Neat Article on the BBC: Should All Countries Use the Shanghai Maths Method

[umsami]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38568538

 

Some highlights...five years of focused training on a particular age group and one subject; only two classes per day, rest of time teachers focus on kids who need extra help/lesson planning; short lessons...35 minutes followed by 15 minutes of unstructured play; mastery approach....think Western teachers trying to do too much in early years.

Edited January 23, 2017 by umsami

[RegGuheert]

Here is the corrected URL (trailing "t" removed): Should all countries use the Shanghai maths method?

 

To answer the question in the title of the article:  If all countries had adopted the Singapore approach to math five or ten years ago, then this method would never have likely been learned.  To me it is axiomatic that whatever we believe to be the best way to do something will almost certainly be replace by something better in the future that has not yet been discovered.

 

In addition, often times one single method does not apply to all cultures or to all learning environments or to all student characteristics.