I'm all for exploring new and potentially better ways to teach math.
What pisses me off though is when they get overly caught up in the process that a kid uses to get the right answer. As anyone knows, there are often many ways to correctly do math. Don't tell a kid that HAVE to do it a different way when they've found one that works for them. That just signals to me that the teacher doesn't truly understand what they are teaching and are robotically following some curriculum.
If a kid gets a concept (addition, multiplication, etc), say great and move on. Don't force them to learn five other ways to do the same damn thing.
So the bank teller thing doesn't bother me as much. Whether they count $300 in 20s by going 20, 40, 60 or 1,2,3 as long as I get the right amount.
Id disagree with settling on kids understanding one method. Understanding how the numbers work is also important as being able to solve a specific problem. Really understanding allows the next step of math to be learned.
Both understanding how the numbers work by knowing multiple techniques and speed and accuracy doing the most efficient technique are important.
Though I should add that my opinion is based on tutoring first year university math rather than the needs of the general populace.
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Id disagree with settling on kids understanding one method. Understanding how the numbers work is also important as being able to solve a specific problem. Really understanding allows the next step of math to be learned.
Both understanding how the numbers work by knowing multiple techniques and speed and accuracy doing the most efficient technique are important.
Though I should add that my opinion is based on tutoring first year university math rather than the needs of the general populace.
yeah I think in Grade 2 for example just having kids interested in math and being able to solve problems at all is a win. Don't tell him he's wrong when he solved it his way. I remember getting into an argument with a teacher about "adding up to subtract." I told her naming the concept that way alone creates the confusion and then it compounds once you put it into practice. Why is "borrowing a ten" not the main focus? Sure, we read from left to right, but math, in that way, should be done right to left.
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yeah I think in Grade 2 for example just having kids interested in math and being able to solve problems at all is a win. Don't tell him he's wrong when he solved it his way. I remember getting into an argument with a teacher about "adding up to subtract." I told her naming the concept that way alone creates the confusion and then it compounds once you put it into practice. Why is "borrowing a ten" not the main focus? Sure, we read from left to right, but math, in that way, should be done right to left.
Borrowing a 10 is a mechanical concept that should be learned through practice.
The concept that subtraction is just what plus the number being subtracted = the top number is the basis of algebra. So teaching it as adding up to subtract is fundamentally teaching them what subtraction is.
X+5= 12 or 12-5 or what plus five is 12 or I have 12 apples and girly sports eats five how many apples to I have are all important.
The mechanical aspect of solving the problems is what's i think take home problems are for and those should be free to solve however he wants
So while I agree with you that no one should ever be told they are wrong for doing it a different way saying you're right but did you know you could also do it like this is positive.
Borrowing a 10 is a mechanical concept that should be learned through practice.
The concept that subtraction is just what plus the number being subtracted = the top number is the basis of algebra. So teaching it as adding up to subtract is fundamentally teaching them what subtraction is.
X+5= 12 or 12-5 or what plus five is 12 or I have 12 apples and girly sports eats five how many apples to I have are all important.
The mechanical aspect of solving the problems is what's i think take home problems are for and those should be free to solve however he wants
So while I agree with you that no one should ever be told they are wrong for doing it a different way saying you're right but did you know you could also do it like this is positive.
The take home aspect you mentioned is fine to learn different concepts however the problem that some posters mentioned above was the exam. On the exam what is 12-5 and show your work. The student should not be penalized for answering 7 in a different way. Lets say the provincial exam asks you to convert 30 fractions into decimals in 5 minutes. They would run out of time.
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Public schools have become bastions of mediocrity. Smart kids aren't pushed to excel or even challenged sufficiently. Dumb kids are pushed through despite not understanding things. There's a lack of discipline and parents enable this by treating their children as angels that can do no wrong. Awful teachers can't be fired and instead are shuffled from school to school - principals' hands are tied because they are in the same union.
I give my students every opportunity to do math homework. There's weekly math quizzes on our D2L page, which are marked automatically and give instant feedback, and they can do them as many times as they want for practice. I put up links to math videos on concepts that we're teaching in class. I try to show students more than one way to approach a problem, because there is more than one way to approach a problem and I want them to find a way that works for them.
This week, 31 out of 53 kids opened the math homework once. 5 out of 53 kids opened it twice. 17 kids didn't even open it.
Last week, 34 out of 53 kids opened it once, 4 out of 53 opened it twice. 15 kids didn't open it.
I can give as much homework as I want and try to find ways to motivate and encourage kids to practice in order to get better. At the end of the day, 30% of my class isn't going to do anything once they leave school and there's nothing I can do about it. We occasionally have 20-30 minutes of free time on Fridays that they miss out on, but they don't care because the trade off is that they have as much free time during the week as they want.
As a teacher, you need parents who follow through and support what you're trying to do. Parents are the most important part of a kid's education, not the system, not the school board, and not the teacher.
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Public schools have become bastions of mediocrity. Smart kids aren't pushed to excel or even challenged sufficiently. Dumb kids are pushed through despite not understanding things. There's a lack of discipline and parents enable this by treating their children as angels that can do no wrong. Awful teachers can't be fired and instead are shuffled from school to school - principals' hands are tied because they are in the same union.
Just curious... what school board are your kids enrolled in?
Or does your opinion come from working in education?
My wife has taught high school math in both CBE and CSSD. The curriculum is the same, and when I asked her she said her student populations were roughly the same as well. There were a few years at CSSD where she had a huge population of refugees from South Sudan in one of her classes, many of whom had never attended school before in their lives. I can't imagine anyone starting with a bigger disadvantage than that. She has mostly taught in the NE/very norther part of the SE, so definitely the 'tougher' areas of the city, and believes the student bodies to be comparable. Anecdotally, obviously.
What I don't think is anecdotal is the huge difference in administrative competence between the two boards. Basic HR stuff that took 1 simple email in CSSD take 3 weeks in CBE, along with lots of complicated replies ending in "that's not my job." The administrative overhead is much, much higher, as is the bureaucracy level. At one point, she was required to do a safety risk assessment (in CBE) for taking her kids to the lab. It took 15 minutes that she wasn't prepping to teach, and it turns out that going to the computer lab to use the math software isn't actually that dangerous...
Anyway, I'd be in favour of combining the two boards, if and only if the administration of CSSD is in charge. It sounds like they are objectively more efficient from a dollars point of view as well, which doesn't surprise me at all.
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It's not parent involvement in school life or homework itself that matters, it's the extent to which the family emphasises the importance of education, sets standards and expectations and consistently reinforces that performance in school is important.
That's just one piece of the puzzle for how parents influence the success of their kids in school, but it is a significant one. The article doesn't disconfirm that as it is about parents helping with homework and being part of school activities, which are not equivalent.
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I have been sort of seriously thinking about moving back to Calgary one day so my daughter can experience Canada:
-I don't want her to be a wimp in the cold
-I'd like her to learn about Canadian culture and history
-Some things about Aussie schools just seem odd to me such as school uniforms and high school students not being allowed to leave school grounds for lunch or spare periods.
This settles it though, I want her to be good at math so we are staying in Oz.
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As a teacher, you need parents who follow through and support what you're trying to do. Parents are the most important part of a kid's education, not the system, not the school board, and not the teacher.
