High School Students Who Can't Multiply and Divide

teach42 · Oct 22, 2012

Even ignoring the other half of my statement...which was the addition of my own personal experience to yours and which runs pretty much in the opposite direction...you still seem to be suggesting that an entire nation of students struggling to master basic math facts boils down to the following:

1. Calculators prevent the learning of Math facts. Not a bad premise, all by itself. But it doesn't explain the widespread prevalence of the problem unless...

2. The majority of Math teachers allow for liberal calculator use, which when placed in conjunction with point #1 and some of your other statements of frustration, that...

3. The majority of Math teachers are incompetent and/or lazy.

If all three of those conditions isn't present, then your logic doesn't hold up. You get by without calculators, which means it's possible but a lot more frustrating. So the only reason for all those other Math teachers to rely heavily on them (which they must be doing in near universal numbers, for calculators to be one of the principle causes of unlearned Math facts) is that they either can't be bothered or are unable to learn how to teach otherwise. This seems like it's doing Math teachers a grave disservice. And even then, it won't explain why kids aren't learning the parts of speech, or why reading scores aren't improving. So you'd still only be defining a small part of the problem.

It seems far more likely that the reason for all this failed learning is a lot more complex. It involves where we are as a society. It involves outside forces impacting education. And it involves the fact that, as molecular biologist and human brain development researcher John Medina put it, "If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom."

Quote:
I honestly think one of the biggest things I had to get over, as a noob, was the realization that there are some things I just can't fix.
I do think a lot of teachers get wrapped up emotionally in wanting to fix the problems, which is way beyond our ability and expertise. But we are expected to overcome them, and that can feel just as impossible.
Click to expand...

You're assuming I said every school in the nation. The question was have I encountered it at every school I've taught at and the answer is yes. I never said it was every school in the nation so you're stretching a bit. Clearly there are top ranking schools that have brilliant students. Are you going to even attempt to fix the problem or are you going to perpetuate it? I've no idea what you're arguing anymore because you're going off on a tangent.

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High School Students Who Can't Multiply and Divide

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