Math has been a constant struggle for millions of students in this country. Some children just don’t test well, while others are naturally better at linguistics, reading and writing. In any case, the number of American children failing math tests has education officials seriously worried.
According to a Nov. 14 article in the New York Times, the reassessment of what should be taught and how has been called to attention by a report in September by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Ironically, it was from this same group, back in 1989, that spawned a new type of teaching that may have unintentionally caused the disastrous decrease in test scores.
The controversial new method, sometimes known as “fuzzy math” allows children to explore their own solutions to problems, write and draw pictures about math and use calculators for problems involving algorithms.
But this fall, the group has yet again changed their minds. Now they want to reinforce a tighter focus on basic math skills and put an end to the “mile wide, inch deep” state standards that force schools to teach many different math topics in each grade.
This radical decrease in math skills has not only been observed by teachers, but many parents are frustrated with the school’s alternative approach to math. According to the article, Shalimar Backman, a concerned mother, started a group called “Where’s the Math?” due to her concern over her son.
“When my oldest child, an A-plus stellar student, was in sixth grade, I realized he had no idea, no idea at all, how to do long division,” Backman said, “so I went to school and talked to the teacher, who said, ‘We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity.'”
Fortunately, we Californians need not fear for our future math-literate children. Our state adopted a reform math in the early ’90s but then rejected it near the end of the decade, a switch that led to rising math achievement. Other states, however, did not fair so well. Washington state, for instance, has had possibly the most math woes of all.
R. James Milgram, a math professor at Stanford University, said it best. “The Seattle level of concern about math may be unusual, but there’s now an enormous amount of discomfort about fuzzy math on the East Coast, in Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and now New Jersey is starting to make noise. There’s increasing understanding that the math situation in the United States is a complete disaster.”
There is most definitely a reason for all the Washington state-based hoopla. In September, a pathetic 51 percent of 10th graders passed the math part of the state assessment test in the state. That is a disturbingly low number and is a display of how badly our children need help.
All of this is hardly brand new information. We have always known that math hasn’t been our strong suit, as nation. But it seems that now, more than ever, is the time for serious change in our schools’ mathematical curriculum.
But is it really fair for parents to blame schools for being “too creative”? How do these parents know that is the sole cause of their child’s mathematical inadequacy? Is changing the system really going to help, or will students become “math haters” and struggle to memorize all the difficult terms and formulas sans some type of creative outlet? In the end, we can only hope that officials will discover a method that clicks in the minds of millions. That way, children will realize that math really isn’t that bad after all.
