as other kids struggle pointlessly with it. Doing something like this counts as thinking of all children if it works. Get the bright kids some additional tutors, better classes, or some genuinely interesting side projects, don't simply insist that making the regular classroom any less rigorous, even temporarily, will punish the bright kids. Such insistence is exactly why we're here, failing, which is TFA's entire point: there's a hell of a lot more to improving childhood education, including the education of child geniuses, than simply doing more work at a higher level earlier.
Good for Peter Gray, daring to hypothesize the possibility of better results through some mechanism other than simply shoving more work down their throats at a young age.
Aaaand you just confused all of these kids.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Hello. I was a victim of New Math.
New Math presented me with set theory in elementary school.
Symbolic logic is not a mystery to me. Indeed, I aced a logic course where over half the people dropped it like a hot rock in the first week.
However, arithmetic with pencil and paper is like pulling teeth for me. I hate it with a passion. Learning how to do square roots in 7'th grade by pencil and paper was torture. Thank Glub for calculators.
So yes, your professor is entirely correct. Teaching set theory preps students for boolean algebra and all that happy nonsense. There are trade-offs, though.
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BMO
I tend to agree. The overwhelming majority of elementary school teachers are neither math nor science majors. It is quite likely the teachers don't understand the reasons for the math theory. They just know it should be taught. As such, they are not likely to be using approaches that relate the theory in ways that people (kids) would understand it. It is humbling to have a PhD in Engineering, and not be able to understand Grade 6 math homework. If I can't understand the lessons they are trying to teach with regards to digits and digit placement, then what chance do the Grade 6 kids have?
On another occasion, while in first year Algebra, I vividly remember suddenly understanding key concepts from Grade 7 math. For instance, why does one care that numbers have the distributive, associative, and commutative properties? that can be named and explained? The knowledge is not helpful until vector and matrix math is covered. At that point, data types exist where the associative and commutative properties may or may not apply.
I'm just not sure what is the point of introducing concepts to children, without the ability to explain the reasons for the concepts. Why teach math, with no text book? Why focus so much on obscure terminology, to the point that no one understands why you are even asking a question? Math is about understanding why things happen. Not wrote answers to naming conventions.
I think the point of TFA is that once a kid's brain has developed to the 7th-grade level, you can cover all the pre-7th math in a year or less rather than taking 6 years to do it.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
This is exactly why I'm going back to school to be a high school math teacher, that and the prestige
A Mathematicians Lament. I really wish more teachers would read this essay.
Silly rabbit
Pre-7th grade math is boring as hell anyway. Give me a calculator and let me start with the interesting math.
You seem to be under the impression that numbers are the most important part of math. It is this unhealthy obsession with numbers that makes math boring for kids. It would be like art class being all about blending pigments to get the right colors. Hell, even math 'fans' who obsess about the digits of pi are ... misguided. I think this says it best - http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1777
Suggestions?
Radical idea, but how about letting them play physical games and other unstructured activities in order to learn the lessons of socializing, sharing, consequence, reward, and impulse-control?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?