In article
<144d4f7e-a615-45ca-96f3-580289ea05be@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
mom0f4boys says...
>
>This thread makes me a little sad, because my mathematical ability is
>somewhere around the level of an 8th grader, and I don't think that
>will ever change. I care about this issue on behalf of my kids.
> I'm 37. When I was in elementary school, the style was 'drill,
>drill, drill'. For a while, I thought I was a math whiz, because in
>the 100 question multiplication quizzes, I was always the first to
>smack my pencil down: done!
> In the higher elementary grades, I still got correct answers, but
>my teachers chided me for skipping steps. I found this aggravating,
>and concluded that I must be really smart (ha). In junior high, math
>got more complex. I was bothered that plain old arithmetic did not
>make answers just appear in my head without doing the steps. I got
>through exponents and factoring, somewhat, but in high school, I found
>myself nearly in tears trying to slog through the problems. I
>memorized the steps, but I didn't understand them, and I hated those
>pencil-and-paper sessions of going through steps I didn't understand.
>I eventually quit school at age 16 (not over math).
> Fast-forwarding, when my oldest son was in first grade, he had a
>homework assignment with simple addition. It showed a picture of 5
>pennies, and another picture of 3 pennies, and asked how much were ALL
>the pennies. And at the bottom, it said "How did you get your
>answer?"
> The answer is 'I added 3 to 5', but my son was stressed. He
>had added 3 to 5 and gotten 8, and that process was so obvious to him
>that he was confused at the question. It was as if he had patted a
>kitten, and said 'The kitten is soft...', and then someone asked him
>'How do you know the kitten is soft?'
> The answer is 'Because I am touching the kitten'. But that
>is already obvious, and who would ask such a silly question.... so the
>person being asked the silly question wonders if there is something
>that he has missed.
> These 'show your process' questions are part of the quest for
>better math ability in the U.S., I guess, but as a math failure and a
>mom, I find them annoying.
Ah - there have been many threads about that one in misc.kids. The "math
must
be verbal and kids don't understand math until they can verbalize it"
thing.
Yes, it is a problem; my personal opinion on it is that it is because
mathematically inclined people do *not* enter elemenary education. So we
have
verbally-inclined educators developing programs based on how they would
have
liked math presented to *them*.
It is worse than irritating - it leaves the students actually talented at
math
to lose and get discouraged.
Banty
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