Do Fairfield County Students Need Math?

The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/who-needs-advanced-math-not-everybody.html floated an interesting idea regarding math in our high schools. In a recent Sunday’s Edlife section, Andrew Hacker discussed the possibility of focusing more on quantitative reasoning skills and less on algebra, geometry and calculus. While I don’t think he is going to win his argument, I do think he brings up some valid points. Do we need to be teaching all these areas of math? Would it be better to teach the more practical and applicable parts of math instead of math that the vast majority of students will not use?

Much of what our Fairfield County tutors see is that math tends to be an area of great stress for many students. With our student mastery program, we at the Learning Consultants have to first help a student not be fearful of math and not let the past experiences of poor performance hinder the student’s ability to learn. Only then, can actually teach the concepts. Continuing to just teach the student how to do a math problem without helping them address their overall fear of math will never create the kind of math minds we need. Regardless of whether or not schools continue to teach all areas of math, it would be beneficial if schools could tackle the issues of what makes math so difficult for so many. If we changed even a few approaches to math in elementary school, we might nurture more math students in high school. Here are two simple ideas.

1. Stop timing students!

What does this accomplish other than stressing out students, encouraging competition with classmates and most importantly, emphasizing speed over process? That time table sheet and stop watch have got to go.

 

2. Give points for getting the process correct.

While there is only one correct answer in math, teachers should give some points to the process. If the end result is all we grade, then we are not encouraging students to try, to experiment and to make mistakes.