4 ms·
The author sounds as if he has only read the headlines or bullet points of the report. It took me less than five minutes to find the sections on right answers a
by frob 6y ago
The author sounds as if he has only read the headlines or bullet points of the report. It took me less than five minutes to find the sections on right answers and showing work. The report is nuanced about how there are right answers to almost all problems, but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer. Other times, it may show a different interpretation of the question to which the student got the right answer.
The section on showing your work is about how students can show their process in multiple ways. It could be a discussion or a video or a drawing instead of a series of equations. This section emphasizes how students may have a different way of solving a problem than they were taught and that is ok and shouldn't be punished.
In short, the few sections of the mathematics report endorsed by the Gates foundation seem to cover basic pedagogy with an eye towards diverse ways of thinking, communicating, and learning. All of this should be standard to any educator. I fail to see the fire for which the author is ringing alarm bells.
- qeternity 6y ago> but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer Who would disagree with this? This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with good teaching. And teachers who fail to do this are bad teachers, not racists. What is still perplexing to some people, is how race gets tied up into this argument. I absolutely believe that the US education system fails many, many students and that this disproportionately falls on minorities and students of color. But this almost always falls back to manifestations of larger socioeconomic structures, and not the way that material is taught. Asian students perform far better in math than white students. Do Asians thrive under systems of white supremacy more than caucasians?
- loopz 6y agoWe evidently need to self-flog, even when you're asian. ;)
- mieses 6y agoThomas Sowell compared the academic results (or IQ. I'm not sure which) of black children of US soldiers growing up in post-WW2 Germany and black children in the US. The German kids outperformed the US kids. The systems of education were similar. The racial biases were similar. The difference is that Germany did not have a black subculture. The US has various subcultures - redneck whites (self explanatory), redneck blacks (gangster rap) - both of which are, loosely speaking, anti-math. Adapting teaching styles and "systems of education" to such subcultures will not improve outcomes.