Math and the current state of Education

Recently at my daughter's school they have decided to concentrate on the Accelerated math program every morning as the first part of class.  This allows those students that are picking up the concepts to move along at a quicker pace and those that are having more trouble to deal with those issues and get reinforcement.  There is the same program for reading as well.

One student in the first grade was doing fractions because of this program.  So this is wonderful.   But, after a discussion with a coworker I came to the realization that maybe we don't have a good math tradition in the US.

Recently they had some professors of education from UCI (University of California Irvine) come and relay some information on helping our children to better understand math and achieve better.
What we found from the professor dealing with the lower grades (k-3) is that some concepts like subtract 10 (subtracting from 10 instead of the actual number and adding back in the extra) is taught in almost all the more mathematically advanced countries like Japan, Russia, Korea and even France.   We are still dealing with issues of young children counting on their fingers.  and not so much the alternate ways to get an answer.  My daughter does this all the time.  But, as we help them to think outside the box and/or use alternative method of coming up with the solution they will be more secure in their math skills and be able to tackle harder and harder problems without shutting down.


I believe we don't have a very good math tradition in the USA.  In fact sometimes what is happening with the homework is busy work and/or work that helps you to take a test.  Albeit helpful some of this is not very good in the real world.  There is not enough application of the information learned.  I know this might seem strange to be talking about this for a 1st grader though it would be much more helpful then just doing 50 addition problems in a row.   There does have to be some repetition to help drill things into the psyche.


I wish I could help my daughter to not want to count on her fingers when resolving a math problem.  But, I do see some rays of hope.  Some times she gets out little erasers or other objects to represent the numbers she is dealing with.  Not a bad start to alternate thinking. She is better able to visualize the final number whether it be addition or subtraction.  But, at the same time I see that in simple word problems some things just go right over her head.  She might identify the numbers involved but, has not,  for some unknown reason, figured out whether they are to be subtracted or added together.  She is simply not taking the time to read the problem.

So have we in our new digital, instant access world become lazy?  Have we come to the point that since everything has to be so fast we apply this in our own school work, or lives?  Are we falling back on tricks, short cuts or the like, instead of taking the time to really do the math?


Are we really better off then our Slide rule, punch card, abacus using forebears?

Are we so dependent on a calculator that we can't we handle some simple math  or count out change at the cash register?.

As the professor/researcher gave her presentation she talked about rounding out and the like.  Coping strategies that we may use to get a rough idea what the answer will be.  It hit home as I do that many a time.  I just hope I can impart these and other mathematical strategies onto my daughter so that she is not counting on her finders when she's thirty (don't laugh a teacher supposedly told the professor she was still doing finger counting).

So the challenge is in front of us.  How do we make Math fun, practical and applicable in the lives of our Children so we can have a rising generation with a chance and not just a bunch of burger flippers that can't even make change.  We can import plenty of that if we wanted to!  But this is not the time to discuss legal and illegal immigration.


Please provide any suggestions on how to help our children with their math.

Buaidh - NO - BAS