Another you can't make this stuff up garbage.
CMS quizzed about its diversity
Questions raised about teachers, administrative staff
03/24/2015 2:43 PM
Speaking at the weekly Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum in west Charlotte, Superintendent Ann Clark and Rakeda Leaks, sourcing and onboarding executive director, said the district has set ambitious goals to bring in more black and Hispanic teachers over the next three years.
Clark also said she will hold her executive staff accountable for meeting those goals. More.... http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article16186439.html#/tabPane=tabs-b0710947-1-1
This one is almost too dumb to believe. It's hard enough to find good teachers nowadays without forcing yourself to avoid teachers who are white females.
ReplyDeleteReally, really, really stupid.
People who think corporations are the biggest threat to public schools just haven't looked at what the social service mentality is doing to them.
Everything they do now seems designed to destroy actual education in the public schools in favor of social services.
It's no wonder that people who don't need those "services" are leaving in droves.
And the educrats apparently just do not see this.
I have been missing the CO blog very much and glad to see some down to earth comments again. I actually am speaking up with regards to the diversity issue CMS seems to be raising. It really disturbs me. Why can't they just look for the best candidate? I get it if they normally haven't held job fairs at the historically black colleges (which a label like "historically black" in itself is disturbing), or taking their job fairs to other places with the ultimate goal of finding the best candidate. This article and CMS diversity announcement is one of the most disturbing things I have read in a long time (other than the usual crimes against children).
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with you Wiley, Asian (or Western Asians) are some of the best students in CMS, where is the diversity in no teachers from that culture? My son's pre-school teacher is from India and she is one of the most caring, intellectual stimulating, funny and kind teachers a 4 y/o could have and she doesn't use Ebonics (not even the word "nasty" or "ain't got"). CMS better be careful with what they wish for, or they might have some white kids thinking "that's nasty" or "I aint got no money for that" is how you talk in an interview.
Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteSpread the word!
The only rule I have in place here is listed on the right side of the blog home page, which is a very liberal rule, so someone really has to get personal or nasty for me to kick the comment.
I did leave out there will be no posting of ads for teachers attending truck driving school as was the case on the Observer blog...LOL
Aw heck, that means I don't get to post lyrics from Ricky Nelson's Garden Party.
DeleteBut if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFugRFKqjFg
"Speaking at the weekly Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum in west Charlotte, Superintendent Ann Clark and Rakeda Leaks, sourcing and onboarding executive director, said the district has set ambitious goals to bring in more black and Hispanic teachers over the next three years".
ReplyDeleteWell, good luck with that!
Can anyone say "Johnson C. Smith's defunct Education Department"? And dare I mention the unmentionable? The achievement gap that exists in passing state teacher exams which NC recently made more difficult as we strive to be come Massachusetts (despite MA having one of the highest teacher salaries in the country and NC one of the lowest)?
And what is CMS going to do when black and hispanic teachers have no more success raising test scores than white teachers?
Alicia
I had a conversation this morning with a black 4th grade teacher who is struggling with Singapore math as much as I am. Her students are all white (rural). Perhaps she'd be more successful teaching urban black kids?
ReplyDeleteAlicia
I wouldn't mind an English teacher clarifying when black, white and Hispanic are and aren't capitalized. The "Courageous Conversation" dude (whose "conversations" apparently didn't apply to Heath) capitalizes White and Black.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I used the work "black" in my classroom (without differentiating between upper and lower case letters) related to a topic in Social Studies, my 10-year-old rural white students called me out for being a racist. My students believe using the word "black - or Black" is racist. Because I work at a school that grants a fair amount of autonomy, I decided this was an opportunity to go off-script and have a courageous conversation on this topic. It was interesting... You'd be amazed at the perspective and insight 10-year-olds have on a lot of things.
Alicia
On a somewhat related topic...
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that the vast majority of today's young women who marry adopt the title "Mrs.".
The title "Ms." was invented in the 1970's to empower women. The funny thing is, the title "Ms." means EXACTLY the same thing today as the title "Miss" did before "The Revolution".
