SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A parent whose child goes to a high school in the Wake County Public School System has been sued after criticizing the math curriculum used in the district.
Utah-based "Mathematics Vision Project" or "MVP," filed a lawsuit against Blain Dillard, whose son attends Green Hope High in Cary.
Dillard has been vocal about his opposition to the MVP curriculum, which is student-driven and focuses on group work, posting on his website, blog and social media.
The lawsuit obtained by ABC11 said, "In or around March 2019, Dillard commenced a crusade against MVP, claiming that MVP is ineffective and has harmed many students."
It alleges that some of Dillard's statements were false and defamatory and harmed the company financially.
https://abc11.com/education/wake-schools-parent-sued-after-criticizing-math-curriculum/5430840/
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:51AM (28 children)
In China, reliance on rote memorization is even worse than it is here, and it's already bad in the US. Seriously, our 'education' system is a disaster, and you want to make it even worse? MVP isn't a solution, but neither is raising another generation of Jeopardy! geniuses who can only memorize facts and never truly understand how or why anything works.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:59AM (8 children)
Rote memorization is not a bad thing. It trains you to remember things so that you can go on to do logic and produce informed opinions on the subject. Also, it gives you a base of knowledge on which to build and grow.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:36AM (7 children)
Not in and of itself, no. But over-reliance on memorization is a bad thing.
One student can tell you the year, month, day, even hour a given event occurred. What were the main reasons this event occurred? What were the main consequences? You get a blank look, or a clearly in appropriate answer.
The other one can only put it in the right year, or decade at least; but can give you a credible answer to the follow up questions.
Which one is better prepared?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @05:03AM (1 child)
"The *other* sort of Marxist."
Nazi, socialist, fascist or communist? Perhaps you can enlighten us on the history of all four and how they have failed over and over? I can.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Saturday August 10 2019, @06:25AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @07:21AM (2 children)
Exactly. You won't get revolutionary breakthroughs or even just creative solutions to more ordinary problems through rote memorization alone; you need to hone your critical thinking abilities for that. No one is opposed to memorizing information, because if you never memorized anything for even a short duration of time, you wouldn't have anything to work with. The problem is when rote memorization comes at the expense of teaching the hows and whys, which it so often does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:19PM (1 child)
You'd be surprised how many educators are opposed to memorization strategies. I regularly get people arguing when I point out how much of math is memorization and pattern matching.
Yes, there's other pieces there, but unless you're doing something truly novel or that has excessively weird terms in it, chances are that pattern matching back to something similar you've seen will feature prominently in the process. The large the number of patterns you've got memorized, the quicker and more efficiently the process goes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @08:20PM
You're right; I would be surprised. Almost our entire schooling system in the US is based around rote memorization and teaching to the test, from the homework assignments to the useless standardized tests, and to the almost complete exclusion of encouraging actual critical thinking skills. So, if there is a movement of teachers who oppose all forms of memorization (and not just to the exclusion of understanding and critical thinking skills), their presence must be insignificant.
That's true. because right now we only teach people to memorize facts about math, and not to understand how and why the underlying rules work. Proofs? Just memorize them; you don't need to understand them on a deep level. This is exactly the problem.
There are big pieces there. We should be teaching people to think like mathematicians, not monkeys. We should want people to do truly novel things, or at least be capable of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:38PM (1 child)
All learning is memorization. Whether you're learning methods, theory, or simply to regurgitate data, it's all just memorization. Focusing on the methods and theories, while giving useful data /and/ teaching how to properly create, find, and validate data is obviously ideal though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:11PM
I disagree. When you have a kid, or a group of kids, to whom you have taught some fundamentals - and they go above and beyond what they've been shown, you can't attribute that to memorization. Kids solving complex problems, all on their own, is awe inspiring to watch. If you don't believe it, you should try a couple years in Scouting. When you're doing your job properly, you spend more time staying out of the way than you do teaching. You're only there to make sure they don't hurt themselves, and maybe provide an idea if they've gone wrong.
"That stream is flooded, we can't cross it like that. But, it's miles to the bridge, either upstream or downstream. What do we do now?" Given a group of ten moderately intelligent boys aged ten to fifteen, you'll probably be across the stream quicker than the same number of adults can decide that the flood is a disaster. HINT: There are multiple solutions, some safer than others. It's YOUR JOB to decide how safe is safe enough.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:28AM (18 children)
Certain things are best learned by rote, like times tables. If I am in a shop and offered a crate of beer for $9, or six crates for $50, I instantly know what I would be saving by buying the six. If I had not leaned my times tables by rote I would have had to add up six nines or get a calculator out.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:24PM (6 children)
You don't already have your phone in your hand before you were told the prices? There should be a calculator 'app' on that phone you can quickly use.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:11PM
I know phones have calculator apps. I was refering to the need to pull out a device to do the calculation without listing every possible device that could do it; my point stands. And no, I don't hold a phone continuously in my clammy hand.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 10 2019, @07:16PM (2 children)
Why would I pull out my phone? I was taught to do mental arithmetic. I didn't forget it just because someone invented a mobile phone.
