Teach the children well: Don't expect them to learn math on their own
Schools have gotten serious about teaching reading, starting with teaching phonics, writes Matthew Yglesias. It's time for a come-to-Jesus moment on teaching math. The first step, he argues is teaching math explicitly.
"Explicitly instructing novices in the basics" is essential, he writes. "You need to master sounding words out before you can analyze literature, and it’s extremely helpful to have your times tables and other basic math facts memorized so that your brain can think about more elevated mathematical questions without constantly tripping over the calculations."
“Teaching things to people” is a cherished human endeavor, he writes. Outside of the modern school, explicit instruction is the dominant way to pass on skills and knowledge.
He took a knife skills class that started with how to chop an onion. Some people might be able to figure out the technique for themselves, he writes, "but the best way to get from zero to vaguely competent is to be taught the proper way to do it and then given the opportunity to practice." Those who enjoy cooking can find it to "be an amazing avenue for self-expression," but that comes later.
Education theorists don't like the idea, writes Yglesias. There's a long tradition that mashes up "romanticism with left-wing politics and sentimentality about the point of school to suggest that there’s some other, secretly better way of teaching things to beginners than just literally teaching them."
Progressive educators look down on "drill and kill" and worry that students who memorize the times table won't develop deeper understanding. Some won't, especially if that's all they do in math class. But innumerate students are guaranteed not to be thinking deeply about math. They're thinking: Where's the calculator? If I scribble something illegible on my white board will the teacher move on to someone else?
Teachers want students to apply math to social problems, but that can't happen if they don't know any. Teachers are told that timed tests of math facts cause anxiety. But the greatest cause of math anxiety is not knowing math.
"Kumon and other successful after-school tutoring organizations always use traditional drill and practice to catch kids up in math," tweets Anna Stokke, a University of Winnipeg math professor who focuses on math education. Public schools "can just keep doing whatever they want, listening to the gurus, and buying their products," even if students aren't learning, she writes. Kumon has to show results or parents won't pay for it.
EDIP: explain, demonstrate, imitate, practice. Memorization and drill work. Competence motivates. Math fluency feels good. Students must be able to move on after they 'get' it, or boredom sets in and kills motivation. Perpetual confusion (i.e., unrelieved "discovery" methods of Math instruction) also kills motivation.
Why do Colleges of Education promote ineffective methods? Probably several explanations, all of which boil down to money.
Bulldoze the buildings and salt the earth where they stood or, better, take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Another popular Romantic notion in ed circles is that, if a practice is time-honored (also known as 'old-fashioned'), it must be bad:
if it comes from the past, it comes from a world in which: women / minorities / the disabled / your favorite oppressed group here were left out of education. So (by association) it must be bad, too!
One might have thought that the modern age allowed for a more universal distribution of the 'goodies' from the educational practices of old. But (apparently) the Progressives have to view anything old with a jaundiced eye. Phonics, math facts, Latin, classic literature, calculus, you name it--they're tainted. Get rid of 'em! Let's think up wholly new--and more creative--ways to teach!