May 27, 2006
IF ONLY ORWELL COULD SEE THIS
Back to basics as maths problems multiply (Liz Lightfoot, The Telegraph, May 27th, 2006)
Modern methods of teaching maths which have mystified parents and confused many pupils are to be abandoned six years after the Government forced them on primary schools.The same unit at the Department for Education which devised the strategy now wants teachers to go back to the "standard written method" it abolished.
The decision has prompted a backlash from some primary teachers and maths advisers who say children are better able to understand the concept of arithmetic when they break sums down into a series of units.
They say the "back to basics" approach heralds a return to the "dark ages" of adding up, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in vertical rows without understanding what they are doing.
But evidence has shown that many pupils are arriving at secondary school unable to do long division and multiplication and reliant on columns of workings out which take longer and are more prone to errors along the way.[...]
The decision to return to the old methods will come as a relief to many parents.
Christine Turno says she dreads the twice-weekly homework with her nine-year-old daughter.
"She goes ballistic," she said. "We have massive rows because she says I'm doing it wrong and she has to do it the way the school says. But she can't understand what they want and it's a complete mystery to me."
A 20-minute homework session turns into an hour.
Mrs Turno, of west London, said: "The teachers say it is the new way and if the answer is wrong it doesn't matter as long as she is using the right method. It's quite bizarre."
It must take years of postgraduate studies in education before one sees that wrong answers in math are preferable to right ones provided the students “understand what they are doing.” More.
Posted by Peter Burnet at May 27, 2006 5:02 AMEvery engineer I have talked to about this subject concludes that learning the mechanics of math, especially higher math, usually precedes the understanding of it. The understanding comes after wrestling down hundreds (yikes!) of homework problems. My own experience backs this up: first you rotely apply the rules of the operations, then the glimmers of reason set in. Ditto for me teaching my boy learning mult-digit subtraction.
There is no substitute for lots of experience.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at May 27, 2006 7:30 AMIsn't the lesson they're teaching described perfectly by Mrs Turno: the students are being taught that it doesn't matter if you get everything wrong, so long as you follow the directions of the authority.
Posted by: pj at May 27, 2006 8:17 AMpj ... and the lesson is so easily applied to every other aspect of life under socialism. If people can be conned into believing that numbers don't need to add up (except their paychecks, of course), getting people to believe the left's other fantasies is easy.
Posted by: erp at May 27, 2006 8:45 AMMath is a skill, like playing the saxophone. Doing problems is practice. Saying that you should be able to learn math without rote work, is like saying you should be able to learn the saxophone without playing scales.
It is, in fact, the Dolores Umbridge method.
Bob Hawkins is absolutely correct. Unless your last name is Gauss or Von Neumann, you need practice.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at May 27, 2006 9:38 AMThe bigger question is why education pedagogy is full of such arrant nonsense, and I think PJ's & erp's comments are spot-on.
How did we ever get to this point?
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at May 27, 2006 9:45 AMBruce, to begin to understand how we got here, I suggest you read Paul Johnson's The Intellectuals. After your vision clears and you are again fit to be in polite society, you will be able to chart your own course for future readings. The Judd book review section is a good place to get started.
Good luck and fasten your seat belt, you're in for a bumpy ride
Actually, I feel a little schadenfreude seeing all you math and science whizzes tut-tutting here. Where were you when we liberal arts guys were fighting those losing battles against the "new" history that taught the socio-ecomonic causes of the French Revolution without worring about whether you knew who the king was or where Paris is on a a map? Or how about the English curricula that didn't worry about grammar or syntax provided you felt Shakespeare's pain. Serves you boffins right!
I hear biology is next. The new biology will focus on the historical narrative without worrying about whether the kids master the facts. It will be called Darwinism.
Posted by: Peter B at May 27, 2006 8:22 PMWe were using these methods in primary grades in my district. The point seemed to be that there was no one right way to solve a problem--sort of like saying that there is no right way to wear one's baseball cap: backwards or askew is as "good" and "right" as straight and level.
Now the teaching of the various "algorithms" took up a bit of time, distracted the advanced and average students, and made things much worse for the least proficient. These were the very ones who needed to have straightness in their lives. The last thing they needed was to learn the rule that their are no rules.
The above comments are on the right track. Learning is about discipline. Little Grasshopper need to spend some time sweeping the rock garden before he or she plumbs the depths of being and non-being.
Posted by: Lou Gots at May 28, 2006 1:32 AMWe were using these methods in primary grades in my district. The point seemed to have been that there was no one right way to solve a problem--sort of like saying that there is no right way to wear one's baseball cap: backwards or askew is as "good" and "right" as straight and level.
Now the teaching of the various "algorithms" took up a bit of time, distracted the advanced and average students, and made things much worse for the least proficient. These were the very ones who needed to have straightness in their lives. The last thing they needed was to learn the rule that their are no rules.
The above comments are on the right track. Learning is about discipline. Little Grasshopper need to spend some time sweeping the rock garden before he or she plumbs the depths of being and non-being.
Posted by: Lou Gots at May 28, 2006 1:34 AM