Why Dick and Jane Can't Divide: The Video

YouTube | January 15, 2007 | M.J. McDermott

[metmom]

We used Saxon for homeschooling and when we finally got to trig, which I never even took way back when when I was in high school, I found out it was really pretty easy! It's simply the ratio of two of the sides of a triangle! Why didn't someone tell me that then?

Judging by the placement test my daughter had to take for her freshman year of college, the state of math education in this country is abysmal.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the "other" articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. If you want on/off this list, please freepmail me. The main Homeschool Ping List by DaveLoneRanger handles the homeschool-specific articles.

[PGalt]

Thanks very much for posting and the link. BTTT!

[dano1]

bttt

[Criminal Number 18F]

A few comments:

1. MJ McDermott is hot. There is no greater turn-on that brains in a woman -- at least to this man. She appears to be wearing a humongous ring set -- I hope it's a man's sign of appreciation for the good thing he's got going.

2. As anyone who's been to a university that has an education school or a college with an education department knows, the least able students on the campus infest that (virtual) region. The BS, Ed. is the short school bus degree to begin with.

3. Of all the disciplines in the academy, none is more prone to pseudoscience and fad than education, also. I was a victim of the original New Math {YouTube] in the Kennedy era and never got the hang of math till I got some books that were printed for Ford workers in the 1930s! We've had "New Math," "natural math," and now this "Cluster Math," which is only accurate in the Army sense, wherein "Cluster is but half a word." Similar fads have poisoned the teaching of reading, and the profound and unbounded ignorance of history and geography of today's youth didn't become a watchword because they're working too hard on the farm to study.

4. Most of the nonsense that produces these horrid results can be traced to the scientifically unsupported cant of John Dewey and his legions of admirers and followers from among those Ed-school mouth-breathers. The more you know about neuroscience and learning, the less your regard for Dewey, a monster who has destroyed more minds than methamphetamine and is closing in on the record held by alcohol.

5. In the [original] YouTube, at about eight minutes' elapsed time, McDermott reveals the shocking fact that, "Now, in TERC/Investigations [the book at issue], no algorithm or method is taught. Students 'reason' through the problems and use 'cluster problems' again." Un-be-frapping-lievable.

6. "Cluster Problems" appears to mean breaking down everything to multiples of 2 or 10 in order to overcome the deficiency in mastery of number facts that results from the fad-driven and fuzzy material, and lack of drill, in lower grades.

7. Since Dewey, educrats have opposed drill, while the military, professional skills schools (new-equipment training for pilots and eye surgeons, for example), and athletic coaches have continued to embrace it. How does the educrats' product (students') performance look compared to, say, the skill of a modern eye surgeon or safety record of any airline? To the performance of the median baseball pitcher or discus thrower?

8. Finally, the math that MJ McDermott presents here is basic fifth grade stuff and every student (even those of below-average intellect) should be able to master it, and can benefit from using it. I am appalled at how many people can't figure out how many songs they still have room for on their bleepin' iPods, let alone student pilots who hyperventilate at weight and balance problems. It ain't rocket surgery, folks. If you think it's real hard, your teachers screwed you.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[LibFreeOrDie]

"Many Hub graduates struggle in college
Remedial classes often necessary, study finds"
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff January 19, 2007

"Half of Boston public school graduates who studied math when they arrived at 11 local colleges in fall 2005 were required to take a remedial class, which a quarter of them failed, according to newly released data."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/19/many_hub_graduates_struggle_in_college/

"Teachers' math skills are targeted
More proficiency needed for license"
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff January 2, 2007

"State education officials, worried that many elementary teachers struggle with math, are making it harder to get a teaching license and urging colleges to offer more demanding courses for aspiring teachers."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/02/teachers_math_skills_are_targeted/

[Clintonfatigued]

Very well-put. And one of the reasons some kids act up so much is a combination of boredom and frustration. They are subtly taught it's their fault they can't learn or retain the cirriculum, when in fact it's the way the cirriculum is taught that is (and always has been) the problem.

[msnimje]

Wat r thes threed abut?

[Jessarah]

I would like to see some published results of students who have used "Investigations" as their primary source of math education. I'm not sure how long it's been around, but I'm wondering how well college students are doing who have grown up with this kind of math. Maybe there are stats somewhere concerning this?

[AlaskaErik]

It's just like anything else the liberals touch. Take something easy and make it as difficult as possible.

[madprof98]

The madness described on the video came to us courtesy of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which has given us plenty of other horrors to go with it. As the tape says, the basic idea is that learning standard algorithms through drill and practice is a waste of time for elementary children. So what is NOT a waste of their time? In other words, what do the books spend time on? The ones we are using now cover a mishmash of topics, presented in no particular order, and each addressed for only a short chapter before another (wholly unrelated) one is brought up. Everything gets the same brief coverage, so nothing is really mastered--including, of course, basic arithmetic.

This is not just a public school problem. Our daughter attends an expensive parochial school, and our texts are brand new. The younger teachers were trained to present math this way, and getting rid of it is going to be very, very difficult. The best hope comes from the recent decision of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to back off their failed reforms.

[Explorer89]

My children in Catholic school are using the Saxon curriculum. They need to memorize the basic facts, but even first graders do a very basic sort of Algebra in that program. There isn't a unit on fractions, or time, or money, or graphs....they do every single one of those every single day.

They know it cold.

[JoeFromSidney]

I watched the video. I had never heard of those methods of "doing" math. For the most part, they're a hard way of doing something that's simple.

The funny part is that, although I'm a professional mathematician, when I have to do a computation in my head and an approximate answer is acceptable, I often use what the video called the "cluster" method. I'd never heard it called that. I simply use it because it gets a decent approximation when I have neither pencil/paper or a calculator. But to teach it to children as the preferred method of multiplying numbers is nothing but educational malfeasance.

Teaching approximation methods to high school students may be a good thing, but only after they've mastered the basics. As an example, suppose you're in Canada and want to convert the Celsius temperature that Canadians use to the Fahrenheit that Americans are familiar with. The exact formula is: multiply the Celsius degrees by nine-fifths, and add thirty-two. Maybe some people can do that in their heads, but I can't. When my wife, a non-mathematician, asked me how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, I told her, double the Celsius and add thirty. It multiplies by too much but doesn't add enough, and the two errors tend to cancel. For the range of temperatures that people encounter in daily life, it gives an answer within a degree or two, which is good enough. For scientific work, the students need to be taught the correct formula. For everyday applications, they should be taught that there is a correct formula, but there's also an approximation you can do in your head.

The current math curricula are a failure on both counts. They're not adequate to prepare students for scientific work, and they're too complicated for everyday use. I can't imagine what the educators were smoking when they invented these various "new math" curricula.

[Jason_b]

All I can say is, Saxon .

[Poser]

It's a long video, but well worth the time. As you watch it keep this in mind:

My college accounting students cannot multiply or divide by 10 in their heads.

[achilles2000]

bump

[Aggie Mama]

Our daughter is in K in Catholic school and she just brought home a worksheet with basic algebra. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. They use the Saxon program also.

[Aggie Mama]

Our daughter is in K in Catholic school and she just brought home a worksheet with basic algebra. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. They use the Saxon program also.

[Professional Engineer]

My college accounting students cannot multiply or divide by 10 in their heads.

MY homeschooled 8 year old can.

[Poser]

"MY homeschooled 8 year old can."

I think the video explains why.