Latest Op-Ed in the Vancouver Sun: Curriculum changes do nothing to improve math education
As we prepare to send
our kids back to school, some of the items you won’t have to buy are pencils
and a workbook for their math class. But
you will need to purchase a calculator for your child entering
Kindergarten. Under the new math
curriculum, technology is the shiny new bauble that five and six year olds will
be mandated to use on a regular basis, rendering cognitive and fine motor
skills to the dustbin.
Curricular reform has
come to British Columbia…again. Some of
these changes at the elementary level include an “Elaborations” column to help
guide teachers with their students. In
Grade 3 and 4, the new BC ED Curriculum states, “Memorization of facts is not
intended for this level” and also, “Students will become more fluent with these
facts.” but then states, “Students should be able to recall the following
multiplication facts…” If someone can please explain how children are supposed
to recall their number facts fluently without actually memorizing or practicing
them, I’d sure like to hear from you. The
number line barely gets a nod - delaying the introduction of positive and
negative integers until much later; long division isn’t even worthy of a
mention.
Another change delays
the adding and subtracting of fractions until Grade 8, but also expects students
to be fully prepared for Algebra at the same time. How is it possible for anyone to solve
quadratic equations if they haven’t even added 1/3+1/2 yet?
These changes and more
have been brought to you by the “experts” at the Ministry of Education. They,
along with various other committees, are all vying for their shot of glory in
the latest and greatest creation meant to prepare our children for jobs that haven’t
even been invented yet. Memorization of
math facts and daily practice are irrelevant and have no place in today’s
classroom. The British Columbia Association
of Math Teachers (BCAMT) is embracing consultants and educational “experts”
mantra, setting the path for tomorrow’s mathematicians. Some of these pseudo-scientific claims suggest
that timed tests create harm and anxiety for our kids, so get rid of them. Also that mistakes make the brain grow…literally
(not to be mistaken for how we can learn by our mistakes). These claims have been embraced by many as
gospel. They carry on promoting rhetoric
and edufads, experimenting with strategies that have already failed entire
generations of students. Books being
sold by the cartload, and workshops advertised at $179/ticket are the latest “must
have “ items. And don’t forget the all-important
technology that our education leaders are keen to purchase at the cost of
millions of taxpayer dollars. A recent world
study has already determined that those nations which have a higher percentage
of technology in the classroom, actually perform much worse than those
countries that don’t http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34174796.
Despite claims that
teachers are free to use whatever methods they want, many have been reprimanded
for using the successful resource JUMP Math. JUMP is a 100% Canadian owned charity, and its
founder, John Mighton, is a mathematician and a playwright from Toronto. JUMP is promoted by teachers because they
know it works, and approximately 10% of British Columbia students already use
it. Despite its proven success, many Districts do not allow JUMP in their
schools, and the Ministry will not list JUMP as an approved resource for all
students (it is currently listed only to be used with kids who require
additional support).
And then we have our
new and improved graduation requirements.
The BCTF proposed that provincial exams should no longer be mandatory to
keep more kids from dropping out of high school https://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Publications/Briefs/BCTF%20Updated%20Graduation%20Requirements%20Review%20-%20March%202016.pdf . The Ministry agreed and went one step further: mandating
that letter grades would be optional until high school.
Given these latest
reforms, I fail to see how this will render BC students as “world class”. I would like to believe that those in charge
know what they’re doing. However I have
yet to hear which nations have benefitted from getting rid of all measurable
standards and where they’ve had success by completely reinventing the
educational wheel. Indeed, those students that continue to enrol
in Kumon may have a shot, but for all the others, I fear the two tier system in
BCEd, will grow even larger.
Tara Houle is a parent advocate who lives in
North Saanich and founder of WISE Math BC.
As a high school (senior grades) math teacher, in an independent school, I agree with your stance on calculators in younger grades. To address your point about the apparent contradiction in the new curriculum, memorization is knowing specific facts, whereas recall would be the ability to determine the result, using known procedures, all in your head without external help, for example, from a calculator. I may not have memorized 385+294, but I can quickly tell you, by recalling number facts (and not using columnar addition), that the answer is 679. The current problem, of which you are most likely aware, is that students, even in high school, have trouble adding two- or even one-digit numbers in their head without a calculator. Memorization is not the solution, as it limits you to only what you have memorized, but a true understanding of what is happening in the act of, say, addition. Even columnar addition, taught as a series of steps, is not a good method of education because it doesn't encourage an understanding of the basics of our base 10 number system or of how addition works within it.
ReplyDeleteWhile I also agree with you that learning fraction operations in grade 8 is too late, it IS possible to do solve quadratic equations without fractions. First of all, quadratic functions and equations are not introduced until Grade 10, but secondly, they could solve quadratic equations with integral solutions. Algebra and Fractions as concepts are very separate. You can know and learn all about algebra without ever touching a fraction. The introduction of fractions into algebra has no effect on the understanding of the concepts, nor on the actual processes or operations, so your argument here does not hold much weight (remember, though, that I agree with you).
The one potential benefit to pushing fraction operations to Grade 8 is that high schools (and, I believe, middle schools by Grade 8) have specialist teachers who are fully trained to teach math. And since they are teaching mostly math classes, one could assume they enjoy it. This is important for two reasons: firstly, I think that most elementary teachers do not understand math well enough to be teaching it - they need training in how to teach the "why" of math to young kids instead of just the "how" (or in the case of discovery-based, letting them try to figure out both); secondly, as a high school senior math teacher, I see many students who have major anxiety about working with fractions and will avoid them at all costs, even though the reality is that fractions make the math much easier. If the teachers who are teaching these students fractions love math and are trained to teach math, then there's a chance that students will understand it better. At least, this is what I'm hoping.
It took me a while to get to this point, I have come to agree with not having letter grades until high school, as long as the replacement is sufficient. The downside to a letter grade/percent system is two-fold. Firstly, it is an averaging which is not representative of actual knowledge. If a student has 75%, does that mean they have 75% mastery in all topics, or 100% mastery in half and 50% master in the other half? Secondly, it leads to unfair comparisons. Do two students with 75% have the same level of understanding of all the material? Are they equal? Maybe one has 90% mastery in 3/4 of the course, but only 30% mastery in 1/4 of the course? By moving away from letter grades/percentages, IF the teachers and schools put in the effort, I think that a series of skills-based scales would be great as it would help students and future teachers see exactly where they succeeded or failed. Anecdotal reports could also achieve this.
ReplyDeleteHaving seen the product of Kumon in the later high school years, I can say that they're not necessarily better off in the long run. Students who attend programs like Kumon often learn a process for solving a particular type of problem, but do not learn the reasons why that process works. IF you tell them that a problem is of that particular type, they can solve it, but they struggle with determining if the process is appropriate for a problem, or adapting the process for a similar (only slightly different) problem, or solving a completely new kind of problem which is rooted in the same curricular content.