Gene Makowsky is in charge of the review. That is awesome (and this coming from a Bombers fan). Let these pantywaists answer to a 300 lb. former offensive lineman. Superb.
Can’t think of anyone more qualified than Russ Marchuk to be a part of this inquiry. Also: CBC used to insist that its staff be literate: “i before e except after c”, CBC writers.
Nice. Foundational skills are foundational…good to hear the approval for those involved with the review, a process to keep an eye on…
I’d like to see some requirements for math teachers. In order to teach math, they should have, at some stage of their lives, been required to use math skills to perform a paying task. Nothing sharpens your skills like the spectre of getting your ass fired for not solving a problem. The auto-response of blaming “new math” is getting a bit tiring. New math is 40 years old, and only affects middle school students. One thing I’ll say in defense of “new math”, you CAN count your chickens before they hatch.
The basic problem with “discovery-based” teaching is that it takes a long time.
Our present system of arithmetic has been discovered and refined over centuries.
To discover it from scratch will take, oh, perhaps 5,000 years.
To rediscover physics requires perhaps 3,000 years.
And to what end? To what benefit?
John Lewis 8:04pm – The basic problem with “discovery-based” teaching is that it takes a long time.
You’re right about that. And most often, discovery “learning” never happens. Discoveries have been made by people who had aptitude and perseverance. They also built on what others had discovered before them. It hardly seems fair to handicap the average student by insisting they discover it all for themselves. There is nothing more frustrating for any student, but particularly the weak student, to be required to gnaw away at a problem when he lacks the basic skills to do so.
I’ve observed that understanding more often results from clear explanations and repetitive work. Once you’re comfortable with the basics, you have a stash of information, skills and strategies that you can use. Without those, you can churn around pointlessly for a long time and often you still don’t discover much of anything. And the few insights you might achieve (sometimes by accident) never fit into a cohesive, logical structure.
If you want to see the fabulous math skills of todays students just observe a cashier at any retail outlet. There is no basic understanding of thier task. They scan in a product and the price is displayed. They are then handed money by the customer and they enter the amount and the computer tells them how much change to give back. However, is the sale is for 9.50 and you give them a $10 bill and they accidentally ring it up as $100 chances are VERY good you will get 90.50 back because they can’t even approximate in their head what is going on.
I’m sure when many of them go grocery shopping they have NO IDEA whatsover how much thier basket of goodies will cost. It could be $40 or $200.
Bu then on the other hand they do know why Johnny has two mothers.
This is a very good and timely response by the provincial government.
Good on you, Mr. Wall.
BTW – Ms Kate – should you not at least share some of the glory with Gormley?
It must be bad – – – even professors were against it. In that case I wonder, who supported it, and how did it become part of the curriculum?
Nothing will improve until the teachers union is broken, and the faculties of education are wrested from their control.
Takes a lifetime to MASTER discovery learning.
That’s why we have NO respect for a JUNIOR with all the goddamn degrees….they KNOW phuk all.
You can show your support for the WISE Math initiative by going here to sign their petition.
Horny Toad
I know of what you speak…..that is why what the screen as my purchases are scanned, and I take the time to read the register tape…..to the irritation of the fool following me….who gets very irrate when I slow things down even more by disputing an obvious error.
I do however inconvenience no-one if I detect the error is in my favour….just being polite y’know.
It all goes back to the American panic about Sputnik when a bunch of supposedly
brilliant math educators seized power and pushed through their ridiculous concepts.
Nothing has been done since to really get things properly back on track and make
teachers sweat. The indoctrination model has been a huge success for spreading
environmental ignorance, feel goodism, and sanctimonious superiority.
“I’ve observed that understanding more often results from clear explanations and repetitive work”. Exactly. The smart set in our provincial education departments, with their advanced degrees in “Learning Concepts”, have declared war on rote learning. Without a grounding in the basics of math and knowing by rote how numbers multiply, understanding is impossible.
Mathematics educators (and those in other disciplines) have tried to make the reasonable case that students should understand what they’re doing and the thinking involved in the discipline. Achieving this goal does take longer than simply requiring the memorization of algorithms, but it does have the advantage of helping students understand that mathematics is rooted in logic, not magic. If your only goal is to have graduates who know how to make change, twelve years of public education is a wasteful expense.
That said, in practice we have not done a very good job of helping students understand mathematical thinking, in part because the majority of mathematics teachers don’t understand it either. And this complaint can be repeated across the curriculum; thinking in a disciplined way (and in ways particular to various disciplines) is just not being taught. And if the hiring practices of school boards across the country are like those in the Maritimes (and I suspect that they are), the new teachers hired will be no more able to do that than those they are replacing.
