Kids need to learn basic math, not phoney edu-fads
System fails at-risk students the most, Tara Houle writes.
In 2015, the provincial child and youth advocate, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, wrote a report where she made this startling claim: “It’s yet another year where no one has written the Math 12 exam.”
“I’ve been pushing the education issue for coming on seven years. I’m very disappointed there isn’t a single child in care who can take the Math 12 exam. I fail to accept that, and that speaks to a continued challenge not only to MCFD, but also to schools and education.”
Little has changed since. The No. 1 social inequity in our schools today is the continued disenfranchisement of at-risk youth through application of learning fads and practices in modern math curricula.
Through even the most limited examination of historical research, we know that effective math instruction — including mastery of math facts at the elementary level — provides at-risk youth improved opportunities to post-secondary education access and employability.
Unfortunately, your education leaders have manipulated social equity into little more than a mudslinging Twitter-verse experiment that will have no long-term impact on the lives and futures on youth at risk in B.C.
If we really wanted a more harmonious and equity-based province, we need to stop pounding on social ideologies and focus on giving every child real and equal access to the Canadian dream. That will only happen when the classroom ceases to be a place of experimentation and shifts to a progressive environment of learning and opportunity for the future.
Studies and government policy papers have already determined the single biggest barrier to post-secondary education and economic success hinges on learning algebra and geometry in middle school. This is nothing new.
Research studies have already determined what a strong math curriculum should look like, yet our latest rendition in BCEd misses the mark. We already know mastering fractional arithmetic and algebra in middle school is critical to long-term success, so why did our policymakers push back this operation to Grade 8?
This places B.C. students four to five years behind their global competitors and is the weakest guideline in Canada. How are children expected to compete? When we already know how important mastery and memory work is to a novice learner, why do our curriculum guidelines suggest that memorization is not intended at the Grade 4 level? Moreover, why do they suggest, without a shred of evidence, that memorization is harmful to students?
We have more empirical data than ever on best practices for effective math instruction. Despite all the evidence, our leaders insist on toting unproven educational resources and fads intent on making snake-oil salesmen profit and dumbing our kids down even more.
When leading cognitive scientists speak publicly about how learning myths are damaging our children, why are BCTF associations priding themselves in sponsoring these teaching workshops?
A common observation at tutoring centres used to be that when many kids arrived in grades 4 or 5, their level of understanding typically began at adding one plus two. That ridiculously low benchmark at these centres is now the standard for children in Grade 8.
Those at the earlier grade levels don’t even have place values figured out. And these are the lucky kids who benefit from additional tutoring support funded by their families. What happens to those kids unable to receive the same level of support that our education leaders pride themselves on championing?
There is nothing equitable about sacrificing level playing fields for children in the pursuit of edu-quackery and ignoring solid evidence that supports effective math instruction.
I applaud those front-line teachers who endeavour to teach our children with the resources being forced upon them at pro-D workshops — district or otherwise.
For those who continue to do right by their students despite being reprimanded, insisting they master long division and adding and subtracting fractions at the elementary level, and ensuring times tables are memorized through daily practice in the classroom, thank you.
It’s insulting that in their pursuit of social equity for all students, our education leaders are deaf to the pleas for those who need it the most, and are unwilling to do anything about it.
Social equity has a new name in B.C. schools: fake news. Welcome to 2018!