BC Prof Suggests Young Children Need Less Formal Math, Not More 427
DesScorp writes "Professor Peter Gray, a developmental psychologist and researcher at Boston College, recounts an experiment done in New Hampshire schools in 1929, where math was completely taken out of the curriculum of the poorest schools from the area until the sixth grade. The results were surprising; with just one year of math under their belts, the poor students did as well or better than students from better schools by the end of the sixth grade year, despite the fact that the better schools had math in their curriculum all throughout elementary school. Professor Gray thinks children are not mentally wired for the kind of formal math instruction that is taught in schools, and that we'd be better served by putting off the teaching of theory until the seventh grade. He scoffs at the notion that if children are failing with current levels of math instructions then we should double down and make them do more math in school."
Relevance? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is an interesting concept, however, though some would argue along a similar vein regarding reading: some kids are just not ready until they are older. I just don't think anyone in the U.S. today has the brass to re-create the study.
Many other explanations (Score:4, Insightful)
What about "parts of speech" (Score:1, Insightful)
I had way too many English classes dealing with things like participles.. Who cares, when will that EVER be useful?
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:3, Insightful)
When pre-7th grade math is NO math, then 7th grade math will BE pre-7th grade math.
Congress (Score:4, Insightful)
You wouldn't happen to be the guy who does the numbers for Congress?
Set Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
good teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the 6 graders that just started math had a really good teacher. One year with a good teacher can outpace several years with a mediocre teacher. The conclusion of the study should be better teaching methods not less education.
Re:As someone who was better than average... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you hit it spot on, it's not the curriculum, it's how they make it as boring as possible. I didn't enjoy math until I was actually out of public school and did that in my private life. When I picked up a Dover math book and learned the mysteries of such things as mathematical abstraction, that was exciting. At least more than learning maths verboten with no end goal in sight.
Another thing is the lack of math history being taught. Yes 1+0=1. But why? Where did zero come from? Where did numerals come from? Why was Algebra invented and where did it come from? What use is it? What about geometry? Who was Euclid? I could go on and on with fascinating topics related to math. These things are rarely answered. It's all about teaching you to understand one function, one algorithm, one technique, etc. Never to understand _why_. It downright sucks, they take all the fun out of a spectacular field. Thanks to their "teaching" me, I thought math had no room for expansion. Boy was I wrong. It's an abstract fun house where you can do whatever you dream up. To a kid, that itself should be reason enough to love any math.
Re:As someone who was better than average... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think the general idea is that if you wait to teach it until they're ready, you can teach it quickly instead of dumbing it down the way it is now.
I'm not at all sure it would actually work out that way, but the option deserves to be investigated. Especially in light of the current situation, anything that could offer improvements should be considered.
Instructor quality (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really a surprise, if the math instruction that you eliminate is poor to begin with. From the article:
Finding good math teachers is a challenge, in my experience. In the US, most elementary teachers are not really "math" teachers, and mathematicians aren't necessarily good teachers. My four-year-old son attended a Montessori preschool and I was amazed at the math that they were teaching him -- amazingly good. I believe it conferred numeracy that will serve him well for the rest of his life. Full disclosure: I teach high school math.
Re:Relevance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they did re-create the study, and a bunch of schools started doing this, I can assure you that most of them would decide that "less math" was just as good as "no math" and far less scary, and that "6th-7th grade" could be cut back to "2nd grade" without affecting the results of the program.
From what I've seen, school administrators (principals up to and including district supers) are very good at latching on to (possibly useful) fads in pedagogy, but very bad at actually implementing entire programs; they'll go on about how important this is, and how the teachers must follow its principles, then direct them to do things contrary to it either because they don't actually understand it or because those parts are too scary. A couple years later they'll pick some other program to get excited about and it'll start all over.
Most of them also have a damn poor understanding of the scientific process, which might explain some of the above nonsense.
Re:As someone who was better than average... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know someone whose child needs to get book from home during school because the teaching is so slow, boring and dumbed down that there's no point to listening when she grasped everything in the first five minutes.
For once, think of the bright children!
If we don't force kids through things for which they aren't ready, the bright kids - like your friend's child - will stop suffering the endless days of boredom as other kids struggle pointlessly with it. Doing something like this counts as thinking of all children if it works. Get the bright kids some additional tutors, better classes, or some genuinely interesting side projects, don't simply insist that making the regular classroom any less rigorous, even temporarily, will punish the bright kids. Such insistence is exactly why we're here, failing, which is TFA's entire point: there's a hell of a lot more to improving childhood education, including the education of child geniuses, than simply doing more work at a higher level earlier.
Good for Peter Gray, daring to hypothesize the possibility of better results through some mechanism other than simply shoving more work down their throats at a young age.
Re:Many other explanations (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to agree. The overwhelming majority of elementary school teachers are neither math nor science majors. It is quite likely the teachers don't understand the reasons for the math theory. They just know it should be taught. As such, they are not likely to be using approaches that relate the theory in ways that people (kids) would understand it. It is humbling to have a PhD in Engineering, and not be able to understand Grade 6 math homework. If I can't understand the lessons they are trying to teach with regards to digits and digit placement, then what chance do the Grade 6 kids have?
On another occasion, while in first year Algebra, I vividly remember suddenly understanding key concepts from Grade 7 math. For instance, why does one care that numbers have the distributive, associative, and commutative properties? that can be named and explained? The knowledge is not helpful until vector and matrix math is covered. At that point, data types exist where the associative and commutative properties may or may not apply.
I'm just not sure what is the point of introducing concepts to children, without the ability to explain the reasons for the concepts. Why teach math, with no text book? Why focus so much on obscure terminology, to the point that no one understands why you are even asking a question? Math is about understanding why things happen. Not wrote answers to naming conventions.
