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Practice makes perfect!
Oct. 3rd, 2014 12:23 pmHere's an excellent article that also shows the problems with the various implementations of "new math" that keep happening in the US.
I'm certainly no "math genius," but I did go as far as a couple of semesters of calculus. I see all these Common Core proponents go on and on about understanding and concepts being so much better than rote learning and it makes me think of math in third grade. That's when we were focused on learning the times tables. We practiced and practiced and practiced. We did problems sets to a timer over and over (and when we did things in some specific fashion, we'd get a swedish fish as a reward). And you know what? After all that, I absolutely understand how multiplication works. I'll admit I don't have instant recall of some of the higher number combinations anymore, but because of that understanding, I can quickly figure out even those (I'll go through some thought process such as, "Oh, I don't remember 7x12. I do remember 5x12=60, so add 2x12 to that and I have 7x12=84." Takes mere moments, and I use the same concepts to break down larger problems to do in my head as well.)
After reading Einstein Never Used Flashcards, I've certainly not been a proponent of things like flashcards. And really, that's not the sort of "rote learning" the author of the article is proposing. There's a big difference between memorizing what's on some cards and actually using the skill by doing it over and over in different ways. Seems to me that, say, learning to read a word by reading sentences in a story that contains that word is going to be a lot more effective than just seeing the word on a flashcard with no context (and while the reading system we're using does have flashcards, I've completely ignored their use, and my kids are doing great. I was informed yesterday that Enoch is reading at an end of first grade level now.).
It absolutely boggles my mind that Common Core seems more interested in things like getting first graders, who are both just learning to read and do math, doing nearly incomprehensible word problems instead of getting them the practice and core skills needed to even make sense of word problems. I can't figure out how someone is supposed to solve a word problem if they don't even have the core concepts learned that are necessary to solve the word problem. Math needs work to learn it (and by extension, many concepts of science, since math is used in so many ways in science). While there are people who have an easier time picking it up, having been in calculus class with people that were gifted enough that they'd been skipped up a math class at some point, they still had to put in the work to understand the stuff. One of them is now an engineer studying lasers for the Air Force-but having sat next to him for half the year, I know very well that while it came a bit easier to him than it did to me, he still worked hard and practiced (and made our teacher work even harder to read his chicken scratch writing to correct his work. I feel for his colleagues if he hasn't improved his penmanship over the years!).
The author of the article is actually teaching a class on learning on Coursera right now.
I'm certainly no "math genius," but I did go as far as a couple of semesters of calculus. I see all these Common Core proponents go on and on about understanding and concepts being so much better than rote learning and it makes me think of math in third grade. That's when we were focused on learning the times tables. We practiced and practiced and practiced. We did problems sets to a timer over and over (and when we did things in some specific fashion, we'd get a swedish fish as a reward). And you know what? After all that, I absolutely understand how multiplication works. I'll admit I don't have instant recall of some of the higher number combinations anymore, but because of that understanding, I can quickly figure out even those (I'll go through some thought process such as, "Oh, I don't remember 7x12. I do remember 5x12=60, so add 2x12 to that and I have 7x12=84." Takes mere moments, and I use the same concepts to break down larger problems to do in my head as well.)
After reading Einstein Never Used Flashcards, I've certainly not been a proponent of things like flashcards. And really, that's not the sort of "rote learning" the author of the article is proposing. There's a big difference between memorizing what's on some cards and actually using the skill by doing it over and over in different ways. Seems to me that, say, learning to read a word by reading sentences in a story that contains that word is going to be a lot more effective than just seeing the word on a flashcard with no context (and while the reading system we're using does have flashcards, I've completely ignored their use, and my kids are doing great. I was informed yesterday that Enoch is reading at an end of first grade level now.).
It absolutely boggles my mind that Common Core seems more interested in things like getting first graders, who are both just learning to read and do math, doing nearly incomprehensible word problems instead of getting them the practice and core skills needed to even make sense of word problems. I can't figure out how someone is supposed to solve a word problem if they don't even have the core concepts learned that are necessary to solve the word problem. Math needs work to learn it (and by extension, many concepts of science, since math is used in so many ways in science). While there are people who have an easier time picking it up, having been in calculus class with people that were gifted enough that they'd been skipped up a math class at some point, they still had to put in the work to understand the stuff. One of them is now an engineer studying lasers for the Air Force-but having sat next to him for half the year, I know very well that while it came a bit easier to him than it did to me, he still worked hard and practiced (and made our teacher work even harder to read his chicken scratch writing to correct his work. I feel for his colleagues if he hasn't improved his penmanship over the years!).
The author of the article is actually teaching a class on learning on Coursera right now.
