You all will love this

[Scarlett]

While I was at the pool waiting for ds8 to finish up his swimming today, I started chatting with 2 other moms. One is a 3rd grade public school teacher, the other has kids in private school. So it was a nice chat about different options and every one is being respectful of every one else.

 

We begin to talk (mainly the teacher and I) about how difficult it is to teach to 24 kids with the same material when they all have different abilities and speed of learning. At some point in there she begins to talk about teaching subtraction and borrowing and she says, 'oh, the borrowing! They don't really need to understand why. I just tell them to mark out the number and change it and go on. The plans have all this stuff to pull out and go step by step through stuff that even *I* can't understand!'

 

:eek: I could. not. believe it. About then my mom, former teacher and math instructor supreme walks up and I was saved from any more discussion about how to teach 3rd grade place value with um a 3rd teacher.

[NorCalMom]

:001_huh:Wow...unbelievable! Just another reminder why I choose to hs.

[hisleading]

hilarious

[MamaReese]

That is just crazy.

[GreenKitty]

Funny.

[OhM]

(Note it was published in 1999, not that teaching elementary math concepts could have changed much in the last 10 years, or 20+ years for that matter)

 

And not that some of the algorithms haven't been around for hundreds of years!

 

One of the first classes I took when I was thinking of getting my teaching certification was Math for Middle School Teachers. (Never mind that I had taken 8 quarters of math in the course of my engineering degree - I hadn't taken the middle school math course!) In it we learned to deconstruct the algorithms and explain why they worked (so the class was actually useful - and fun!) But I was amazed at how many teachers in this class had saved it until last - they were just hoping to scrape a passing grade so that they could get the diploma and get into the classroom. A majority (I'd say 75-80%) truly did not understand most of the concepts. And I really felt it was because they told themselves they can't do math, and don't get math, and couldn't understand it! And they'll be communicating that fear and ambivalence to their students!

[Jean in Newcastle]

In it we learned to deconstruct the algorithms and explain why they worked (so the class was actually useful - and fun!) . . . A majority (I'd say 75-80%) truly did not understand most of the concepts. And I really felt it was because they told themselves they can't do math, and don't get math, and couldn't understand it! And they'll be communicating that fear and ambivalence to their students!

 

I was one of the students in a class like this but it was "Math for Elementary Teachers". I was scared of taking it because all my life I had been told that I couldn't do math. I was so pleased when I discovered that when someone actually explained the algorithms that I could do math! Math is one of the things I most love to teach now. I was one of those kids who always wanted to know "why" - "why do you add from right to left and not left to right", etc. But my teachers must not of known because I was always given a polite variant of "Shut up and just do it!" I feel so sad when I see other teachers giving kids the same kind of math education that I got.

[Perry]

While I definitely think they need to be explaining place value, I will have to say that many of the newer fuzzy math curricula have extremely confusing and convoluted explanations. I am pretty math educated and while I can figure out what the TG's are trying to say, often they aren't doing a very good job of it.

[PrairieAir]

I can almost see where she's coming from. Some math texts (yes, even elementary) are confusing as all heck. They want the kids to go through some crazy steps to get answers which they could get quite simply. It's not the way I learned math. It's not the way my kids learned it. It is out there, though, and it is a little scary.

 

I'll also say that not all those who are good at math can teach it. I was always a pretty good math student until high school. None of the math teachers I had could explain algebra and geometry in a way that made sense to me. My mom even tried to hire a tutor. The only time I fully grasped any of the concepts was when we had one particular sub. She usually taught English and she had to work to understand so that she could explain it to me. Also, after going through some algebra with my kids and reading the Saxon textbooks carefully, I can now understand more algebra than I ever did as a student taking algebra. That's a little harder for me to see with 3rd grade math, though.:001_huh: I would think that maybe she just isn't a very good teacher or maybe even as a young child math was so incredibly easy for her that she never thought about how she was doing it or why she did it that way.

[A.J. at J.A.]

They don't really need to understand why. I just tell them to mark out the number and change it and go on.

 

Oh my! That is SOOO SAD!

[summer]

That was one of our issues in homeschooling. Our family is all math and science types, and elementary teachers do not have to have a level of proficiency in math, and I am thinking I do not want someone who struggled through Algebra themselves and think math is hard trying to teach math to my own children. It gets better at the sec ed level where the math teachers have to have more credits in math and pass a test in it, but even then, sometimes, you get teachers who are overwhelmed with 6 classes of 30 kids a day passing through there so they just teach the minimum they need to teach to get the children to pass the test and do not concern themselves if they taught any level of understanding. Sort of like memorizing a bunch of dates in history, but having no clue what those things in history mean or were. I would rather my child knew what the Civil War was about and things that went on, than just memorized the dates. Same basic concept.