Miss, Mrs., Ms. Alicia
I use upper case when referring to groups; Whites, Blacks, Asians, etc.
ReplyDeleteSo "Black" is now being compared to the much outdated "Negroid" or "Negro" terminology? It was Blacks who preferred the term Black over the other two words baxk in the 60's and is still used today...
I'm White. So what? Or should I be referred to as Caucasian even though it contains "asian" in it?
LOL we can do this all day and it will change nothing.
Bathroom Break:
ReplyDeleteOther than more obvious clues - like having the name La'Tamkika or Juan Alvarez - I suppose adopting ProjectLIFT's hiring practices which include a prerecorded and timed online interview process with a computer screen will come in handy-dandy in terms of accidentally weeding out candidates with names like Gaelic O'Brian who actually might-could-be 2/3 Asian, 1/5 Native American, and 3/4 African-Amish (because 3 out of 2 people have problems with fractions). I now understand why it's important to take a good "look-see" before wasting everyone's time with a face-to-face interview especially in today's school reform climate where a teacher's primary mission is not only to raise standardized test scores but to prepare students for dehumanizing careers in technology.
And if there aren't enough "highly qualified" Black (or black) and Hispanic candidates who can pass NC state's new and improved MA state's teachers' exam I suppose "lateral entry" and 2-year Michelle Rhee and TFA domestic bootcamp recruits can circumvent this minor nuisance. Or, we can simply create reciprocity agreements with racially correct international and out-of-state candidates.
Yep.
I'm now I'm going to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear for my 5th grade play - "A School Reform Dream".
Alicia
Wiley, even though most of our politically corrected society has adopted the "Black" terminology, there are a few anachronistic holdouts. Most notably, The Journal of Negro Education. I kid you not. It is a quarterly which STILL EXISTS and publishes under that name:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.journalnegroed.org/
It was while perusing this learned journal that I discovered what is most likely one of the sore points of my one year in an "urban" HS back in the early 70's.
And that was my infamous foray into Afro-engineered education technology using the Dictaphone Dictabelt.
I was part of one of the dumbest "experimental" classes imaginable for a bunch of semi-literate black kids mixed with a bunch of second and third generation Italians (who had gone to private Catholic schools) and white kids who had gone to regular public schools.
Of course, the black kids were years behind the rest of us. I only had one in my Algebra class and none in Biology. They were all taking remedial classes. In my American History class, I had to read tests to the basketball players. And our black History teacher had to keep dumbing the tests down so those kids could pass by just listening to her instead of reading the book.
The "solution" to this was to cater to the "oral" tradition of blacks (who apparently couldn't be bothered with learning to read) in English classes by having us hand in "papers" on tape. So the ENTIRE CLASS was equipped with Dictaphone Dictabelts and we had to hand in a tape loop at the end of each class on which we had recorded our various stories.
The idea was that the black kids would excel at this since they came from an "oral" culture while whitey and brownie (the Italians) would be shown up as inferior story tellers.
Of course, it didn't work out that way at all. Apparently, people who can't read and write don't speak so well, either.
But I found an article just a few years ago in The Journal which extolled the virtues of the Dictaphone back in the 1960's. I'm pretty sure now that I KNOW where the stupid idea for that class originated.
I'll find the article and post it or a reference...
It's a classic in stupid technology for the classroom.
Here's the reference...
ReplyDeleteBrown, Beulah E.. ""Learning Is Fun" with the Dictaphone Electronic Classroom--A
Discussion The Journal of Negro Education 35. 3 (1966), 246-251,
I actually posted an excerpt on the old CO blog touting the benefits of this wonderful device. The whole article is available online through Jstor with a free signup, but I can't download it for free.
And I refuse to pay for it...
But it's a pretty hilarious read for anyone having to deal with the current whizbang technology in the classroom.
I seriously doubt that technology is the answer for most of the kids who are struggling. Most people who use technology on a regular basis probably realize this too. It is mostly "magic" to everyone else, though.
