5 ms·

This story is dead on. I know this from personal experience and from teaching my own children. I could not add until I was 10. It was painful. I still remember

by teilo 17y ago

This story is dead on. I know this from personal experience and from teaching my own children. I could not add until I was 10. It was painful. I still remember it vividly. Suddenly everything clicked, and I rocketed through all the material I was behind on. I have six children, five of which are old enough to be in school. We have been home schooling them, I believe I have some creds on this. Two of them (both girls) took right to math early on. No problem there. Two of them (both boys) couldn't be bothered, no matter what method we tried. One of the girls was doing math before she could read, because she was a late reader. Couldn't read until she was 9. But suddenly she got it, and took off, and is reading voraciously today. Her younger sister was reading at 4. Both boys are now doing pre-algebra. One is 13, the other 11. We decided not to sweat it when thy were way behind. We just kept getting them to do what they could. If they weren't getting some concept, we went slower, or went to other topics they could understand. Eventually everything started clicking. Cookie-cutter education could never do this. I agree that national education standards that fit all children into specific requirements by age, are foolish and harmful. As guidelines they are fine, but if the government is behind them they are never just guidelines. They won't fix the problem of bad and lazy teachers (in fact, they make that problem worse), and they don't help good teachers teach better.

marze 17y ago
It sounds like you are suggesting teaching children only the things they are interested in and ready for at the time. Compared to teaching on arbitrary set of topics at arbitrary times, you should have big gains in learning efficiency and enjoyment, since it is inefficient to spend time attempting to convey a concept the child is not ready for or is uninterested. The child will be spending a greater fraction of the time learning. Sounds sensible to me.
- bmj 17y ago
  As another homeschooler, there is a fine line between gauging interest and imparting self-discipline. Of course, such "hard work" looks radically different at home than it does in the classroom. It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them, but, again, how this is carried out in the home would likely be more positive than a classroom setting. That said, I agree with the parent, and the original blog post. Our older son picked up reading and writing quickly (without much prompting from us, but his younger brother is less interested in those things, but is showing greater creative ability, so we're running with that.
  - bobbin 17y ago
    > It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them Why do you need to teach them that? life does that when you pursue something you are interested in. Whenever I want to achieve something there are things I don't want to do that are necessary to do what I want.
    - olliesaunders 17y ago
      I completely agree with this. Just cultivate an attitude of ambition in them. The environment will show them what skills are necessary to achieve their ambitions. I don't believe you should teach anything without demonstrating it's use; the environment does this more effectively than any teacher can.
    - bmj 17y ago
      But if a child is never exposed to work (that is, focusing on things that don't necessarily interest them rather than simply floating between things they find fun), he may not be equipped to make the proper decisions later in life. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying--I'm not suggesting that children are simply forced to learn things, especially without any sort of context. I am suggesting that sometimes children needed to be nudged to get over the "I don't want to think hard about this" hump. We've seen this in our own kids. Our older son didn't particular like to put forth the effort to read himself, but we asked him to do it just a bit each day, and quickly he realized this opened up a whole world of stuff that he could do on his own.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
- psawaya 17y ago
  There are actually schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school) that attempt to teach K-12 this way. It would be interesting to read a study of how Sudbury alumni perform after they graduate, but I can't find one right now.
abstractbill 17y ago
Just adding my own experience to this: Until the age of 15, maths was considered a real "problem subject" for me. At every parent-teacher conference it was generally accepted that I would never be good at it (and I had no problem with that at all - I found the whole subject very boring and difficult). Then one day, at age 15, a classmate showed me how to do quadratic equations. I have no idea why, but that day a really bright light suddenly switched on for me. I quickly caught up to, and then passed the abilities of everyone else in the class, and then started teaching myself calculus in my spare time. I went on to get a PhD in Pure Mathematics. I do think I just wasn't ready for a long time.
- flatline 17y ago
  I came out of Algebra I with a C or a D and didn't feel like I understood any of it. Geometry came next and it was fun, I really liked proofs and somehow by the time I got to Algebra II, everything made sense. From that point forward, however, math just seemed like rote memorization without any meaning or elegance. I shied away from it for years, only just returning to school to learn more math recently, in my 30s. I still feel like there's something fundamentally lacking in the way the whole math curriculum is set up, as I didn't see much that I really enjoyed in the period between 9th grade Geometry and Calculus II. I understand the need to build a solid foundation before learning more advanced material, but it seems very one-sided when there is such a breadth of interesting material out there.
