Reflection of “Mathematic Education”
I first stopped at a point before talking about history of math education in North America. I am surprised that there is also a problem of math teachers being lack in background knowledge of math in North America. As I had elementary education in China, I feel the same with math education in China as well. Although there are so many great people and research result of math in ancient China, we hardly know about their achievement and usually end up just knowing they are Chinese mathematicians. Many teachers are lack in knowledge or ignoring the importance of math history and background knowledge. Students are only required to memorise procedures and not necessary to understand the concept, and after some of them become math teachers after grow up and repeat doing same things as they experienced. I am surprised that North American math education is having the same problem and I hope this fact could be changed someday.
I also stopped at the first history period of math education (Progressivist Reform). During 1910s, students only learn about complex steps to get the answer of the question with no idea of why the method works and the theorem. I could relate this to the point I stopped and this is probably a reason that students have math phobia. Since they only remember how to solve the problem, they may recognise math as a subject of solving difficult problems by using complicated steps they memorised, so that they find math boring and do like like the subject.
I can see how universities and educators put effort on improving math education in 1960s. As there are more scientific research result applying math as a basic tool, people realize the importance of math so universities get involved to math education at K-12 level. I was stopped and surprised that many people do not like this change, especially teachers. I remember in the beginning of the term, there are more than one course talked about how teachers are also students and why. If there is a change to the teaching content, as adults and people who provide education to students, teachers need to get used to the change and learn as fast as possible. Although it is difficult to do so, it is a part of teacher’s job. However, when I was reading the article, I foresee that this revolution would fail. The change of math education is too sudden, maybe it is better to slow down the change and give more time for people to adapt and change their point of view.
The “fourth” point I stopped and find interesting is that American grade eight students ranked 28th in math, and many countries that are ahead are Asian countries. Although I usually criticise about Asian-style education, I still find this result is not surprising. There are many good points in their way of math education (like having the oral formula of multiplication table and ask students to do speed-calculation) so that students get extremely familiar to basic math and is beneficial for their future math learning.
(Speed calcution is a small quiz with a list of quick and simple questions that may involve addication, multiplication, fraction and etc, then ask students to do as many as they can in a very limited time, usually one or two minutes. This is a good method of training them to do calculation mentally.)
I also stopped at the first history period of math education (Progressivist Reform). During 1910s, students only learn about complex steps to get the answer of the question with no idea of why the method works and the theorem. I could relate this to the point I stopped and this is probably a reason that students have math phobia. Since they only remember how to solve the problem, they may recognise math as a subject of solving difficult problems by using complicated steps they memorised, so that they find math boring and do like like the subject.
I can see how universities and educators put effort on improving math education in 1960s. As there are more scientific research result applying math as a basic tool, people realize the importance of math so universities get involved to math education at K-12 level. I was stopped and surprised that many people do not like this change, especially teachers. I remember in the beginning of the term, there are more than one course talked about how teachers are also students and why. If there is a change to the teaching content, as adults and people who provide education to students, teachers need to get used to the change and learn as fast as possible. Although it is difficult to do so, it is a part of teacher’s job. However, when I was reading the article, I foresee that this revolution would fail. The change of math education is too sudden, maybe it is better to slow down the change and give more time for people to adapt and change their point of view.
The “fourth” point I stopped and find interesting is that American grade eight students ranked 28th in math, and many countries that are ahead are Asian countries. Although I usually criticise about Asian-style education, I still find this result is not surprising. There are many good points in their way of math education (like having the oral formula of multiplication table and ask students to do speed-calculation) so that students get extremely familiar to basic math and is beneficial for their future math learning.
(Speed calcution is a small quiz with a list of quick and simple questions that may involve addication, multiplication, fraction and etc, then ask students to do as many as they can in a very limited time, usually one or two minutes. This is a good method of training them to do calculation mentally.)
Thanks Ashley. Lots of interesting points here. I am not sure if you completely understood the Progressivist Reform movement and some other points in the article, but you have interesting thoughts about the comparison between Chinese and North American math education.
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