The main reason for replacing our current system with a voucher supported mix of public, private, and cooperative educational institutions is to allow some space for real *education* to take place. It will also allow those who are happy with simple rote learning to support schools which provide it for their children, and those who want their children to spend their days “celebrating diversity” and writing letters to Amnesty International can direct their vouchers toward their local public school.
“Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a thousand schools of thought contend.”
Horny Toad @ 8:49, exactly.
@Roseberry 9:09 AM A contrarian view on vouchers:
“But let’s assume that conservatives are right. Let’s assume that vouchers improve the public-school system. What would happen then? Unfortunately, government involvement in education would become more entrenched than ever. After all, there would be an entirely new group of opponents to educational freedom — private schools! Can you imagine a private school that is dependent on vouchers calling for the end of vouchers? When was the last time you saw farmers on subsidies calling for the end of their welfare?
“Thus, once private schools go on the new voucher dole, an entirely new welfare class will come into existence that will be extremely difficult to rid ourselves of. Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton might be lobbying for the continuation of their welfare programs. But who can doubt that conservatives would be standing next to them lobbying for theirs?”
Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation http://www.fff.org/freedom/0998a.asp
I altogether concur with rita and John Lewis. About discovery learning, here’s an excerpt from an earlier, longer post of mine: ‘I was once subbing in a grade 6 class in a “platinum” school. I assigned a page of perimeter and area questions. The results were abysmal. With the students’ input and mine—how about using labelled diagrams and formulas [and specific math vocabulary]?—we redid the assignment. I put on chart paper our consensus for top level answers. Then I required the students to copy the high level answers from the chart. Rebellion on the part of some snippy upstarts: “Our teacher doesn’t make us use diagrams and a formula!” Me: “Neither would I, if your answers without them had been correct by whatever method you both used and could show me.” Their teacher had ill served them—but that’s what the system wants—by letting them “discover” learn: did these students effectively “reinvent the wheel”? They did not, and their attempts to calculate area and perimeter were atrociously substandard.’
Am I confident that the system will make the right decisions about what’s to be done? Unfortunately, no. After 40 years in the classroom, I’ve only seen the powers that be do things that are, as Alice would say, “curiouser and curiouser”. Forrest Gump got it about right: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Now, IF the ministries of education happened to consult REAL teachers, who’ve had success teaching math, rather than the standard, progressive lap dogs in teachers’ colleges and at the boards, we might really get somewhere. If not, it’ll be “the same old, same old” blather. No one would be more delighted than I would, if my prediction is proven wrong this time. One can always hope for positive change . . .
Roseberry 9:09 (Mathematics educators (and those in other disciplines) have tried to make the reasonable case that students should understand what they’re doing and the thinking involved in the discipline.)
I agree that it’s reasonable and desirable that students should understand rather than blindly apply rules. A good example is: invert and multiply when you divide fractions. It works, but why? Yet when you’re struggling to figure out some calculation involving fractions, that rule, firmly lodged in your head, will carry you through.
Discovery methods do take longer but that’s not their main disadvantage. If the process led to better understanding, it would be worth the investment of time. But when taught by someone who is not particularly skilled, the result is a mish-mash of poorly understood concepts that never assemble into anything that makes sense. To completely abandon rote learning and drill in order to achieve this “higher” understanding, leaves students adrift.
Teachers need more than just knowing their subject matter. They need to know how students think and learn, and how best to present the material to help them do that. You can’t skimp on the basics and force students to attempt reasoning skills for which they don’t have the background or the training. A lot of the discovery teaching is a mistaken attempt to force higher reasoning on students who are not adequately prepared, by teachers who are not adequately prepared.
Fair points, Rita@ 11:53. I want parents to have at least a chance at schools where there are teachers who know their subjects and know something about the students they teach. I despair of finding that in the current public education industry.
Rizwan@10:35 seems to think that vouchers would create a new class of lobbyists seeking to continue their public subsidy. This seems to imply that he/she wishes that the community contributed nothing to the schooling of children. It sounds like a radical libertarian view that people who *choose* to have children have only themselves to blame and should bear the full cost of those children’s education.
I think that most people accept that the community has some responsibility to support the education of its future generations; it’s just not at all clear that the state should run the schools.
It’s about time. Students’ math skills have been regressing for decades.