- bokonist 17y ago
  I'm curious - before math clicked for you, were you good at other subjects and generally one of the brightest in your class? IE - did your teachers think you were dumb overall, or just that you were a smart kid who for some reason didn't get math?
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    I was always good in the sciences, especially physics, and also in music. My teachers seemed to think I was smart, but they definitely thought I would never get maths.
xiaoma 17y ago
I was very different. I learned basic addition as a toddler, and then demanded that my uncle teach me whatever was "next". Bless his heart, he made me a basic math game on his commodore 64 with flashing lights, progressively harder levels, time limits and hints. Through his patient instruction and a lot of free time on that game, I learned to multiply before entering elementary school and passed a college calculus class before entering high school. Then, somehow after going to high school I got really into sports and less nerdy subjects and never progressed much further in terms of math than where I was at the age of 14 or 15. I regret it and OpenCourseWare beckons.
stralep 17y ago
I'm still in college, and I won't have kids for some time, but I am terrified by current state of education, especially elementary, in my country (Serbia). Could you tell me how you have made your kids socially adapted, because that is the main benefit (IMHO) of schools.
tokenadult 17y ago
I'll reply to a homeschooling example with another homeschooling example. The reason I'm not sure that the underlying Psychology Today blog article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/whe... cited in this submitted blog post gets things right is that children's readiness to learn this or that is surely influenced by early childhood experiences, and the role of an education (parent at home or teacher in school) is to serve up those experiences. My wife the music major who is a piano teacher by occupation used to play counting and adding games with dice with our oldest son when he was little. I the Chinese major who was then working mostly as a translator and language teacher began guiding him through the excellent Miquon Math materials http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml as he reached typical first-grade age. My son took to math an something fun, not tedious, and eventually at fourth-grade age enrolled in the EPGY math distance learning courses. http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/elem.html http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/elem.html He enjoyed those, and spurted ahead to finishing the EPGY algebra course by the end of his fifth grade school year. By then he had also tested into the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP), http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/ http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/ his first taste of somewhat conventional classroom instruction in any subject. Our son of two non-mathy parents has gone on to do a lot of summer programs in math http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/files/Overseas%20Summer%20Brochure.doc http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/files/Overseas%20Summer%20Brochure.do... http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/osmath.html#game http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/osmath.html#game http://www.mathpath.org/newspapers/Colorado.Springs.Gazette.2005.pdf http://www.mathpath.org/newspapers/Colorado.Springs.Gazette.... http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/ http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/ and upper-division study of math as a dual-enrollment student at our state university. He is awaiting the last bit of college admission and financial aid news before deciding where to enroll for a double major in math and computer science. To sum up, I'm not sure that homeschooling parents, or any parents, have to decide "not to sweat it" if a child hasn't learned much math yet. Maybe it's time to do activities that are supportive for learning math. Our second son's strongest personal interest is literature--he loves to participate in National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/ http://www.nanowrimo.org/ but he applies his highly visual brain (very different from his older brother's "natural" way of approaching math) to learning math, and he is right on track to learn algebra at eighth-grade age, and rather more thoroughly than most students in Minnesota do. My two younger children (one boy, one girl) are also enjoying the Miquon Math and the Singapore Primary Mathematics materials that their older siblings used before them, well known for encouraging children to "use their noggins," as one homeschooling parent described them. P.S. I grew to recover my childhood liking for math so much while observing my oldest son's study of math that I am now an elementary math teacher by occupation. http://www.ecae.net/category/saturday-school/ http://www.ecae.net/category/saturday-school/
Qz 17y ago
I agree with you, even though math was never a problem for me. Another factor that could play into this is the learned frustration that comes with the increasing force of the teaching attempts. Some people might be bad at math when they're young, but then because it gets pushed on them so much they then acquire a personal dislike for the subject, so even if later they might be in a spot where they could learn the subject easily, they'll still have in their head that they suck at math and don't like it. It's a really hard thing to unteach.

