back to the basics

 I'm revisiting something I haven't written about in a while--education. I've been involved in education in one way or another throughout my entire life. My dad was a teacher and coach when I was born, I was in college for what seemed like an eternity (it encompassed my years from 2002 until 2015, with a small break when Nathan and I moved to Oregon for his time in the Coast Guard), I spent a few years in high school classrooms, and I've worked in higher education since 2019.

Recently, UCSD released the results of a study on their math remediation course. Besides a massive increase in the number of students required to take remedial math, their study showed that a majority of students in that course couldn't solve middle school math problems.

While so much of the world was shocked by the results, I just nodded...because I (and probably anyone teaching math or physics) have known that was true for years.

To be honest, the decline started a long time ago. I would argue that it started when schools started adopting Common Core math (or really similar standards, as was the case with Arkansas), but that's a discussion for another time. Whatever the timing of the start of the decline, a huge part of it has been the push away from memorization of rote facts in exchange for the idea that kids need to learn the "why" of math.

As a kid, I can remember standing up every morning in Mrs. Jorgenson's 3rd grade classroom and going through the times tables. She would point to a problem and we would say the answer as a class, 0*0 through 12*12. We would have timed tests and chalkboard races...both of which have been done away with because someone decided it wasn't good to have kids compete with each other in classes. On that note, I remember one of my best math teachers in high school posting our grades after every test. He had each of us create a PIN at the beginning of the year because he wasn't supposed to post our names with our grades, but we learned very quickly which PIN was the person we wanted to beat on the next test.

Now I'm on the other side of the desk, so to speak, and I'm seeing the results of the changes in math education. For the past few years I've been teaching Physics 1 to undergraduates. It's a course pretty much only taken by students who have always made great grades in math. They are usually the ones planning to go into engineering or another STEM field, and to be in my class they have to have taken and passed either College Algebra or Calculus. But unfortunately, they are not exempt from the decline in math education. I've placed my hand over the display on a student's calculator more than once, telling them to use their brain instead, and watched them struggle to divide 300 by 2. I've seen them struggle to rearrange equations. I've talked them through figuring out simply how to start problems due to a lack of mathematical reasoning skills.

I didn't like math until I started studying physics, because that was the first time I started to understand the usefulness of math. I started seeing that you could play with math and learn all sorts of incredible things about God's creation simply by looking at the math that underlies the universe. I agree with Galileo's assertion, "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth." Or, as others have interpreted his words, mathematics is the language God used when He created the universe. However, I wouldn't have felt that way without first understanding the basics of math.

My dad, sister, and I have all been math teachers. At one of my kids' basketball games the other day, all three of us were looking in disbelief at an assignment my 6th grade niece had been given. The basic idea was, "18 is 40% of what number?" That's a pretty straightforward concept, as far as simply doing the math goes. Set up a simple equation or a ratio, and you'll have the answer in just a few seconds. Instead, the worksheet wanted them to use multiple methods to solve the problem. In one method, they were supposed to draw two different number lines. In another, they were trying to get 6th graders to reason through ratios without actually setting anything up. Both made the problem much more complex and time consuming than simply learning how to do the math:

0.40 x = 18
--> Don't want to mess with the decimal? Fine--multiply both sides by 10:
4 x =180
--> Divide both sides by 4:
x = (180 / 4) = 45

Math is beautiful, though I know that's not something most people would say. It is about balance, consistency, persistence... all traits that we should be developing in our students. But not every student is ready to think mathematically in elementary school. They would be much better served by focusing on those traits I mentioned: balance, consistency, and persistence. Teach kids that they can learn basics like multiplication facts and those things will consistently help them throughout their future in math. Teach them that the basic rule of solving any equation is "anything you do to one side, you have to do to the other" and they will gain an understanding of balance. Teach them that they can struggle and work through things they think are too hard, and they will learn that persistence will serve them well in life when they face challenges.

We don't need to teach kids multiple ways to solve a simple math problem. Are there multiple ways? Sure. If a kid stumbles across a different way because their mind works differently, encourage them in that. Some of the most amazing minds see math completely differently from everyone else. But for most kids, showing three or four different ways to work a simple math problem just ends up confusing them. Instead of a student well-versed in every method, you get a student so confused that they can't even use one method.

Education needs an overhaul. We need to get away from all the screens, all the tricks and gimmicks, and get back to teaching the basics. Once kids are out of elementary school, we need teachers who are content experts. We need to hold students to high standards instead of telling them failure is acceptable. We need to get back to the old fashioned idea of "reading, writing, and arithmetic" so that our kids develop a basic understanding of the world around them. We need to push them to read hard books, have deep discussions, and disagree with respect, intelligence, and clarity. While the ultimate goal of education is to teach students how to think critically and creatively, they won't be able to do either of those without a simple foundation of knowledge.