My child has been struggling with math since last year. We’ve been working with him to understand concepts and he’s been doing extra math homework. But I’m wondering if he’s having difficulty because of the current curriculum and teaching methods.
I find myself sometimes baffled at the math material sent home from school.
Often I’ve found myself re-reading homework instructions, trying to comprehend the new methods in teaching and learning math. I mean, if I can’t understand it, how the heck is my kid going to understand it? Now I’m not saying that I’m smarter than a 5th grader but everything looks Russian to me… I’m Greek so the saying doesn’t work well here!
When we were in school, we had to memorize the timetables, formulas – I don’t remember being allowed to use a calculator. So when I started reading more about a parent-led movement to go back to the basics, I was intrigued.
Creative-math, Common Core or Discovery Math – depending on where you live – is an approach to learning where students use physical materials and actions in learning math. The idea is that having children work through math questions in detail will help them understand math better. Students are prompted to solve equations in their heads rather than memorizing or using a formula.
Have you seen something like this?
So imagine drawing pictures of 7 x 8 to show the answer rather than memorizing your timetables. Discovery learning seems to be far more time-consuming to deconstruct every problem than to use a simple algorithm to solve it.
Seems like very complicated work to get to the same answer, no?
It’s great that schools today focus on discovery learning and media literacy – but I need my kids to be taught the basics in math and spelling. Timetables, formulas, grammar – these are the foundations our kids need to move forward in learning. Kids need the foundation before they can continue to learn and thrive.
In order to write, you need to know your alphabet, read words, expand your vocabulary and master grammar. I was shocked when cursive writing is no longer taught in school too! And the basic principals of math – in order to solve math problems – the foundations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division have to be there, including memorizing timetables.
Children spend a ridiculous amount of time using strategies and drawing out how they would solve problems with pictures and x’s and charts. I don’t understand why memorizing basic principles became such a bad teaching method for kids.
This movement is growing in strength – enough that there are petitions by parents to bring back the basics in math and the pressure is working. Manitoba is the first province to revise math curriculum after pressure from parents and math professors. Students in kindergarten to Grade 8 are now taught all four standard methods for arithmetic – addition with a carry, subtraction with a borrow, long multiplication and long division.
Alberta has also caved to pressure from parents for curriculum changes – students will now have to memorize their multiplication tables. In the United States, Indiana became the first state to formally withdraw from the Common Core education standards.
What about Ontario, where I live? Ontario is reviewing its math curriculum. Although there isn’t a plan to make changes, Ontario’s Education Minister, Liz Sandals, recently said: “We expect kids to know their basic math facts,” she said. “That’s actually a great homework assignment: Learn your multiplication tables.”
Students should be able to recall basic math facts from memorization which in turn will help develop other skills like problem solving.
This photo went viral last week on Facebook, written by a father frustrated by Common Core.
The days leading up to my son’s recent math test, we had him memorize the timetables and recite them over and over again. Repetition. Practice. Memorization.
Here are his results.
This is the first time he’s received an A in math in the last two years – cause for celebration? Or proof that we need to go back to the basics?
What do you think?