3 ms·

That's absolutely crazy. The school I teach at (I teach middle school, but there's an associated high school and elementary) has some kids doing times tables e

by mlyle 6y ago

That's absolutely crazy. The school I teach at (I teach middle school, but there's an associated high school and elementary) has some kids doing times tables early in 1st or 2nd grade, but after 3rd grade it is done. By 7th grade, everyone is in pre-algebra or algebra, and we're looping back over properties of operations and exponent rules, even though everyone, especially in algebra, should know them already. (uh... except for 11x12 and 7x8, which are for some mystical reason impossible for some to remember). The public school I was in-- algebra I was not offered in 7th grade, but we were definitely not doing times tables in pre-algebra in 7th.

gnicholas 6y ago
> (uh... except for 11x12 and 7x8, which are for some mystical reason impossible for some to remember). My kid had a hard time with 7x8 until discovering the mnemonic that 56 = 7x8 (5, 6, 7, 8). As for the 11 times tables, you can go all the way up to 18 if you know these two rules: one-digit number x 11 is the one digit written twice (e.g. 6x11 = 66) two-digit number x 11 is the two-digit number written again, but with the sum of the two digits written in between the original two digits (e.g. 11x12 = 132) There is a more complicated rule for multiplying 11 by larger numbers, but most people don't know their 11 times tables past 10 or so anyway.
WalterBright 6y ago
> definitely not doing times tables in pre-algebra in 7th In my 7th grade class, they definitely were. Though I suspected that some of the laggards figured out they could avoid learning new material by pretending to not know the tables. This was definitely happening in high school. Kids deliberately pretended to not understand "molar mass". They managed to derail an entire semester of chemistry class with that.
- mlyle 6y ago
  I do think the expectations now are a bit different than what you were used to-- at least in higher performing schools. Molar mass also was a middle school concept. Everyone graduates HS with algebra, but a very significant fraction make it through 2 years of calculus. More and more is being crammed earlier and school is much more academically intense. This isn't necessarily in a good way all the time, though. I'm prepping to sub for an 8th grade life science class for a month. It looks like so much is covered. I'd rather cover 3-4 of these topics deeply with an emphasis on concepts and evidence for these concepts than to skip through 20 of them quickly and with so much emphasis on taxonomy and rote. And several of the graphs in the textbook bug me because the units are clearly not right...
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    That would imply that high school graduates are better educated than in my day. I find that hard to believe, as standardized test scores haven't improved since what, 1970? But that's not really my complaint about public schools. My complaint is they don't teach accounting or how business works. These two are fundamental to participating in a free market economy. It's clear to me from reading comments on newspaper articles that very, very few people understand what a profit is or how business actually works. Ignorance of how basic finance works dooms a lot of people being a lot poorer than they would otherwise be. Teaching some basics here would be a great anti-poverty program - and a very cost-effective one.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      > That would imply that high school graduates are better educated than in my day. I find that hard to believe, as standardized test scores haven't improved since what, 1970? Ages 9/13 on standardized tests of reading/arithmetic are improved, but age 17 has been fairly stagnant. It is somewhat confounded, though, because more people are still in school and tested at age 17 than before-- graduation rates are about 5% higher. And 37% of students are taking at least one AP class which covers subject matter that would previously be taught in college. Scope and pace of education is increasing, but as your question points out-- it's not clear whether it's really resulting in better outcomes. > But that's not really my complaint about public schools. My complaint is they don't teach accounting or how business works. Yup, a whole lot of this is in AP Microeconomics, which is a bit of a rare course to be offered. (I've already decided what I'm teaching for 2021-2022, but maybe I should take this on for 2022-2023). A lot of the stuff kind of shows up in algebra-- somewhere between algebra I and algebra II depending upon program. Lots of math problems of quadratic optimization where you're given inequalities describing units / raw materials / whatever and a polynomial describing income and an expression describing costs and have to find the maximum profit point, etc, along with analysis of simple and compound interest. But understanding how to do these problems and really understanding the concepts are different matters. > clear to me from reading comments on newspaper articles Don't judge humankind from what you read on newspaper articles! :D

by mlyle 6y ago

gnicholas 6y ago

> (uh... except for 11x12 and 7x8, which are for some mystical reason impossible for some to remember). My kid had a hard time with 7x8 until discovering the mnemonic that 56 = 7x8 (5, 6, 7, 8). As for the 11 times tables, you can go all the way up to 18 if you know these two rules: one-digit number x 11 is the one digit written twice (e.g. 6x11 = 66) two-digit number x 11 is the two-digit number written again, but with the sum of the two digits written in between the original two digits (e.g. 11x12 = 132) There is a more complicated rule for multiplying 11 by larger numbers, but most people don't know their 11 times tables past 10 or so anyway.

WalterBright 6y ago

> definitely not doing times tables in pre-algebra in 7th In my 7th grade class, they definitely were. Though I suspected that some of the laggards figured out they could avoid learning new material by pretending to not know the tables. This was definitely happening in high school. Kids deliberately pretended to not understand "molar mass". They managed to derail an entire semester of chemistry class with that.

mlyle 6y ago
I do think the expectations now are a bit different than what you were used to-- at least in higher performing schools. Molar mass also was a middle school concept. Everyone graduates HS with algebra, but a very significant fraction make it through 2 years of calculus. More and more is being crammed earlier and school is much more academically intense. This isn't necessarily in a good way all the time, though. I'm prepping to sub for an 8th grade life science class for a month. It looks like so much is covered. I'd rather cover 3-4 of these topics deeply with an emphasis on concepts and evidence for these concepts than to skip through 20 of them quickly and with so much emphasis on taxonomy and rote. And several of the graphs in the textbook bug me because the units are clearly not right...
- WalterBright 6y ago
  That would imply that high school graduates are better educated than in my day. I find that hard to believe, as standardized test scores haven't improved since what, 1970? But that's not really my complaint about public schools. My complaint is they don't teach accounting or how business works. These two are fundamental to participating in a free market economy. It's clear to me from reading comments on newspaper articles that very, very few people understand what a profit is or how business actually works. Ignorance of how basic finance works dooms a lot of people being a lot poorer than they would otherwise be. Teaching some basics here would be a great anti-poverty program - and a very cost-effective one.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > That would imply that high school graduates are better educated than in my day. I find that hard to believe, as standardized test scores haven't improved since what, 1970? Ages 9/13 on standardized tests of reading/arithmetic are improved, but age 17 has been fairly stagnant. It is somewhat confounded, though, because more people are still in school and tested at age 17 than before-- graduation rates are about 5% higher. And 37% of students are taking at least one AP class which covers subject matter that would previously be taught in college. Scope and pace of education is increasing, but as your question points out-- it's not clear whether it's really resulting in better outcomes. > But that's not really my complaint about public schools. My complaint is they don't teach accounting or how business works. Yup, a whole lot of this is in AP Microeconomics, which is a bit of a rare course to be offered. (I've already decided what I'm teaching for 2021-2022, but maybe I should take this on for 2022-2023). A lot of the stuff kind of shows up in algebra-- somewhere between algebra I and algebra II depending upon program. Lots of math problems of quadratic optimization where you're given inequalities describing units / raw materials / whatever and a polynomial describing income and an expression describing costs and have to find the maximum profit point, etc, along with analysis of simple and compound interest. But understanding how to do these problems and really understanding the concepts are different matters. > clear to me from reading comments on newspaper articles Don't judge humankind from what you read on newspaper articles! :D