Hot Topic - Math

This is a re-post with permission from one of our favorite bloggers. It is several days of blog posts combined into one. We got a laugh out of it and thought you would too. We're sure many parents in our district can relate. Enjoy!

2/3/2012 Mental Math Is Going To Make Me Mental

Amanda called me over a couple nights ago to help her on problem number 5 on her math homework. She was supposed to add 35 + 28 using a 100 number chart, so she started telling me she needed to go down and over. Down and over. Over and down.

And I was like, "What? Down and what?" as I clawed around for my reading glasses.

I told her, "Look. If you want to add that just add 5 + 8 and carry the one."

Right, internet? I mean, is that not how you add?

If you do not have a child currently enrolled in second grade, let me be the first to tell you that is not how you add nowadays. The way we learned to add is wrong.

When I showed them how to add, the three of them FREAKED OUT. There was drama. People were telling me I didn't know what I was doing. I was wrong. I don't know anything. I had to get Greg and a glass of wine and a box of Oreos and our reading glasses.

So imagine my surprise when this is how you add 35 + 28 now. You can do it like this in THREE steps.

Or you can do it like this in TWO steps.

But whatever you do, you cannot do it like this.

"We are doing mental math.", Sarah told me.

It's mental, alright.

"Really?", Greg asked. "If they don't teach them to add in columns, what will they do when they get to 1,345,300 + 2,399,344?"

"Run for congress?", I suggested.

2/4/2012 Is This Correct?

On the way home (from basketball,) I asked the kids if the other team had 20 points and we only had 2 points, how many points did they beat us by?

They whipped out their laminated 100 charts out of their back pockets and found the answer.

I double checked it on the abacus I have welded to my dashboard, so I think this is correct.

I am happy to report that I spent 45 minutes teaching the children to add mentally and traditionally this morning. They can now add columns up to a million no problem. Mentally, they are struggling with the three step process for double digits. We'll crack the code yet, I just know it!

2/6/2012 I've Chosen A Side In The Math War

I started blogging on July 17, 2006. Since that time, I've written almost daily. This post is my 2160th post. I don't ever remember writing three days in a row about the same subject, unless I've just mentally blocked out writing about poop every single day when I was potty training three children.

But I will write again today about math because I fell down the rabbit hole into entire forums devoted to the Math Wars while I was teaching my children how to add ALL WEEKEND LONG. Did you know there are Math Wars? Did you know the Math Wars have been going on since 1989? It's a war between conceptual reform math and traditional math. This is how they teach multiplication with some of the fuzzy, conceptual math curricula, you guys. 247 x 38 = WTF?

First, let me back up and say it took me about five minutes per child to teach them how to add double digit numbers with the traditional algorithm of carrying.

It took me three days to teach all three of them "mental math". Three days to teach them a concept that should take five minutes, which made me wonder, "Why are we REINVENTING THE EFFIN' WHEEL?"

2 + 2 will always equal 4 and my kids don't need to count goddamn sticks like cave children to have a "deeper understanding" of math.

So I started Googling around the interwebz and found scathing, horrible reviews of the "fuzzy math" curriculum my school uses. We use enVision math, published by Pearson and developed by Scott Foresman. Here's the description from their website. I've highlighted all the bullshit in bold.

enVisionMATH uses problem based interactive learning and visual learning to deepen conceptual understanding. It incorporates bar diagram visual tools to help students be better problem solvers, and it provides data-driven differentiated instruction to ensure success for every student.

Translation: We aren't going to actually teach your kids math, we're just going to make pretty pictures and videos so your school district buys our curriculum and locks into it for 7 years.

In all honesty, Scott Pearson's other programs have much, much, much worse reviews than this latest one because this one at least does attempt to also teach them correct algorithms. He has a much fuzzier one called TERC Investigations that doesn't even teach the children long division. They use calculators. By fifth grade, all this fuzzy mental math falls apart and the children do not have the skills necessary to do higher level math in middle school. Parents have even coined the phrase, TERC babies, because the kids have never memorized their multiplication or division tables or basic addition and subtraction facts.

There are entire websites and movements in Utah and Illinois and New York fighting to get these math curricula out of the public schools.

Have you noticed the number of Kumons and Sylvan Learning Centers popping up all over the place? That's because they aren't teaching children BASIC math concepts in school. This drive toward conceptual math has actually left children in fifth grade learning "probability without multiplying fractions, statistics without the arithmetic means, 3-D geometry without formulas for volume, and number theory without prime numbers."

Hows that for a deeper understanding of math?

We just had a Performance Zone meeting where our elementary, middle, and high schools got together and our middle school teachers said, "Make sure the kids know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Give them to us with strong math facts and we'll take it from there."

They had to tell our elementary schools that because our math curriculum does not focus on teaching the kids the multiplications table by rote. My school does it outside the curriculum, but other schools do not.

So we are stuck with enVision math for four more years. Which means my kids will be using it all the way into middle school. I've read enough and I've decided to buy a traditional math curriculum to do at home with them. I haven't decided which one yet so if you guys have a strong opinion on a traditional math curriculum or your school is using one you like, chime in.

I've chosen a side in the Math War. I've chosen traditional.

This concludes my manic, obsessive math series. We'll talk about chickens or poop tomorrow.

EDITED TO ADD: Please watch this video for a complete tutorial on why shoddy math curricula, like Everyday Math and TERC Investigations is ruining your child's math education.

2/10/2012 Their Childhood Is Slipping Away

I am happy to report that after purchasing the math practice program at IXL.com and having the children do additional math work every night for 30 minutes, they all aced their mental math test. I had IXL.com last year, let it expire, and realized that was a terrible mistake and renewed it this week.

Sarah and Gregory's teacher has a whole tutoring program that she does after school and parents pay her out of their own pockets. I get that now. I thought it was weird that all these parents were signing their very smart kids up for tutoring.

The math curriculum they use is a spiraling curriculum, so they only barely touch on a subject, then the next week they spiral off into a completely different topic. These parents have probably come to the same conclusion I have that their children need to gain mastery over the subject they were supposed to learn and are paying for it. Imagine that? Actually learning the subject you were introduced to!!!

This week they are doing patterns which has nothing to do with double digit addition. If the children didn't master the double digit mental math topic, oh well, it's patterns this week. They'll have their chance to learn that one again NEXT YEAR!

It pains me to force the kids inside to do even more work after they've been at school all day. It's been in the high 60s and low 70s. When I went to get them one day this week, they were in Hawai'i. They had skinned part of my palm tree and whittled the skin into knives and their scooters and their bikes were water boats and the concrete was water. Austin was in charge of finding meat. Amanda was married and had all her dolls in her water boat. I am seriously not kidding when I say it literally PAINED ME to make them come in and do their homework and the additional math work. The kids need to play after school. I think even having more than one organized activity in a week is just too much. They just need to play and unwind and use their imaginations. They need down time.

But we swam through the concrete water from Hawai'i to Nevada and did our math anyway. I can see their childhood slipping away before my eyes and it makes me sad.

2/11/2012 We Are All So Lucky

(Today at school) one of the teachers put popcorn in the microwave and hit 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes and then went outside to get her kids and by the time they got back in, the microwave had started on fire and smoked the kids out.

The poor teacher was traumatized beyond belief about it and we all felt so bad for her. It could happen to anyone. I really don't think it was her fault though. These were the instructions next to the microwave for how long you keep the popcorn in.

I think she was just confused.

Since I like to help at the school, I'm going to volunteer to put up less confusing directions.