Everyday Math

Everyone I know is heard about Whole Language. If not you can read what I think of it here, here, and here. Today I will show you an example of everyday math thanks to Kitchen Table Math via Extreme Wisdom.

How can someone teach this and call themselves a Math teacher? This is just plain stupid. You are not helping the children with this sort of instruction. No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world in our education system (free registration required). Here’s an excerpt from the linked story:


          

Bill Gates, the chairman of the behemoth Microsoft Corp., says he’s a little “scared” by it. Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., declares it a steadily worsening crisis. And the Business Roundtable says the United States cannot wait for another challenge such as the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite before the country starts working on it.

What they and other national business and political leaders are worried about is U.S. schools’ ability to stimulate students’ interest in math and science—an area of weakness that they say has led to the growing influence of Asian countries, most notably India and China, in the fields of engineering and technology.

“The jobs of the future are going to require the basic understanding of principles of math and science. If we aren’t able to educate our children, they won’t get decent jobs, and I am not just talking about scientists and engineers,” Mr. Ehlers said.

With everyday math you can see why we can’t get anyone stimulated to learn math and science. They don’t know how and they aren’t being taught.

Of course there are those who defend the way we teach our kids and claim the tests are unfair or should be used as measurements. This is howash as well.


          

Some observers of international education say that comparing the United States with foreign countries based on such test results may not always lead to accurate assumptions.

“Students are asked a set of questions in a variety of countries that are not linked to what they are being taught in school,” said Elizabeth Leu, a senior education adviser at the Academy for Educational Development, a Washington-based group that operates education programs abroad. “It is somebody’s idea of what students at a certain level should know. There always is a problem of that sort with international assessments, and they end up being unfair in one way or another.”

This is perhaps the best reason for implementing some type of Core Knowledge curricula (free registration required) in our public education system. The world revolves around knowledge. We need to be able to outperform other nations. We have been the most inventive and exploratory of any nation. This is ceasing to be the case and will worsen if we do not reform education.

Here is one more apologist for the education system. He is Howard Gardner. He wrote an article entitled Beyond the Herd Mentality (free registration required). The premise of his article is supposed to be about how the U.S. should not go along with the tests scores and teach the students to not go along with the herd. But, the conclusions he comes to is exactly the problem. He is preaching for a new herd mentality, one that does not believe in tests.

Let’s look at his final objectives (reformated only):


          

  1. A disciplined mind, that can think well and appropriately in the major disciplines;
  2. A synthesizing mind, that can sift through a large amount of information, decide what is important, and put it together in ways that make sense for oneself and for others;
  3. A creative mind, that can raise new questions, come up with novel solutions, think outside the box;
  4. A respectful mind, that honors the differences among individuals and groups, and tries to understand them and work productively with them; and
  5. An ethical mind, that thinks, beyond selfish interests, about the kind of worker one aspires to be, and the kind of citizen that one should be.

Goals 1 and 3 are the only onesthat should remain goals. Goal 2 sounds like the everyday math or whole language concept in that what ever solution you come up with is ok. Goals 4 and 5 are more of the socialist drivel kids are being fed now by Big Ed. This sort of thinking teaches kids to be internationalist and not individualist. We need more individualist if we are going to continue to this Country is to remain the greatest Country on Earth. We need people who can think for themselves and not rely on the government for everything.

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One Response to “Everyday Math”

  1. Education Matters US » Success: Test Scores Not Dropping, on July 8th, 2006 at 3:39 pm Said:

    [...] UPDATE: I had someone remind me about a post I had done on Everyday Math last fall. It also shows an example of how it is taught. [...]

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