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Instructor quality (Score:2, Insightful)
Kids naturally learn languages best when they are young, and math is a language. Sadly, though, few elementary school teachers are native speakers.
(Disclosure: I'm a math educator [passionatelycurious.com] too.)
Failed experiment with grammer... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-7th grade math is boring as hell anyway. Give me a calculator and let me start with the interesting math.
You seem to be under the impression that numbers are the most important part of math. It is this unhealthy obsession with numbers that makes math boring for kids. It would be like art class being all about blending pigments to get the right colors. Hell, even math 'fans' who obsess about the digits of pi are ... misguided. I think this says it best - http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1777 [smbc-comics.com]
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:4, Insightful)
I've taught maths in a secondary school, albeit for a short time. One thing that sets maths apart is that it's a steady progression. If you didn't grasp stage 1, you can't grasp stage 2. That's different to history or English or even, to a lesser extent, the sciences. You might not remember the formula for momentum, but you'll remember the volume of a sphere or whatever. But I've seen it happen with maths that someone doesn't quite get something but the rest of the class rolls on and they're left there wondering how others can grasp things that they can't. It's tragic to see and it can happen in quarter of an hour. Someone becomes someone who "doesn't get math" for want of being taken forward without having grasped some vital preliminary.
I've tried to undo this with some victims. Just explaining the above and then starting with something they don't understand and going back as far as is necessary to get to a point where they can pick up again and start moving forward, this time getting it. But I seldom get the chance to do this.
Maybe part of the reason for this research, if it stands up, is because there's a wider disparity in ability when you get to very young children, so its more likely that classes roll forward and leave some behind. But we should be very careful of taking a piece of research like this and drawing any hard conclusions about what is good or bad to teach. Personally, I started learning maths at pre-school level and it did me a lot of good. I doubt I'd be as good at it if I didn't get that early start. I strongly reject any belief that we have to choose between helping some achieve their full potential and looking after everyone: Help the best reach their potential, no child left behind, spend more care and resource on education. Why is the third path always left out of discussion?
Completely disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the reasons I didn't like math was because I always felt I was behind. Most math teachers don't "teach". They have you a couple of examples and expect you to figure it out yourself. Problem is most people learn barely enough to get to the next grade, by grade 12 you suddenly realize how much of the fundamentals were missed and you're stuck playing catchup.
A lot of math is taught too early and at a hurried pace
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:5, Insightful)
Suggestions?
Radical idea, but how about letting them play physical games and other unstructured activities in order to learn the lessons of socializing, sharing, consequence, reward, and impulse-control?
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:2, Insightful)
Schools aren't just babysitters -- nor are they the ONLY source of education.
Unfortunately, this seems to be ignored these days, negligent parents "too busy" to teach their kids, who then suffer a horrible education.
Re:As someone who was better than average... (Score:3, Insightful)
I sucked at math (failed freshman Alg., got kicked out of comm. coll. for failing everything else as well) but once I was in the military and got interested in hot rodding cars, applied mathematics turned out to be easy. First it was calculating volumes, both static, and swept, then on to weight/power/acceleration. If they want to make math interesting, take the kids down to auto-shop (oops, they got rid of that as it isn't part of college prep).
Re:Or could it be the way they're taught (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a friend who did tutoring for the ASVAB for a while, which is a standardized test for the military. He was working with the 'dumb' kids, the ones that somehow managed to get out of high school without learning subtraction. In 8-12 weeks he was able to get them from that through algebra and geometry. They did have to work hard, and a lot of what he did was just making sure they were concentrating and studying (since that kind of student usually has no self-concentration whatsoever), but he was quite successful at it.
Re:Set Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why I don't think most of the formal stuff that goes on in elementary school, at least prior to about 10 years old, is all that useful. If kids were more actively engaged, and not in desks, perhaps we could teach them the formalizations in middle and high school. Unfortunately not all kids, especially lower SE kids, have the opportunity to actively challenged in their non schools lives.
So what's this guy's IQ? (Score:1, Insightful)
In my experience, really smart people don't go into psychology. They just don't. I can look at the 40-yr old psychologists (including profs) I know now and remember how they were doing back in high school and college. Stars they most definitely were not - at any subject.
So I always find it a little unconvincing when a psychology prof waxes eloquent about how math should be taught. Since they never particularly understood the field themselves, why exactly should I buy their theories? Is it because they subsequently spent several years taking the very easiest courses the university had to offer? Or is it because they get fame and fortune by saying something controversial, even if it's utter BS. I'm a professional mathematician. My 6 year old daughter is now getting pretty comfortable with algebra. I'd lay a wager she'll be outperforming this dude's kids in 20 years time.
Re:Relevance? (Score:3, Insightful)
The most important thing is getting teachers who can get kids interested in what they're teaching. Nothing is a better motivator than curiosity.
Application goes hand-in-hand with curiosity. My daughter (1st grade) is getting pretty good at fractions, but we do it almost all with cooking. I had to sit in a 5th-grade classroom and be told that this was important. She needs to get me the right number of scoops of flour.
She also gets the basics of algebra, though she lacks the arithmetic skill to manipulate more than simple coefficients. I don't ever say, though "now, we shall learn algebra" after years of saying, "when you're older you're going to learn the mysteries of algebra," I just ask, "if x is a number and x plus two equals six, what is x?" and then it's easy. I don't think I've even told her it's algebra, we just play games when she and I are going somewhere in the car.
The artificial stratification of mathematical techniques into age categories is such a bad idea. That, and she's smarter than me.
Re:most people arent wired for math (Score:3, Insightful)
I think our school systems are still structured as if everybody will be working in a factory some day.