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The New York Times reports:
As school reformers nationwide push to expand publicly funded prekindergarten and enact more stringent standards, more students are being exposed at ever younger ages to formal math and phonics lessons [...]. That has worried some education experts and frightened those parents who believe that children of that age should be playing with blocks, not sitting still as a teacher explains a shape's geometric characteristics.
But now a new national study suggests that preschools that do not mix enough fiber into their curriculum may be doing their young charges a disservice.
The study found that by the end of kindergarten, children who had attended one year of "academic-oriented preschool" outperformed peers who had attended less academic-focused preschools by, on average, the equivalent of two and a half months of learning in literacy and math.
"Simply dressing up like a firefighter or building an exquisite Lego edifice may not be enough," said Bruce Fuller, the lead author of the study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. "If you can combine creative play with rich language, formal conversations and math concepts, that's more likely to yield the cognitive gains we observed."
U.S. News published a related piece recently arguing for more attention to preschool curricula and specific content, in addition to other measures of preschool programs. In contrast, a story in the Atlantic last year pointed out new "academic" approaches to preschool may actually be doing more harm than good. And any immediate gains (as cited in the new study) frequently turn out to be temporary. One oft-cited alternative is Finland's approach, which delays formal schooling until age 7, after a year of relatively unstructured government-mandated kindergarten.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:35PM (4 children)
If you can imagine making tinier and tinier slivers, or getting closer and closer to some number, etc., then you can master calculus.
Calculus is one of the most important branches of mathematics as far as modern civilization goes, and yet it sits very firmly within the realm of humanity's innate intuitions.
Seriously, a 10-year-old could master calculus just fine. The trick is getting a 10-year-old interested.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:59PM (3 children)
All depends on how it is taught, I aced one semester of Calculus based on concepts, mechanics, doing the work, getting results.
I took another semester of Calculus that was tested closed book, based entirely on memorization of large numbers of pre-computed integrals formulas, no instruction in the methods to arrive at those results yourself, just know that the integral of sin(e^cos(x)) is blah, and hundreds of others before the semester is done - final exam: tour de force, all formulas from the entire semester fair game on the test. It might as well have been med school with anatomy and physiology vocabulary.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
I too had a similar experience in uni. Had a really great calc I professor who taught the mechanics, let you bring a page of notes to a test, and got myself an A plus a great insight into the mathematics (Meaning I actually understood and learned the math).
Contrast that to the idiot who taught calc II. No test material, and would stand at the board and hammer out equations and formulas with no explanation of their application. Just yammered away running out his retirement clock. I complained after the first few days and he pretty much didn't give two fucks. I told him to he couldn't teach someone to shovel shit, left the class, and withdrew getting half of my money back.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:40PM
That was my Calc II experience exactly, except that I just stuck it out, got the D on my transcript, and forever had to convince placement counselors that, no, I am actually very good at math as you can see from my SATs, GREs and dozen As and A+s in other math courses, so could you please get over that one outlier? (no, they really couldn't get it out of their head: D in math, he must have problems with it.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:44PM
My uni experience was the reverse. The teacher for Calc I was an idiot that just droned on like he had been for the last 30 years or so, the persons that thought Calc II and III had to correct all his fuckups and put the students straight.