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Do they still teach math?

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waltesefalcon said:
Luckily I have also managed being locked in a closet by my students.

Mike, I never thought you were being critical. I just thought you were simply observing the odd ways in which schools work. You are right serious knowledge in your given area is often not the deciding factor for administrators when selecting teachers. When I was just a historian looking for work everyone wanted to know what I coached, once I got the masters in education for myself I was suddenly a hot commodity and several schools wanted me. Am I a better history teacher because I have a MEd? nope.
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Wasn't really aimed specifically at you, just that my own later reading said to me my earlier comment could be perceived as critical. We've all known good and bad teachers. My brother with the doctorate taught for a while until the college he was teaching physics at decided it made a good cost cutting move to replace permanent staff with part timers and grad students. So a guy who'd co authored a couple text books and done professional presentations on his subject was replaced literally by someone working on a masters. I have another brother who teaches high school music and is basically "beloved" by his kids. They do a winter madrigal show as a fund raiser and he gets as many as 150 kids who want to be part of it. Not to mention his 3 school and one adult for parents steel drum bands that travel the local area during summers besides school shows. I have to say I've not seen anything like the participation and support the school give him and his programs.
 
Mike, it sounds like your band director brother has an exceptionally supportive school. I think anyone in the system or knows someone who is can easily see how backwards a lot of the thinking is among those in charge. I think this is true in any business that bean counters and politicians get too involved in.
 
From what he says, the Superintendent in particular loves it and the exposure the programs give the school. His biggest concern now is that in approaching retirement age, will they when he does find someone willing to take over the various programs and keep them running. Not something I have to worry about working for corporate America...
 
Ah, the growing problem of schools doing what the laws require, but not doing what the students require.

Are children considered educated because they sat quietly in classrooms for the legally required number of hours? and memorized what was given them?

Or are they educated because they learned the material their community feels is important, and showed they understand it. An old term we used was "outcome based education".

Tom M.
 
Tom, We are moving more and more towards considering a kid educated if they can regurgitate certain facts on state tests. Luckily History hasn't yet been subverted this way in Oklahoma but will only a matter of time. For now I still get the chance to teach my kids how to critically evaluate sources, question the world about them (including what I state), and try to think for themselves; while trying to cultivate a dedication to academics and a passion for learning.
 
NutmegCT said:
Ah, the growing problem of schools doing what the laws require, but not doing what the students require.

Are children considered educated because they sat quietly in classrooms for the legally required number of hours? and memorized what was given them?

Or are they educated because they learned the material their community feels is important, and showed they understand it. An old term we used was "outcome based education".

Tom M.
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More importantly (in my humble opinion) - do they learn critical thinking?
 
Bas, Not like they should I'm afraid. Oklahoma tends to be about five to ten years behind the trend and we are shifting more towards a model that emphasizes test taking skills. A kid's ability to do well on the ACT is much more prized by current lawmakers than is their ability to question said lawmakers motivations. Does this statement say anything about what the possible motivations are for doing away with critical thinking in schools?
 
I like to call it "adaptive" thinking Baz. The way I define it is, can you take what you've learned and apply it to other not so similar situations. I work with a lot of people from the Asia/India area and their education systems are geared towards producing test results rather than creative thinking. What I see is many handle problems only the one way they were taught and if that doesn't fix things, they don't know what to do. And my attempt to "broaden" their horizons in how to deal with issues rarely works since they seem set in their ways, so to speak.
 
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Basil said:
More importantly (in my humble opinion) - do they learn critical thinking?
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No kidding. Memorizing sure doesn't develop critical thinking. Thank heaven we still have some teachers who ask their students "Why do you say that?" or "How do you know that's true?" or "Can you show me how you figured that out?".

Mike, when you wrote about teaching kids "how to deal with issues", that was the original purpose of a liberal education.

OK - back to my cave.
Tom M.
 
In sixth grade we got "new math" textbooks. The young math teacher got his teaching degree on a basketball scholarship. Couldn't break out of the "set in his ways" mode of Base-10 thinking. I was 'tutoring' HIM. That was in the mid sixties. It was the local school board and the principal who were the forward thinkers. Sitting in a waiting room yesterday I overheard a conversation between two grandmothers about helping their grandkids with their math homework. They were baffled by the methodology being used to teach addition and subtraction. Circuitous means to the answers. And no more cursive writing being taught.
 
Look at the Universitys in Southern Il., they don't accept ACT/SAT scores anymore.
 
DrEntropy said:
In sixth grade we got "new math" textbooks. The young math teacher got his teaching degree on a basketball scholarship. Couldn't break out of the "set in his ways" mode of Base-10 thinking. I was 'tutoring' HIM. That was in the mid sixties. It was the local school board and the principal who were the forward thinkers. Sitting in a waiting room yesterday I overheard a conversation between two grandmothers about helping their grandkids with their math homework. They were baffled by the methodology being used to teach addition and subtraction. Circuitous means to the answers. And no more cursive writing being taught.
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In the 1980’s I had to make some changes to a computer. I was working in base 16. A young man in his 20’s watched me adding numbers some which ended in either A-F letters. He shook his head and said “you can’t add numbers AND letters”
What a putz :rolleye:
 
I spent 15 years teaching (electronics) a private technical school. I worked with quite a few different people. (and a few thousand students) The worst teacher that we had (he did not last long) had a masters from MIT. One of the first jobs the Director of Education gave me was to work in his class during lab and make sure he didn't hurt anybody. The subject was TV repair. That was 1979. The guy was brilliant and stupid at the same time.
 
Our Times tables were drummed into us. Sometimes beaten in but we could all come up with the right answer in our heads instantly. May not be the modern way to do basic math but it still works for me.
I presume that system was like the Sight words they are pushing now.

Somewhere I missed a basic step in my math education about 12 or 13 years old and never got back on track. Geometry was no problem for me.

David
 
I have a problem helping my daughter with multiplication and division as they now use another new method from Japan that is called the box method. It takes her five minutes to multiple 12 by 10 because of the byzantine rules she must follow.
 
DrEntropy said:
And no more cursive writing being taught.
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My middle niece who's now coming up on 19 moved to a new school after 3rd grade. First day apparently starting writing something in cursive and the teacher told her not to use that anymore because they didn't want the other students to feel bad because the new kid knew something they didn't.
 
"And no more cursive writing being taught."

Doc, I don't know about other states but about ten years ago the legislature here in Oklahoma realized the mistake they made when they removed cursive from the curriculum and added it back.
 
mikephillips said:
My middle niece who's now coming up on 19 moved to a new school after 3rd grade. First day apparently starting writing something in cursive and the teacher told her not to use that anymore because they didn't want the other students to feel bad because the new kid knew something they didn't.
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Mike that's just awful. It's nothing more than reducing all students to the lowest common denominator. Home schooling may be the answer.
 
waltesefalcon said:
"And no more cursive writing being taught."

Doc, I don't know about other states but about ten years ago the legislature here in Oklahoma realized the mistake they made when they removed cursive from the curriculum and added it back.
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I have never quite understood the attachment to cursive - I'm old enough to have been forced through it and truthfully never used it even in school. I could understand having it be part of an art or history program but while rolling up hard on 60 years old, I still have yet to find an actual practical application for it. To execute text cleanly in cursive to me is HARDER than simple block letters.
 
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