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“There is a great danger in the present day lest science- teaching should degenerate into the accumulation of disconnected facts and unexplained formulae, which burden the memory without cultivating the understanding.” ~J. D. Everett [In the preface to his 1873 English translation of Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy by A Privat Deschanel. (D. Appleton and Co.)]
Unhappily this is EXACTLY what has happened with mathematics education. The whole of mathematics has been broken down into tiny parts and because of this the whole picture is little understood. The more I am forced to teach out of text books whose well meaning authors have fragmented math beyond the basic operations into such disjointed parts that students basically memorize enough to past the test and then forget it, the more I see this is true. This is compounded by teachers who are pressured into “teaching for the standardized tests” not teaching for deeper understanding. The students understand it well enough to pass the test…often with a low “C”.
Fundamental concepts like, math is a language, numbers are made up of other numbers, and all we can do with math is count, are lost. Concept based teaching using manipulatives makes math fun and easy and highly understandable, to the point that even very young children can do so called “higher math” with ease. Find Crewton Ramone’s Blog Of Math and there you will see six and seven year old students doing algebra, making change for $100.00, videos and more. Best of all they don’t know it’s difficult.
The idea is to teach math like a language, using basic concepts that build a solid foundation for the next set of concepts that build a solid foundation for the next set of concepts and so on. Working your way through math using concepts that increase in degree of difficulty slowly but surely while the student is in a situation where they cannot fail is a sure fire method for success. Because most concept based teaching uses manipulatives and because text does not lend itself to mathematical notation trying to describe it in detail in a short article like this is like trying to describe blue to a blind man. You have to see it to really get a grasp of what I’m talking about. There are several systems that you might look into to assist in he math education of your child. Any Montessori based system like Mortensen More than Math or Math-U-See will generally be concept based, but the primary complaint I hear from parents and teachers especially with Mortensen Math is that they don’t know how to use these systems. This is often the case with many base ten manipulative sets: they don’t come with enough instruction so that they can be used to their fullest extent.
At Crewton Ramone’s House of Math you can SEE how to use base ten blocks to do a whole lot more than just teach counting. You will find many concept based lessons for teaching basic operations, algebra and more that can be used with any set of base ten blocks.
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Posted in Primary Education · February 1st, 2010 · Comments (0)
Another week of GCSEs results, another week of conflict surrounding league tables, the ‘dumbing down’ of GCSEs, and widespread strategies and promised for school review and improve. The Tories have already stated a wish to reform league tables in order to give greater weighting to improved grades and more ‘worthwhile subjects. With regards to doing poorly in this series of blogs, the news could not be more disruptive. Recently peers again have heard our society denounced as ‘broken’ from the opposition bench, with teen culture being slammed. Contrariwise we are now told that kids who study ‘worthless’ subjects may have their results devalued when considering the good work of other colleges (some people resort to hiring a tutor to get by). I will return to the patronizing attitude toward modern day students in a later blog, with conflict on the inevitable reaction to continuing success.
The focus this week is on rubbish schools. This again is a very vague definition, but is regularly thrown into journalistic pieces, especially at this time of year. A school which is deemed to be ‘underachieving’ must be considered objectively, our society wouldn’t believe a ‘mild day’ to be in anyway the same when reported in the peersather forecast in the UK and Australia, yet our society consider rubbish schools to be as bad as each other regardless of location and resources. I talked to private tutor and they said that in years gone by we have seen a growth of ‘specialist colleges’ whether they are in Science or Performing Arts etc.
The tutor went on to say that these institutes therefore must have different targets to reach, but on an overall scale, these strong departments may mask our societyaker areas within the college. The league tables do not reflect the pupils and environs which the institute has to adapt to. Inner city schools traditionally have to deal with students who are regularly exposed to gang culture, drug abuse and binge drinking, as well as many students who are not as bright as some in more affluent areas. young people may also affect their progress. This links in well with my previous blog on failing young people who are less able.
In many cases, the challenge of helping these less able kids to reach their potential is far more taxing for an educator than simply feeding a bright young people’ hunger for understanding. I very much doubt that even the complex ‘progress tables’ for schools (only behind Duckworth-Lewis and the scoring for the Heptathlon in complexity) includes this when determining the rankings. Consequently many schools and, in reality, many educators are tarred with the reputation of being poor.
This leads to an Ouroboros situation, where in schools desperate for enthusiastic, committed teachers, you have teachers who are apathetic, and feel undervalued in their jobs. On a level which many individuals could empathize with, consider the disappointment many would experience when someone fails to appreciate the effort put into a present or something similar. If one scales this emotional response when bearing in mind that individuals move houses to avoid your teaching, this is quite a body blow for someone in a profession which requires commitment and passion in the face of many difficulties within the classroom, not to mention that private tutors are becoming more popular.
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Posted in Primary Education · December 6th, 2009 · Comments (0)