This will be your final reflection/post based on what you have read/discussed and discovered through this blog.
Suppose you were given the task to write an article or a response article based on Why Americans Stink at Math.
Give your thoughts and observations from you own classroom as to why you feel students in America stink at math and suggestions to what you feel as though could be the problem and possible solutions.
If you would rather go the other route and change it to why Americans are good at math you may choose that route instead.
Please be sure to discuss real-world observations and insights from what you have witnessed from teaching!
Please post your response in the Google Doc so that it is easier to write and read! CLICK HERE
All of the articles we read for this class have been very insightful. I have learned some very new interesting information about math in America and Japan. I would say those articles were the most interesting to me. I’m not saying we stink and Japan is doing it perfectly, but there are things Japan is doing that I think would lend well to America’s approach to teaching math. I think there are a few problems here, which I notice in my own classroom. I have lived through several educational reforms in my 18 years in fifth grade. I believe education is extremely cyclical. We try something new then eventually always end up where we started, and the cycle goes around again. It usually happens every 4-6 years, and seems unbreakable. If we are going to institute educational reforms here, I think there are two things that should happen to benefit our classrooms. First, evaluating changes in economic and social conditions. These elevate the demands on public education. This is where the Common Core came from- a threatened economic decay here and in our schools. If we make everything “common”, the same thing is taught in my classroom as is in South Dakota or Florida! Does that wide umbrella meet my classroom needs? The other things I see missing in my teaching world is development across grade levels (local), curriculum materials, resources and professional development provided to teachers, regular common assessments that are accurate, (are we achieving our goals?). If I were to pick on that would most benefit me as a teacher is districts providing quality professional development. I am the one who implements these changes in my classroom, but where is my support? That is what I think is crucial and lacking. Why don’t we have it? The obvious regular reasons: time and money. I’m sick of hearing that excuse. This, to me, is the root of failed reforms. Another favorite complaint I have as a teacher is that government and policy makers offer incentives for teachers and schools to improve, but where is the necessary adoption of knowledge and skills for teachers? The other tid-bit I would like to address is the lack of parental involvement and the lack of mastery of basic skills in my classroom. I would be ecstatic if my fifth graders came in already knowing basic facts. Think of how much more material I could cover and to what depth? Reteaching basic math skills every year in every grade is a waste of time. Luckily, I have adopted a program called “Rocket Math” which is practice of multiplication and division facts. It is leveled and timed, and students are expected to graduate from the program in a few months. I am frustrated when half my class is still doing the program in June. I make it very clear to parents that they are completely responsible for their child knowing their facts. In fifth grade, I don’t have the time to spend on teaching them.
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