That is one of the problems today - if you can't go shopping without a phone to use as your calculator, then someone should have taught maths to you more effectively than they apparently did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @08:26PM (1 child)
It's becoming increasingly unnecessary, anyway, because many stores write the price-per-ounce right on the price tags.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:47PM
Yeah. If it's like the supermarket here, one comparable product will have price per hundredcount and the other one price per liter.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:20AM
:) I'm assuming the sarcasm tag...
But then I'd have to do some mental arithmetic to do an order of magnitude check on the calculator, and for such a simple problem why not just skip to a full calculation - in which case why bother with the phone in the first place?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Sunday August 11 2019, @03:02AM
Even if you're going to use a calculator, it's still a good to have a feel for what the answer should be. I've seen too many people who will do something like fat-finger the X button, and come up with something like 9 X 6 = 15, and have no idea they make a mistake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:41PM (5 children)
I never learned times tables, and I can do the same thing. All that time you spent memorizing could have been spent doing math (and in the process you would have encountered variations on 50/9 often enough to memorize it anyway).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:59PM
*50/6
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:17PM (2 children)
So how would you do it other than doing 9+9+9+9+9+9 in your head or on fingers which would be much slower than my 6x9 ? I'm interested. Even doing 9+9 = 18 is something I know by rote rater than incrementing from 9 by 9 units, one at a time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:17PM
6 shl 1 = 60 sub 6 = 54.
Two basic operations, one very fast, one possibly slower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:03PM
For some reason I don't understand, the 7, 8, or 9 being multiplied by one of the other (but not by itself) has always been difficult for me to feel confident I've memorized. I mean, I know we're talking about 56, 63, and 72, but invariably, I question if it is correct, and then visualize a number line to confirm it. So if it is 8*9 (or vice versa), I go up to 80, then drop back an 8 length block, and then I think, yep, 72. For 7*8 (or vice versa), I'll go to the easy 8*8=64, then drop back an 8 length block. And 9*7 is just a variation of 8*9, but I drop back a 7 length block from 70.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:23PM
The time it takes to memorize that 10x10 times tables is not that much. There are a total of 100 squares in that and if you take advantage of the commutative property of multiplication, you wind up with something like 45 of them to actually memorize. And that includes the 1s and 10s which are more or less trivial for most people. If you do 1 per day, you'd be done in less than a month.
The 12x12 times table takes slightly longer, but again, doing even one a day, you'd be done in short order. If you do 4 a day, you'd be done within a couple weeks.
What's more, it's not like there's a better way of doing it. Multiplication is about stretching, and trying to understand how that works without first knowing how to multiply is a bit of a challenge.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:21PM
You can get analogue watches with slide rule bezels for exactly this scenario - ten times faster than an app. But, in the dark, and faced with making the decision in front of a queue, I would go with tables every time.
If you can't multiply without a phone, you WILL be ripped off. (But are probably to ignorant to notice).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:47PM (2 children)
That's a matter of perspective, and to an extent neuroscience. If you can learn to visualize your times tables, or otherwise "get a feel" for the operation rather than just rote memorizing, it is even more powerful than being able to instantly parrot up to 12x12, but have no f-ing clue how to handle 13x7 without a calculator, or ability to estimate the difference between 2x14 and 7x7.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:25PM (1 child)
I don't understand your point. It is only necessary to rote learn tables up to 10x10 (school did up to 12x12 because so many things come in 12's like inches to a foot). You don't need a 13 times table for 13x7 because it breaks into 10x7 + 3x7. I can use the tables I memorised up to 10x10 to multiply any two numbers together, in principle up to infinity, although it gets unwieldy if the numbers are big and I would then start needing pencil and paper - at that point I will use a calculator. I remain understanding of the principles though, contrary to the anti-rote people's accusations.
As I said earlier, even simple addition is done by rote among educated people, for example I know by rote that 5+3 is 8, and 4+6 is 10, it is a reflex in me. The non-rote way would be to count on fingers or do dots on paper - as uneducated people would. The only reliable non-rote way to multiply say AxB would be to make A dots on a sheet paper B times (best arranged in a square) and then count them all up, which is how I taught my son the principle of multiplication.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:15AM
What people are opposed to is rote memorization at the expense of everything else, like critical thinking skills and creativity. I don't think multiplication tables are a big deal, but it becomes a real problem when nearly all math is taught as nothing more than a series of facts and patterns to be memorized and then regurgitated back onto assignments and tests, where there's no underlying principles to understand and no creativity involved. Math classes are not teaching students to think like mathematicians, and that is a real problem. Same with so many other subjects.
Our schooling system is fundamentally broken. However, so many of the victims who suffer through it do not know what an actual education looks like, so they think the system is either fine or just in need of minor tweaks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @08:22PM
In the US, just about everything is learned by rote, which is way too extreme. We should be encouraging critical thinking skills, but the assignments and standardized tests largely do not value that.