I guess we can’t post images directly here…
THIS has a lot to do with it … ☺ …
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/2/d/8/63987/schoolgrades-0.jpg
Gene Makowsky is in charge of the review. That is awesome (and this coming from a Bombers fan). Let these pantywaists answer to a 300 lb. former offensive lineman. Superb.
Can’t think of anyone more qualified than Russ Marchuk to be a part of this inquiry. Also: CBC used to insist that its staff be literate: “i before e except after c”, CBC writers.
Nice. Foundational skills are foundational…good to hear the approval for those involved with the review, a process to keep an eye on…
I’d like to see some requirements for math teachers. In order to teach math, they should have, at some stage of their lives, been required to use math skills to perform a paying task. Nothing sharpens your skills like the spectre of getting your ass fired for not solving a problem. The auto-response of blaming “new math” is getting a bit tiring. New math is 40 years old, and only affects middle school students. One thing I’ll say in defense of “new math”, you CAN count your chickens before they hatch.
The basic problem with “discovery-based” teaching is that it takes a long time.
Our present system of arithmetic has been discovered and refined over centuries.
To discover it from scratch will take, oh, perhaps 5,000 years.
To rediscover physics requires perhaps 3,000 years.
And to what end? To what benefit?
John Lewis 8:04pm – The basic problem with “discovery-based” teaching is that it takes a long time.
You’re right about that. And most often, discovery “learning” never happens. Discoveries have been made by people who had aptitude and perseverance. They also built on what others had discovered before them. It hardly seems fair to handicap the average student by insisting they discover it all for themselves. There is nothing more frustrating for any student, but particularly the weak student, to be required to gnaw away at a problem when he lacks the basic skills to do so.
I’ve observed that understanding more often results from clear explanations and repetitive work. Once you’re comfortable with the basics, you have a stash of information, skills and strategies that you can use. Without those, you can churn around pointlessly for a long time and often you still don’t discover much of anything. And the few insights you might achieve (sometimes by accident) never fit into a cohesive, logical structure.
If you want to see the fabulous math skills of todays students just observe a cashier at any retail outlet. There is no basic understanding of thier task. They scan in a product and the price is displayed. They are then handed money by the customer and they enter the amount and the computer tells them how much change to give back. However, is the sale is for 9.50 and you give them a $10 bill and they accidentally ring it up as $100 chances are VERY good you will get 90.50 back because they can’t even approximate in their head what is going on.
I’m sure when many of them go grocery shopping they have NO IDEA whatsover how much thier basket of goodies will cost. It could be $40 or $200.
Bu then on the other hand they do know why Johnny has two mothers.
This is a very good and timely response by the provincial government.
Good on you, Mr. Wall.
BTW – Ms Kate – should you not at least share some of the glory with Gormley?
It must be bad – – – even professors were against it. In that case I wonder, who supported it, and how did it become part of the curriculum?
Nothing will improve until the teachers union is broken, and the faculties of education are wrested from their control.
Takes a lifetime to MASTER discovery learning.
That’s why we have NO respect for a JUNIOR with all the goddamn degrees….they KNOW phuk all.
You can show your support for the WISE Math initiative by going here to sign their petition.
Horny Toad
I know of what you speak…..that is why what the screen as my purchases are scanned, and I take the time to read the register tape…..to the irritation of the fool following me….who gets very irrate when I slow things down even more by disputing an obvious error.
I do however inconvenience no-one if I detect the error is in my favour….just being polite y’know.
It all goes back to the American panic about Sputnik when a bunch of supposedly
brilliant math educators seized power and pushed through their ridiculous concepts.
Nothing has been done since to really get things properly back on track and make
teachers sweat. The indoctrination model has been a huge success for spreading
environmental ignorance, feel goodism, and sanctimonious superiority.
“I’ve observed that understanding more often results from clear explanations and repetitive work”. Exactly. The smart set in our provincial education departments, with their advanced degrees in “Learning Concepts”, have declared war on rote learning. Without a grounding in the basics of math and knowing by rote how numbers multiply, understanding is impossible.
Mathematics educators (and those in other disciplines) have tried to make the reasonable case that students should understand what they’re doing and the thinking involved in the discipline. Achieving this goal does take longer than simply requiring the memorization of algorithms, but it does have the advantage of helping students understand that mathematics is rooted in logic, not magic. If your only goal is to have graduates who know how to make change, twelve years of public education is a wasteful expense.