Alicia, as far as "names" being hints of ethnicity, that just doesn't work as well in HK.
ReplyDeleteI went to a school function with two women from the US, one Asian, the other White.
The white woman's last name was Wong and the Asian's last name was a common English last name.
Both women had Anglo first names.
The only black person at the function was Dutch.
And all the Africans there were white, except one lone Egyptian fellow "representing" northern Africa, who actually looked a bit Egyptian, but would probably be considered "white" as well.
The other funny thing about Caucasian is that people of northern India are actually Caucasian. And they're probably MORE authentically Caucasian than I, with my Scottish-Irish-English-AmerIndian background will ever be.
ReplyDeleteAnd the term Aryan has long applied to folks from just NW of India, and not the Nordic-type white folk of popular (or unpopular) recent mythology. The word Aryan comes from Sanskrit.
We shouldn't use Aryan due to its relationship to Nazi Germany, right?
DeleteAlso, What about "colored people"? NAACP?
Well, those poor maligned Nazi's don't get no respect...
DeleteThe most famous Nazi symbol was taken from India as well.
The Buddhists use a reversed version of it. I've even seen it painted on the side of a few Buddhist society vans in HK.
And, while visiting HK Disney last weekend, I actually saw a baby carriage with the nametag: Swashtika. And there is a somewhat famous Indian actress named Swastika Mukhurjee.
And I also have an earthenware mug my grandfather bought from an old American Indian which has a reversed swastika on it.
So those Nazi's sure got around.
And it's kind of silly that their version of these things have made the largest impression on the world.
Or at least the world most of us westerners are familiar with.
Maybe CMS could hire some Indian teachers to teach the "true" meaning of the Swastika.
DeleteNow I'd love to see that.
All in the name of "diversity", of course.
Or for the stupidity of "diversity" as practiced in the US.
As for the kids in HK, they can attend this school:
http://www.hkrsstpss.edu.hk/
The Hong Kong Red Swastika Society Tai Po Secondary School.
Just for the T-shirt...
I mean if you can have the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, then why NOT the Red Swastika?
Anywhere but in the US, of course, where it would get you investigated for a hate crime...
http://wtop.com/dc/2015/03/student-in-trouble-for-swastika-like-symbol/
Seriously.
Today, children, we are going to have a courageous conversation about the Swastika...
DeleteHa.
Could CMS even hire a teacher with the name Swastika?
DeleteI have to admit that I have my doubts about the school's abilities to find "highly qualified" black teachers.
ReplyDeleteI just think that anyone who is good enough to be a "highly qualified" teacher and who is also black probably has many more opportunities today and wouldn't choose such a low paying profession.
Also, if there is a "performance gap" between black and white and various other students, then it seems to me that this would also hold true for teachers. I doubt that anyone would publish the data, but I suspect that the Black teachers are probably less accomplished academically than White or Asian teachers. Maybe that info's out there, but I haven't checked.
The main reason some black schools had such good teachers prior to Brown v. Board was that educated blacks only had a few possible careers in those days. Usually teacher, preacher, and not much else.
A black person with a Ph.D.'s most likely job was as a professor at a black school. Many taught at high schools.
That's just not the case today.
"The main reason some black schools had such good teachers prior to Brown v. Board was that educated blacks only had a few possible careers in those days. Usually teacher, preacher, and not much else.
DeleteA black person with a Ph.D.'s most likely job was as a professor at a black school. Many taught at high schools.
That's just not the case today".
You are absolutely right. Historically, the public school teaching profession attracted mostly first generation college graduates whose families took great pride in this accomplishment. There was also a time when being a teacher meant having families take you into their homes with free room and board as a highly respected member of the community. Women were also in the same boat as blacks as far as having limited career options - "pink collar" school teacher, nurse, secretary, stewardess. I don't know why the overwhelming majority of teachers today are white women when black and white women have so many other options to choose from. I often think if school reform Powers-That-Be spent more time focusing on the psychology of why people chose to become teachers that we might actually get somewhere. My motivation to teach never was and never will be about a pay-for-performace reward based on one standardized test. Not at all.
