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For over a decade, I have run a successful tutoring center focused on math and science for elementary school students in a developing country. Our students won

For over a decade, I have run a successful tutoring center focused on math and science for elementary school students in a developing country. Our students won numerous awards both at the national and international levels. We usually employ teachers with degrees in math or science, or sometimes engineering. Occasionally for early elementary levels (grades 1-3), some teachers have a degree in another discipline. Regardless of major, we always test them for math aptitude. The test includes competitive exam questions focused on mathematical understanding and problem solving skills, rather than advanced math knowledge. (The other part of teacher selection is interviewing for teaching skills and trial teaching with student and expert evaluation.) Somewhat surprisingly, even some PhD candidates in engineering may fail these tests, while a few liberal arts degree grads passed the lower levels of these tests. So math aptitude is not limited to those who majored in math, science, or engineering. (Note that many of our elementary school students who have studied with us for a couple of years also pass them at a high level.) It seems that countries with successful math programs, like Singapore, also utilize a rigorous teacher selection process that favors subject matter specialists even for teaching at an elementary level. This is crucial for math, which is particularly hard to catch up later on with shaky foundation. (In fact, kids are great at absorbing their teacher’s attitude toward the subject. It is no surprise many kids may sense “math fear” from their teacher. Having a teacher with positive attitude toward the subject they teach is essential!)

leetcrew 7y ago
I always found it amusing that most of my math and cs professors in college seemed to have terrible arithmetic skills. I'm sure part of it is just that it's hard to concentrate on the work when you're also narrating the process to the class, but I suspect it's also that basic arithmetic is a relatively unimportant skill in most advanced research. hiring this sort of person to teach/tutor grade school math might be like hiring a porsche engineer to repair your car. they'll get the job done, but maybe not as efficiently as your local mechanic.
- scruple 7y ago
  "My degree is in Mathematics, not arithmetic." was a common one that I'd hear from friends with Math degrees or in the Math department.
- klyrs 7y ago
  I'm a mathematician, not a calculator. Mathematicians spawned an entire field, computer science, to alleviate the tedium of computation! Back when I thought I was going to be an engineer, I went through a brief phase of doing everything by hand. Indeed, my brain is capable of "rapid" arithmetic, but it requires practice and discipline to achieve and maintain what amounts to a billion-time slowdown.
nopinsight 7y ago
For those curious, below are some kinds of primary math questions we model after to test teacher applicants. In my experience, many kids are much more enthusiastic about this kind of "challenging" problems than the drills in many standard textbooks, as long as the problems are chosen to match their level. They definitely learn a lot more as well. Note that although they do require a little arithmetic to solve, the challenging part is not arithmetic. Some problems focus on geometry, logic, patterns, or other kinds of puzzles. More examples can be found at the source below. "- The edge of a cube is 8 cm. All the faces are painted orange. It is then cut into small cubes of edge 1 cm. How many small cubes have exactly two faces painted? - What is the greatest possible number one can get by discarding 100 digits, in any order, from the number 1234567891011121314151617…57585960? - Eleven consecutive positive integers are written on a board. Maria erases one of the numbers. If the sum of the remaining numbers is 2012, what number did Maria erase? - You must color each square in the figure below in red, green or blue. Any two squares with adjacent sides must be of a different color. In how many different ways can this coloring be done? Figure at question 11 here: https://gato-docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a195-5c26efe39bed/2012_PWMC_individual.pdf https://gato-docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a19... " Source: the Primary Math World Contest (usually held in Hong Kong) https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc-tests.html https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc-tests.h...
- esmi 7y ago
  Is the answer to the second question allowed to be in engineering form? :) What grade level is question 3 considered?
  - nopinsight 7y ago
    What do you mean by 'engineering form'? Using variables in the answer? It would be suitable for students between grades 4 and 6 (the highest level we currently teach), depending on how talented the kid is. To be clear to other readers, these are hard questions that most people, including older kids and adults, probably can't answer without proper learning and practice.
shantly 7y ago
> The test includes competitive exam questions focused on mathematical understanding and problem solving skills, rather than advanced math knowledge. Seems like it might be close to a subset of the sorts of questions one encounters on an IQ test.

leetcrew 7y ago

I always found it amusing that most of my math and cs professors in college seemed to have terrible arithmetic skills. I'm sure part of it is just that it's hard to concentrate on the work when you're also narrating the process to the class, but I suspect it's also that basic arithmetic is a relatively unimportant skill in most advanced research. hiring this sort of person to teach/tutor grade school math might be like hiring a porsche engineer to repair your car. they'll get the job done, but maybe not as efficiently as your local mechanic.

scruple 7y ago
"My degree is in Mathematics, not arithmetic." was a common one that I'd hear from friends with Math degrees or in the Math department.
klyrs 7y ago
I'm a mathematician, not a calculator. Mathematicians spawned an entire field, computer science, to alleviate the tedium of computation! Back when I thought I was going to be an engineer, I went through a brief phase of doing everything by hand. Indeed, my brain is capable of "rapid" arithmetic, but it requires practice and discipline to achieve and maintain what amounts to a billion-time slowdown.

nopinsight 7y ago

For those curious, below are some kinds of primary math questions we model after to test teacher applicants. In my experience, many kids are much more enthusiastic about this kind of "challenging" problems than the drills in many standard textbooks, as long as the problems are chosen to match their level. They definitely learn a lot more as well. Note that although they do require a little arithmetic to solve, the challenging part is not arithmetic. Some problems focus on geometry, logic, patterns, or other kinds of puzzles. More examples can be found at the source below. "- The edge of a cube is 8 cm. All the faces are painted orange. It is then cut into small cubes of edge 1 cm. How many small cubes have exactly two faces painted? - What is the greatest possible number one can get by discarding 100 digits, in any order, from the number 1234567891011121314151617…57585960? - Eleven consecutive positive integers are written on a board. Maria erases one of the numbers. If the sum of the remaining numbers is 2012, what number did Maria erase? - You must color each square in the figure below in red, green or blue. Any two squares with adjacent sides must be of a different color. In how many different ways can this coloring be done? Figure at question 11 here: https://gato-docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a195-5c26efe39bed/2012_PWMC_individual.pdf https://gato-docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a19... " Source: the Primary Math World Contest (usually held in Hong Kong) https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc-tests.html https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc-tests.h...

esmi 7y ago
Is the answer to the second question allowed to be in engineering form? :) What grade level is question 3 considered?
- nopinsight 7y ago
  What do you mean by 'engineering form'? Using variables in the answer? It would be suitable for students between grades 4 and 6 (the highest level we currently teach), depending on how talented the kid is. To be clear to other readers, these are hard questions that most people, including older kids and adults, probably can't answer without proper learning and practice.

shantly 7y ago

> The test includes competitive exam questions focused on mathematical understanding and problem solving skills, rather than advanced math knowledge. Seems like it might be close to a subset of the sorts of questions one encounters on an IQ test.