That said, in practice we have not done a very good job of helping students understand mathematical thinking, in part because the majority of mathematics teachers don’t understand it either. And this complaint can be repeated across the curriculum; thinking in a disciplined way (and in ways particular to various disciplines) is just not being taught. And if the hiring practices of school boards across the country are like those in the Maritimes (and I suspect that they are), the new teachers hired will be no more able to do that than those they are replacing.
The main reason for replacing our current system with a voucher supported mix of public, private, and cooperative educational institutions is to allow some space for real *education* to take place. It will also allow those who are happy with simple rote learning to support schools which provide it for their children, and those who want their children to spend their days “celebrating diversity” and writing letters to Amnesty International can direct their vouchers toward their local public school.
“Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a thousand schools of thought contend.”
Horny Toad @ 8:49, exactly.
@Roseberry 9:09 AM
A contrarian view on vouchers:
“But let’s assume that conservatives are right. Let’s assume that vouchers improve the public-school system. What would happen then? Unfortunately, government involvement in education would become more entrenched than ever. After all, there would be an entirely new group of opponents to educational freedom — private schools! Can you imagine a private school that is dependent on vouchers calling for the end of vouchers? When was the last time you saw farmers on subsidies calling for the end of their welfare?
“Thus, once private schools go on the new voucher dole, an entirely new welfare class will come into existence that will be extremely difficult to rid ourselves of. Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton might be lobbying for the continuation of their welfare programs. But who can doubt that conservatives would be standing next to them lobbying for theirs?”
Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0998a.asp
I altogether concur with rita and John Lewis. About discovery learning, here’s an excerpt from an earlier, longer post of mine: ‘I was once subbing in a grade 6 class in a “platinum” school. I assigned a page of perimeter and area questions. The results were abysmal. With the students’ input and mine—how about using labelled diagrams and formulas [and specific math vocabulary]?—we redid the assignment. I put on chart paper our consensus for top level answers. Then I required the students to copy the high level answers from the chart. Rebellion on the part of some snippy upstarts: “Our teacher doesn’t make us use diagrams and a formula!” Me: “Neither would I, if your answers without them had been correct by whatever method you both used and could show me.” Their teacher had ill served them—but that’s what the system wants—by letting them “discover” learn: did these students effectively “reinvent the wheel”? They did not, and their attempts to calculate area and perimeter were atrociously substandard.’
Am I confident that the system will make the right decisions about what’s to be done? Unfortunately, no. After 40 years in the classroom, I’ve only seen the powers that be do things that are, as Alice would say, “curiouser and curiouser”. Forrest Gump got it about right: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Now, IF the ministries of education happened to consult REAL teachers, who’ve had success teaching math, rather than the standard, progressive lap dogs in teachers’ colleges and at the boards, we might really get somewhere. If not, it’ll be “the same old, same old” blather. No one would be more delighted than I would, if my prediction is proven wrong this time. One can always hope for positive change . . .
Roseberry 9:09 (Mathematics educators (and those in other disciplines) have tried to make the reasonable case that students should understand what they’re doing and the thinking involved in the discipline.)
I agree that it’s reasonable and desirable that students should understand rather than blindly apply rules. A good example is: invert and multiply when you divide fractions. It works, but why? Yet when you’re struggling to figure out some calculation involving fractions, that rule, firmly lodged in your head, will carry you through.
Discovery methods do take longer but that’s not their main disadvantage. If the process led to better understanding, it would be worth the investment of time. But when taught by someone who is not particularly skilled, the result is a mish-mash of poorly understood concepts that never assemble into anything that makes sense. To completely abandon rote learning and drill in order to achieve this “higher” understanding, leaves students adrift.
Teachers need more than just knowing their subject matter. They need to know how students think and learn, and how best to present the material to help them do that. You can’t skimp on the basics and force students to attempt reasoning skills for which they don’t have the background or the training. A lot of the discovery teaching is a mistaken attempt to force higher reasoning on students who are not adequately prepared, by teachers who are not adequately prepared.
Fair points, Rita@ 11:53. I want parents to have at least a chance at schools where there are teachers who know their subjects and know something about the students they teach. I despair of finding that in the current public education industry.
Rizwan@10:35 seems to think that vouchers would create a new class of lobbyists seeking to continue their public subsidy. This seems to imply that he/she wishes that the community contributed nothing to the schooling of children. It sounds like a radical libertarian view that people who *choose* to have children have only themselves to blame and should bear the full cost of those children’s education.
I think that most people accept that the community has some responsibility to support the education of its future generations; it’s just not at all clear that the state should run the schools.