Alicia
"CMS better be careful with what they wish for, or they might have some white kids thinking "that's nasty" or "I aint got no money for that" is how you talk in an interview. "
ReplyDeleteI think that's what some people actually want, though.
My son started picking up some of that crap, so I'm glad we're out of that environment.
Somehow the schools think it's "cute" to teach using Rap and poor English. Or maybe it's just some teachers, I'm not sure which.
I had to subscribe to some garbage called Flocabulary just to see to it that he "learned" some of the crap they assigned.
So I used to get a "Week In Rap" email. And he had to learn a dumb song about nothing on a regular basis.
Which he did, of course, even though he already knew the material the dumb song was supposedly teaching him.
I guess that's what is passing for "education" today, though.
Teach a kid a dumb song about something they've already figured out the regular way.
There are two things I am petrified of my 4 year old doing: not being the most kind person in the room and not learning the correct way to speak and write English. It is the number one factor why there is a learning gap between white and black kids. Take the poorest white kid in the middle of no where and they most likely speak and write better than any black kid in an upper middle class neighborhood. But to generalize a race, the black culture wants so badly not to be labeled as being "too white" that they create a language and justify it to the point that they can not be of the working part of society. In a normal, working society you must speak and write appropriate English (or any language that is the main language).
ReplyDeleteBut CMS is so worried about trying to be diversified culturally that they are not putting the hammer down on teachers and parents that continue to teach (especially in middle through high school) that not using correct English will get you no where in the future, it is actually is not cool, it is not respectable.
But imagine a white teacher telling La'Mar that "she ain't got no booty" is not appropriate English but rather use "in my opinion her Gluteus Maximus is not that large ". Because hell have no fiery than a black mom mad at a white female teacher who is teaching her son how to appropriately speak so that he can actually get a job when he is 25 (and not still trying to be a famous rapper or NFL star).
"Take the poorest white kid in the middle of no where and they most likely speak and write better than any black kid in an upper middle class neighborhood."
DeleteWhile there are exceptions, this is probably true generally.
And it even shows in the standardized tests that so many like to pooh-pooh.
I've pointed this out before in the NAEP Black/White "achievement gap" reports that are published.
No one seems to want to talk about this, but instead, prefer to harp about how "poverty" is the problem, when even black kids who ARE NOT in poverty on average perform worse than white kids who ARE in poverty (as measured by the FRL lunch program, of course, which is NOT actual poverty, but what the government statistics use as their proxy...)
Yet we almost NEVER talk about that problem.
It's just so much more acceptable to say that poverty is the problem and ignore those facts that show otherwise.
Not that poverty isn't a problem, it is. But it's a separate issue from the common Black/White achievement gap problem.
You just need to look at the data to see this and not make generalizations like "blacks are poorer than whites", so that's WHY their achievement is lower.
Within various ethnic groups, it does make a difference, but ethnicity is often just as big of a factor independent of the poverty level of the student.
Can't talk about that, though. At least not in the headlines.
When I taught HS dance in the Washington DC area, the latest reform effort was Afro-Centric education. We now know how successful that was.
ReplyDeleteWhen I decided to go back to school to teach something different, I decided to choose Belmont Abbey College's Adult Degree Program (ADP). Since I hadn't taken a college course in over 25 years, the education department made me take a couple of prerequisite courses - "Diversity in Education" and 'Into to Education" which I wasn't happy about although they did exempt me from taking a higher level "Arts in Education" course later on. The vast majority of students in the ADP education program were black women who were the first in their families seeking a college degree. All wanted to become teachers but had to pass the Praxis 1 exam in order to be accepted into the teaching licensure program. Not one black woman in my prerequisite classes was able to pass the Praxis 1 even after multiple tries. Despite not taking a math or English course in over 25 years, I managed to pass the test on my first attempt. Every black woman I sat in class with finished their degree in "Educational Studies" not in "Elementary Education". Educational Studies entitles you to become a teaching assistant - not a licensed teacher.
