A Change in Perspective
I grew up with old-school math. I drilled on times tables until I became fluid with them. I wasn’t generally taught to have a fundamental understanding of the mathematics I was learning but learned to apply procedures which, when applied in the right situation, rendered a correct result. My depth of understanding grew as I progressed further into the study of mathematics to the point where I became very comfortable and arguably fluent with more advanced mathematics.
I have watched my two kids go through the “new math” approach to learning and watched them be utterly confused and unable to make sense of the questions or get the correct answers. They weren’t drilled on times tables in school and couldn’t do simple math in their heads and they weren’t getting the deep understanding of mathematics that the “new math” promises. They weren’t getting even a shallow understanding of mathematics. The “new math” approach was not working for them and this was the experience of most of my kids' friends who are otherwise capable students.
In the past 10 years “the Canadian scores in mathematics have declined in all provinces except Quebec and Saskatchewan (where the decreases were not statistically significant(1)” so I don’t think the situation is a reflection of my admittedly small sample size.
Not being proficient in math isn’t an option, so we did like most parents do and we started tutoring our kids in math. We drilled on times tables and generally didn’t use new math methods. We explained problems in whatever way we could so that they would understand and worked with methods that were decidedly not new math but were straight-forward to apply and our kids were able to attain a sufficient level of proficiency. I wasn’t a zealot for returning to the good-old-days of traditional math but “new math” clearly wasn’t working. My frustration over seeing our education system fail to teach kids math (let alone inspire them to love it) was one of my motivations to go to teachers college.
It is with this landscape that I have entered into the arena to learn how “new math” is taught. After only three weeks in teachers’ college, I have not been able to fully grasp and internalize the methods that comprise the modern approach to teaching mathematics but reading Jo Boaler’s What’s Math Got To Do With It (2) offered a glimpse into what the new approach could and should be. Classrooms that challenge students with real-world problems, allow for multiple approaches to solving those problems and permitting students to work collaboratively offers a vision of teaching that has the potential to engage kids and inspire them with mathematics.
While there is satisfaction in simply working through a stack of problems and getting the correct answer by applying a known method, this pales in comparison to the satisfaction of starting with a real-world problem, determining the steps and formulas required to solve the problem and executing those steps to achieve a solution. Doing this in a collaborative environment can add to the reward and should result in more students achieving success in less time and the greater depth of understanding that should result from this approach merits further investigation.
My perception that "new math" was a flawed approach to teaching mathematics may in fact be the result of poor materials and/or ineffective delivery of the content and not an issue with the approach at all. I’ve been forced to revisit my bias against “new math” and look for the opportunity it presents to bring more kids into the world of mathematics.
Resources
- https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-503-x/2015001/article/14640-eng.htm
- Boaler, J. (2015). What's Math Got to Do with It?: How Teachers and Parents Can Transform Mathematics Learning and Inspire Success (Revised Edition). NY: Penguin Books.