by teilo 17y ago

marze 17y ago

It sounds like you are suggesting teaching children only the things they are interested in and ready for at the time. Compared to teaching on arbitrary set of topics at arbitrary times, you should have big gains in learning efficiency and enjoyment, since it is inefficient to spend time attempting to convey a concept the child is not ready for or is uninterested. The child will be spending a greater fraction of the time learning. Sounds sensible to me.

bmj 17y ago
As another homeschooler, there is a fine line between gauging interest and imparting self-discipline. Of course, such "hard work" looks radically different at home than it does in the classroom. It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them, but, again, how this is carried out in the home would likely be more positive than a classroom setting. That said, I agree with the parent, and the original blog post. Our older son picked up reading and writing quickly (without much prompting from us, but his younger brother is less interested in those things, but is showing greater creative ability, so we're running with that.
- bobbin 17y ago
  > It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them Why do you need to teach them that? life does that when you pursue something you are interested in. Whenever I want to achieve something there are things I don't want to do that are necessary to do what I want.
  - olliesaunders 17y ago
    I completely agree with this. Just cultivate an attitude of ambition in them. The environment will show them what skills are necessary to achieve their ambitions. I don't believe you should teach anything without demonstrating it's use; the environment does this more effectively than any teacher can.
  - bmj 17y ago
    But if a child is never exposed to work (that is, focusing on things that don't necessarily interest them rather than simply floating between things they find fun), he may not be equipped to make the proper decisions later in life. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying--I'm not suggesting that children are simply forced to learn things, especially without any sort of context. I am suggesting that sometimes children needed to be nudged to get over the "I don't want to think hard about this" hump. We've seen this in our own kids. Our older son didn't particular like to put forth the effort to read himself, but we asked him to do it just a bit each day, and quickly he realized this opened up a whole world of stuff that he could do on his own.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
psawaya 17y ago
There are actually schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school) that attempt to teach K-12 this way. It would be interesting to read a study of how Sudbury alumni perform after they graduate, but I can't find one right now.

abstractbill 17y ago

Just adding my own experience to this: Until the age of 15, maths was considered a real "problem subject" for me. At every parent-teacher conference it was generally accepted that I would never be good at it (and I had no problem with that at all - I found the whole subject very boring and difficult). Then one day, at age 15, a classmate showed me how to do quadratic equations. I have no idea why, but that day a really bright light suddenly switched on for me. I quickly caught up to, and then passed the abilities of everyone else in the class, and then started teaching myself calculus in my spare time. I went on to get a PhD in Pure Mathematics. I do think I just wasn't ready for a long time.

flatline 17y ago
I came out of Algebra I with a C or a D and didn't feel like I understood any of it. Geometry came next and it was fun, I really liked proofs and somehow by the time I got to Algebra II, everything made sense. From that point forward, however, math just seemed like rote memorization without any meaning or elegance. I shied away from it for years, only just returning to school to learn more math recently, in my 30s. I still feel like there's something fundamentally lacking in the way the whole math curriculum is set up, as I didn't see much that I really enjoyed in the period between 9th grade Geometry and Calculus II. I understand the need to build a solid foundation before learning more advanced material, but it seems very one-sided when there is such a breadth of interesting material out there.
bokonist 17y ago
I'm curious - before math clicked for you, were you good at other subjects and generally one of the brightest in your class? IE - did your teachers think you were dumb overall, or just that you were a smart kid who for some reason didn't get math?
- abstractbill 17y ago
  I was always good in the sciences, especially physics, and also in music. My teachers seemed to think I was smart, but they definitely thought I would never get maths.