Sad.
Alicia
Alicia,
ReplyDeleteActually, not so sad. I'm glad they don't become licensed teachers. At least SOME gatekeeper mechanism is in place, though I sometimes wonder...
Teachers seem to be a real mixed bag. I know my son had one really sharp teacher who was trained to be a Special Education teacher and she was very much on top of things. She would give my son some additional work to challenge him when he was bored. She had about 20+ years experience, though.
The teacher he had last year was fairly worthless and maybe did a bit of damage.
I think my son actually slipped back a little from the previous year because this teacher WOULD NOT give him challenging work. He even started to develop the attitude that "this isn't for my grade level" for some things, which I had NEVER heard out of him before.
I suspect that this teacher was the root of that attitude due to the kind of work I usually saw her sending out for homework.
We regularly encourage our son to do work above his grade level, especially in math, science, and reading when he is able to handle the material. And we NEVER tell him that he isn't capable or the "right" age for something. We always let him try and see if he can do it.
That brings up the ridiculous EOG testing and the unintended consequences thay produce.
ReplyDeleteI've said many times before that we would have to go to the school the following year and have our son taken out of some of the classes they stuck him in due to his EOG grade(s).
We wanted him to be challenged and if that meant he made B, C or even D in an Honors or AP class versus making an A in how to open a cereal box class, then that's what we wanted.
Our son wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier when it came to math, but he firgured out how to speak, write and read fluent Japanese and Spanish and learn bits of other languages on his own.
I think the real issue with my son's last teacher was that she didn't want to try too hard. She just wanted to push the same "grade level" material on all the kids no matter whether it was appropriate or not.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that she wasn't very smart herself, so had no clue how to challenge someone who was anything but average or below.
My son was also in a "gifted" program, but it was only one day a week and emphasized "creativity" over any particular hard skills, so there was no one seeing to it that he progressed in nuts and bolts stuff beyond what he already knew. Except for us at home, of course.
Really, you just cannot leave education to the "professionals" or the "curriculum". If anything, they are there as reference points. Or maybe minimum standards in many areas.
Except sports, of course. The schools really seem to "get it" when it comes to sports, especially football and basketball.
I saw a map of the US showing the highest paid government employees of each state and the vast majority of them were university coaches.
Here's an example:
http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228
Many schools and teachers, apparently, would rather see kids get easy A's, than difficult C's or B's. I tend to agree with your approach, though. Let the kids at least be exposed to the more difficult material as long as they don't get overwhelmed by it all. In the longer run, they will be helped by this.
ReplyDeleteWhile my son is a fairly smart kid, I feel that the schools don't help him by giving him such easy material that he feels that school is a joke. Maybe it is a joke, but nothing is worse than just having a kid bide his time in school when there are still things he could be learning.
I know I felt that way a lot when I was in school, but I managed to learn quite a bit on my own. Looking back, though, I wish I had gone to better schools with more rigorous classes in the sciences and math. I could have handled the material, but I had no one who could teach it..
As it was, I was mostly "schooled" by ignoramuses who did not see the value in such things. And, of course, the students didn't complain when the Physics teacher offered them all "extra points" for bringing Campbell's Soup labels (I kid you not!) for some church project she had. Some kids were able to collect enough labels to bring their C's up to A's.
This was from the same moronic teacher who skipped the first three chapters of our Chemistry text because it discussed "abiogenesis" (such as the Miller-Urey experiment) which offended her religious beliefs.
One of the saddest days in our class came when we had a student fro
m another "city" school visit us who was really a good Physics student.
This HS student could explain things that our "teacher" had no clue about.
My English and History teachers were usually decent enough, but those were easy subjects for me, anyway.
Where I really got screwed was in science and a little in math, though my math teacher tried.
I don't want my kids to get screwed like this.
Wiley, found something really stupid in EdWeek I just have to pass on....
