Column
By Mike Buffington
Math changes are wrong-headed
Call me a cynic, a naysayer, a curmudgeon. But my gut reaction to the Georgia Department of Education’s plans for changing the high school math curriculum is that it’s the wrong thing to do.
I understand the concept, the desire to teach “higher order thinking skills.” But I fear this new curriculum will turn out to be just another education fad created by state educrats, pushed by textbook publishers and endorsed by all those who love change simply for change sake.
There have been many failed education programs over the last three decades —why should we believe this one will be any different? Will we toss it into the trash heap of stupid ideas as we finally did the “open classroom” concept of the 1970s?
This new math program is just an extension of the “new-new” math curriculum that has been shoved down the throats of elementary school kids over the last few years. The “new-new” math, sometimes called “fuzzy math,” was also designed for “higher order thinking skills,” but for the most part, it’s been a failure. For example, rather than teaching kids how to multiply and divide, it teaches several ways and encourages kids to pick their own system. It abandoned drills in favor of “higher thinking.”
But before you can “think higher,” you darn well ought to know the basics.
I know what I’m talking about here. My kids have been in the program and I found it to live up to its name of being “fuzzy.” If local teachers hadn’t taught around the silly textbooks, my kids probably wouldn’t be able to do simple math today.
Now, however, we’re going to abuse high school students with this fuzzy math system. Rather than having math taught in disciplines, such as geometry, algebra, etc. it’s all going to be commingled and taught together.
The result, I think, will be a disaster. If you think the dropout problem is bad today, just wait until you frustrate even more teens with a math program that makes the upfront assumption that all kids learn equally. (Similar to what many educators say about the federal No Child Left Behind — it really means no child will get ahead.)
There are two basic assumptions that are driving this move:
First, we’re told over and over just how dumb American students are when compared to other industrialized nations around the world. That’s probably true overall. But our culture is also vastly different than many of those other nations. Finland, for example, has a very high achievement rate in international testing. But schools in Finland are just that, schools. No band. No sports. No cheerleaders. Schools exist just to teach, not be community clubs as they are in this nation.
Are we ready to abandon all the extracurricular stuff here in an effort to have higher international test scores? Bet you won’t see that idea come out of the Department of Education.
The second assumption is a blind belief in “higher order thinking” and that the only way to teach is with a “holistic” approach. We dare not do drills, or break topics down into small concepts because that doesn’t set well with the “higher order thinking” police.
But that view is mistaken. There’s a huge body of science which shows that learning is a neurological function and that “training the brain” involves repetitive tasking — what we call “practice.”
Let’s use a sports analogy. Football is really the accumulation of a lot of different skill sets. Players have to be strong, so they lift weights. They have to have speed and endurance, so they run. They have to be able to block, so they practice blocking. They have to be able to tackle, so they practice tackling. They have to be able to kick, so the kicker practices punting or kicking from a tee. The quarterback has to be able to throw, so he practices throwing. A receiver has to be able to catch, so he practices catching.
All of those skills, and more, are taught individually before they are executed collectively. Football coaches don’t just put players on a field and say, “Ok, boys, run, block, tackle, throw.” The skills are taught and practiced over and over and over until the body reacts without thinking because the individual skills have been practiced so much.
But the “holistic” math approach seeks to have a lot of skills working together even before the individual parts have been drilled into place. A few kids can do that, just as a few natural athletes can run, jump, throw, block and tackle without a lot of practice.
But most kids have to have the basics down before they can put all the parts together, whether it’s math in the classroom or playing football on Friday nights.
“Higher order thinking” is the academic equivalent of being an all around good “athlete.”
And like athletics, not everyone is made the same. Some kids will always be better at math than other kids. The new curriculum that commingles so many concepts will probably overwhelm those who struggle with math and not be enough of a challenge to those who are naturally good with the subject.
The result is that every child gets left behind and none are able to reach their own individual potential.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
State should leave home schooling alone
Political, cultural and social trends often begin in California and sweep eastward across the country. But let’s hope that a recent court ruling in that left-coast state ends at the California border.
The California Court of Appeals has handed down a ruling that, in effect, outlaws home schooling in that state.
It’s a bad move and sets a terrible precedent for the rest of the nation.
Home schooling isn’t for everyone. It is sometimes abused by flaky parents who don’t know what they’re doing.
In the same vein, however, public schools and expensive private schools aren’t for everybody, either. Some children have unique special needs that simply can’t be met in institutional school settings. Other times, it’s a lifestyle choice for a family to choose home schooling.
Whatever the motivation, few can argue with the overall success home schooling has had with many families and their children.
But the real question here is whether or not we owe our lives to the state, or to our families?
That’s not an idle issue. Much of the unspoken motive for younger and younger preschool programs is due to the view held by many that the earlier a child can be removed from the home during the day and put into an educational system, the better that child will do in life.
That may be true for children from broken and drug-stricken families, but it’s not true overall. The idea that the state can better take care of children than parents is a troubling concept on which many of these programs are based.
This is not an absolutist conversation, however. There should be some standards in place for home school students, some minimum criteria that will prevent nutty parents from simply keeping their children at home without doing any teaching. Home schooling shouldn’t be just a cover story for intellectual child abuse.
But to do as California has done and make it impossible to home school is an Orwellian move tantamount to replacing parents with the state.
Hopefully, Georgia’s political and judicial leaders won’t buy into the idea that the state should become every child’s parent. Home schooling here appears to work fairly well overall and those who choose that route should be left alone.