xiaoma 17y ago

I was very different. I learned basic addition as a toddler, and then demanded that my uncle teach me whatever was "next". Bless his heart, he made me a basic math game on his commodore 64 with flashing lights, progressively harder levels, time limits and hints. Through his patient instruction and a lot of free time on that game, I learned to multiply before entering elementary school and passed a college calculus class before entering high school. Then, somehow after going to high school I got really into sports and less nerdy subjects and never progressed much further in terms of math than where I was at the age of 14 or 15. I regret it and OpenCourseWare beckons.

stralep 17y ago

I'm still in college, and I won't have kids for some time, but I am terrified by current state of education, especially elementary, in my country (Serbia). Could you tell me how you have made your kids socially adapted, because that is the main benefit (IMHO) of schools.

tokenadult 17y ago

I'll reply to a homeschooling example with another homeschooling example. The reason I'm not sure that the underlying Psychology Today blog article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/whe... cited in this submitted blog post gets things right is that children's readiness to learn this or that is surely influenced by early childhood experiences, and the role of an education (parent at home or teacher in school) is to serve up those experiences. My wife the music major who is a piano teacher by occupation used to play counting and adding games with dice with our oldest son when he was little. I the Chinese major who was then working mostly as a translator and language teacher began guiding him through the excellent Miquon Math materials http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml as he reached typical first-grade age. My son took to math an something fun, not tedious, and eventually at fourth-grade age enrolled in the EPGY math distance learning courses. http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/elem.html http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/elem.html He enjoyed those, and spurted ahead to finishing the EPGY algebra course by the end of his fifth grade school year. By then he had also tested into the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP), http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/ http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/ his first taste of somewhat conventional classroom instruction in any subject. Our son of two non-mathy parents has gone on to do a lot of summer programs in math http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/files/Overseas%20Summer%20Brochure.doc http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/files/Overseas%20Summer%20Brochure.do... http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/osmath.html#game http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/osmath.html#game http://www.mathpath.org/newspapers/Colorado.Springs.Gazette.2005.pdf http://www.mathpath.org/newspapers/Colorado.Springs.Gazette.... http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/ http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/ and upper-division study of math as a dual-enrollment student at our state university. He is awaiting the last bit of college admission and financial aid news before deciding where to enroll for a double major in math and computer science. To sum up, I'm not sure that homeschooling parents, or any parents, have to decide "not to sweat it" if a child hasn't learned much math yet. Maybe it's time to do activities that are supportive for learning math. Our second son's strongest personal interest is literature--he loves to participate in National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/ http://www.nanowrimo.org/ but he applies his highly visual brain (very different from his older brother's "natural" way of approaching math) to learning math, and he is right on track to learn algebra at eighth-grade age, and rather more thoroughly than most students in Minnesota do. My two younger children (one boy, one girl) are also enjoying the Miquon Math and the Singapore Primary Mathematics materials that their older siblings used before them, well known for encouraging children to "use their noggins," as one homeschooling parent described them. P.S. I grew to recover my childhood liking for math so much while observing my oldest son's study of math that I am now an elementary math teacher by occupation. http://www.ecae.net/category/saturday-school/ http://www.ecae.net/category/saturday-school/

Qz 17y ago

I agree with you, even though math was never a problem for me. Another factor that could play into this is the learned frustration that comes with the increasing force of the teaching attempts. Some people might be bad at math when they're young, but then because it gets pushed on them so much they then acquire a personal dislike for the subject, so even if later they might be in a spot where they could learn the subject easily, they'll still have in their head that they suck at math and don't like it. It's a really hard thing to unteach.