ReplyDeleteDoing Math vs. Understanding Math
By David Ginsburg on March 30, 2015 10:39 PM
A key instructional shift called for by the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics is the dual emphasis on conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. NCTM draws a connection between these two areas in its position paper on procedural fluency (as I did in my post, Procedural Fluency: More Than Memorizing Math Facts):
Procedural fluency builds on a foundation of conceptual understanding, strategic reasoning, and problem solving.
NCTM also cites research suggesting that "once students have memorized and practiced procedures that they do not understand, they have less motivation to understand their meaning or the reasoning behind them." An implication of this research is that "students need to have a deep and flexible knowledge of a variety of procedures, along with an ability to make critical judgments about which procedures or strategies are appropriate for use in particular situations."
Consider, for example, this 6th grade problem from the Port Angeles School District website:
In a bowling tournament, Elton scored 188, 212, 214, 196, and 200 in the first five games. In order to qualify for the semifinal round, he must average at least 205 for the six games. What is the least he can bowl in his final game to qualify?
Most students will solve this problem as follows:
Step 1: Find the minimum total score for six games (205 x 6 = 1230)
Step 2: Find Elton's total score for the first five games (188 + 212 + 214 + 196 + 200 = 1010)
Step 3: Find the minimum score required for the sixth game (1230 - 1010 = 220)
I, on the other hand, solved this problem by comparing Elton's scores for each of the first five games with the minimum average score of 205. I then computed the net deficit (amount below 205) or surplus (amount above 205). Here's a visual representation of my thinking:
Bowling Average Problem .jpg
And since the average after five games is 15 less than 205, I knew the score for the sixth game would need to be at least 15 more than 205, or 220.
Would I say that my approach is better than the first approach? No, but I would say it reflects conceptual understanding of averaging. I would also say it reflects procedural fluency, which NCTM defines as the ability to apply procedures accurately, efficiently, and flexibly. In contrast, it's possible for students to get the right answer using the first method without even knowing what "mean" means. It's also possible for students to follow a procedure without having procedural fluency.
The lesson here for us as math educators is that we need to shift the emphasis from answer-getting to the problem-solving process. We also need to model for students--and encourage them to pursue--multiple solution strategies rather than prescribe a standard procedure.
In essence, we need to make the most of opportunities to deepen students' conceptual grasp of math and build their procedural fluency. We need to help students understand math rather than just do math.
I wasn't able to post this gooberhead's jpg table, but it's on my blog (I just learned how to post), but don't know how to put that table in the text.
ReplyDeleteHe has come up with such a convoluted method to do such a simple problem that it's somewhat mind-boggling to me that he is taken seriously at all.
And yet he thinks he's so clever because he has "procedural fluency" which means that he's able to come up with convoluted stupid ways to also solve simple problems.
ReplyDeleteNot something that real mathematicians encourage.
Also, the following statement:
ReplyDelete"And since the average after five games is 15 less than 205,"
Is factually incorrect and shows that he does not know the meaning of the word average.
If anything he should say the "deficit", not the "average".
Scary for a math teacher who supposedly evaluates mathematical reasoning and "fluency".
For such simple stuff, too...
Let's see what this idiot is talking about...
ReplyDeleteAnd since the average after five games is 15 less than 205, I knew the score for the sixth game would need to be at least 15 more than 205, or 220.
If the average after 5 games is 15 less than 205, it means the average is 190. That means that the final game would have to be 1230-(5x190)=1230-950=280.
So the final score would have to be a 280 to bring the average of six scores up to 205.
Seems that his student's methods are still superior...
Everyone needs to read this EdWeek crap. If nothing else, it's hilarious to read the comments praising crap like this.
ReplyDeleteAlmost as funny as Diane Ravitch's blog...
ReplyDeleteWiley, maybe I should have requested this as a separate topic. If so, then feel free to cut and paste and make a separate entry. You can get the article from the Shamash blog (with the table), or you can just point an url to it if not wanting to infringe copyright or whatever (fair use?)...
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the article:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coach_gs_teaching_tips/2015/03/doing_math_vs_understanding_math.html
Not sure if everyone can link to it or if they need a special account, though.
