Useless?
This is disturbing but not surprising:
During their first math class at one of CUNY’s four-year colleges, 90% of 200 students tested couldn’t solve a simple algebra problem, the report by the CUNY Council of Math Chairs found. Only a third could convert a fraction into a decimal.
Sandra Stotsky thinks this is because education majors teach math and make math curriculums.
I’m sympathetic to her view but would point out that my wife, with an accounting degree, handily teaches algebra and fraction conversion to our home schooled 12 year old. Anybody who knows it can teach it, if they use an effective teaching method.
It isn’t so much that it is silly education majors designing curriculum, it is that they are silly. Silly mathematicians would make the same mistakes. The key is to do what works, not what you want to work.
Two theories lie behind the educators’ new approach to math teaching: “cultural-historical activity theory” and “constructivism.” According to cultural-historical activity theory, schooling as it exists today reinforces an illegitimate social order. Typical of this mindset is Brian Greer, a mathematics educator at Portland State University, who argues “against the goal of ‘algebra for all’ on the grounds that . . . most individuals in our society do not need to have studied algebra.” According to Greer, the proper approach to teaching math “now questions whether mathematics as a school subject should continue to be dominated by mathematics as an academic discipline or should reflect more fully the range of mathematical activities in which humans engage.” The primary role of math teachers, constructivists say in turn, shouldn’t be to explain or otherwise try to “transfer” their mathematical knowledge to students; that would be ineffective. Instead, they must help the students construct their own understanding of mathematics and find their own math solutions.
Uhmm… bad idea. Do such professors ask students to ditch the wheel and invent something else?
As to the argument that most people do not need to know how to do algebra in their daily life. I agree. You know them, they wear name tags at work but don’t carry guns.
Even if you don’t use it daily, I want a country loaded with adults that have at some point been intellectually challenged by abstract problems – like algebra. They may not need the algebra but they will need how their mind works once it can sort out algebra.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I happen to know a Doctor of Education quite well. She also happens to be one of the strongest advocates I know of hard math and science education for everyone. Of course, she has a bachelors degree in chemistry with a minor in math and was a chemist by profession long before going into education.
To be perfectly honest, what does a degree say without math? Lets say you get a high school diploma under the described change. An employer would not have a guarantee that you can:
a) Perform split, weighted tip calculations.
b) Understand basic mixtures like motor oil.
c) quickly calculate the count of a significant purchase (say you walk up with a cart loaded with 4 stacks of 5 bags of dogfood?)
d) understand gravity, light, newtonian physics, accounting, graphics, cars (mechanically or motion thereof), biology, medicine
e) The dangers of self-replicating intelligent machines. (Hey, this is important stuff to know!)
Since all of those require algebra, even if it is just substituting values into a formula.
People who understand math are more effective in nearly every area of life, from waitresses and mechanics up to CEOs, math runs our lives. Those who can’t understand the complexities and the common language of mathematics are doomed to ignorance of the basis of their surroundings. Algebra is the first *understanding* of math. Arithmetic is function, algebra is form. Starting with Algebra you can begin to understand “why”.
I advocate the opposite of these shrubs. Calculus needs to be a required course in high-school (and not wussy business calc either. The real stuff)
November 17th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Amen Dan. I had a hard time with the title of the post… because it isn’t really “education major” that is the problem, just silliness in the form of wishful thinking and a desire to be different.
On the advice of my Dad I took as hard math courses as I could in college. I don’t use it much now, but I certainly use the rigor of thought each and every day.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
No algebra = no fresh cookies! No logic = little common sense.
H & R Block is happy no one knows math, as are banks, realtors, unon bosses and trial lawyers.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Congressmen too. If their voters don’t know math, they don’t need to know math!
November 17th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
As soon as I saw the word “cultural” in the explanation of the new methods I knew we were dealing with a politically correct sloution to the problem of minorities ( excluding Asians, of course; in the PC world they don’t count, in fact they mess up the numbers) not doing well at basic subjects, especially math. If we say they don’t really need it, then we don’t have to explain why they can’t do it. Just dumb it down and send them on their way, unprepared for life.
I guess it’s OK. Someone has to ring up my order at Walmart and stock the shelves.
November 17th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
An uneducated populace is easy to govern.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Uneducated populaces are also easily roused into mob action. Hello tea parties, goodbye rule of law.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am
#7… you are a one way elitist. Why aren’t you complaining that an uneducated mob organizer named Andy Stern is your guy Obama’s right hand man? Or that your team wants to import uneducated illegals that vote for them into the country.
Let’s see… who was at my last tea party… Me, educated. A few lawyer friends… educated. A number of doctors…. super educated. Staff of the CS department… educated. A number of my employees… educated. Who was the biggest fool there? An “educated” English professor that spouted Marxist crap and was laughed, not booed, off the stage.
Put another way, as politely as I know how, you know NOT of what you speak.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Let’s not forget the riots that have occurred in many major cities during economic summits ( Seattle 1999, Argentinia 2005, Quebec 2001..there are many more). Those were all left-wing anarchists. So far, we have seen no violence at Tea Party rallies. #7 must have some examples of violence at a Tea Party; otherwise he would not have made such a staement. Please enlighten us.
#7 throws out a nonsensical statement, unsupported by facts, to prove a point. That might work if you were preaching to the choir at a DC Democrat club but we aren’t buying it. Repeat a lie often enough and the liberals will believe it.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:21 am
#7 is what you get when you use NPR, PBS and The NY Times as your news sources.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Uneducated people break the law, educated people clean up after themselves. Is littering law breaking in DC? If so we know who the dummies are, Democrats and geese. At least the environmentalists pick up all the goose poo on the Mall!
November 18th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Uneducated Tea Parties? No Rule of Law?
I knew quite a few people who attended those parties in Saint George. All but one had at least a Bachelor’s degree, at least one had a Doctorate. We (I speak for those I know and have discussed this with only) are pissed off at the LACK of rule of law. The ignorance of our natural and guaranteed rights by the officials in an increasingly corrupted government. We exercised our lawful right to peaceably assemble and voice our discontent over the abandonment of constitutional law.
I would see your point if and only if these parties turned violent in some fashion. But they haven’t. These are not acting as mobs, they are orderly and organized protests.
What you are apparently failing to recognize is that what is being protested against is the product of an uneducated populace. Our nation has been voting for demagogues.
Benjamin Franklin said that Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner and Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
My guess is that the previous commenter is correct, your information is coming from places like CNN and NPR which oppose the ideals of the people who are protesting. According to them, no one could independently think such thoughts, they must be Republican plants (referring to the town hall protesters as well as Tea Parties).
Consider other sources of information: http://reason.tv/video/show/sept-12-taxpayer-march-on-wash