I'm still a firm believer in the basics. Not every kid is a whiz at math or science or even likes to read.
ReplyDeleteI truly find sitting around reading fiction to be a complete waste of time, but that's just me. If I read something, I want to learn something or gain knowledge from it.
I had my own ways of getting the answers to math problems in school. Like most people, a good portion of the math I never really got, but got enough to get by.
One teacher I had marked an answer incorrect - even though it was correct - because I couldn't explain how I derive it.
Not really "getting math" cost me. I wanted to be an electrical engineer, even got into engineering school, but just couldn't get the meat of math and the applications needed to go forward in that particular program.
I switched to architectural engineering and did much better and only lacked a few hours of getting an associates degree, but I grew tired of it and wound up leaving college to go into the consumer products industry where I've been ever since.
In this line of work, I use alot of math, but it's different using data and math in combination with formulas that actually make sense to me in my pea brain.
Again, teach the basics for tha masses and cull the brains out into advanced classes..
Well, add to that the fact that the "math" they teach to engineers is different from the "math" that math majors usually work with (practical vs. theoretical) and you get even more splits.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff, though, is just silly. Why throw away a perfectly good procedure with three steps in favor of a convoluted one with at least 10 steps. All to avoid using multiplication! For an averaging problem which is fundamentally based on understanding multiplication and division.
I've seen a lot of this kind of mathematical "reasoning" in textbooks my son had a few years back. They were also designed to teach the "urban" crowd which apparently needs a lot of circular ways to get to the point.
I seriously doubt that long-winded explanations are easier than simpler explanations.
I don't see how some "urban" kid could understand "deficits" and "surpluses" and "net deficits and surpluses" while NOT understanding multiplication, division, and averages.
If they think it's clever to make it this convoluted on the simple stuff, then I really shudder to think of how complicated they make the more difficult stuff.
I think it will only lead to more innumeracy.
If they taught writing this way, then the favored style would be run-on sentences and comma splices out the wazoo as kids were forced to put every conceivable deviation from what they were actually trying to say into a single sentence.
Shamash,
Delete"This stuff, though, is just silly. Why throw away a perfectly good procedure with three steps in favor of a convoluted one with at least 10 steps. All to avoid using multiplication! For an averaging problem which is fundamentally based on understanding multiplication and division".
Lol. I haven't experienced much of this teaching 5th grade Singapore math although I do have kids who never learned their multiplication tables by rote memorization and take an extraordinarily long time trying to figure out 8 x 7 through some convoluted method they learned in earlier grades (before my school adopted our current curriculum) in an effort to meet different "learning styles". The process of adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators before getting to an improper fraction that needs to be converted to a mixed number and then simplified is FAR more arduous and frustrating for students who never learned multiplication tables by rote memorization - at least in my experience.
Learning math is really no different than learning dance. There is nothing "creative" about learning ballet which is a highly structure endeavor with a right way and a wrong way of doing things. Learning to play the piano or a musical instrument isn't much different. Creativity (which to me means approaching something in a different way) doesn't come into play until you've mastered the fundamental basics to an acceptable level of proficiency which typically involves a minimal amount of "steps". You wouldn't start with a poorly executed tour jete that's likely to land you on you head.
Alicia
I agree that the kids need to get the basics down and sometimes memorization is best for things like multiplication tables.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you can also teach the concept at the same time, but it is much more efficient later if you also memorize. I think the schools are actually crippling the kids abilities to do math by giving them all these crutches instead of insisting that they actually memorize a few basics.
You CAN memorize and understand at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
All that being said, I had a difficult time memorizing the multiplication tables in the 4th grade, but went on to do fairly well in math, so all is not lost if the kids have a few problems.
It was just a matter of me wanting to do it in the fifth grade where I picked it up very easily. I just found the multiplication tables boring at the time.
I think I just had a rotten 4th grade teacher who couldn't teach worth a flip.
I know that my neighbor would NOT send her kids to her class because she was so "mean". And she was. A bitter, shriveled up sour woman. Probably hated kids, too.