Stinky's Cool Math Blog

I am adopted, and I was recently offered an opportunity to get a doctorate degree in Korea through the agency that helped to set up my adoption.  The organization is trying to help tie adoptees back into their ancestral roots.  I thought, “What an amazing opportunity it would be to go back to my home country and receive a doctorate degree at a fraction of the cost through this program!”

Still, as I looked more deeply into the program, I noticed a paragraph that stated that I would have to take all of my coursework in Korean.  One small problem… I don’t speak, read, write, or understand Korean… at all!  How would it ever be possible for me to be successful doing doctorate level work in a language that I don’t remotely understand?  The short answer is that it wouldn’t be possible at all.  Not unless someone took the time to help me understand the language from a base level.  Even then it would take years for me to get to the point where I could tackle the actual work beyond the language.  The only way it would be possible is if someone took the material and put it into a language that I actually understood.  Once I understood the concepts, someone might be successful translating them back into Korean.

The funny thing is that we do this very same thing all of the time in schools, and more specifically in math classes.  We ask kids to understand high-level, abstract concepts in a language they don’t understand.  People don’t seem to realize that math and math notation are technically a foreign language to kids.  ”Shouldn’t the kids know the language by now?  They have been doing math their whole school career.”  Maybe, but in today’s world, as we push more and more onto our kids, there are so many different math concepts that students do not spend extensive time on any one.  Kids may not be getting the necessary time to fully understand a concept before moving on.  It is important to note that there is substantial research that supports the fact that it may take 7 to 40 exposures and interactions with a subject before a student grasps a concept.

Regardless of the cause, it is noted that many students struggle with the language of math, and few resources are given to kids to translate what the math books, worksheets and help websites are saying.   I believe this language barrier is one of the largest issues preventing kids from learning math.

So why don’t people create math content that the average person can understand?  The answer that I have arrived at is because they don’t want to sound dumb to the math community.  We almost fell into that trap here at Stinky Kid Math.  We kept asking ourselves what the technical language was, what the exact vocabulary wording was, etc.  Then we stopped and realized that the truth is that we need to be creating math content at a level so that people who don’t understand math can understand it.  We are striving to put our math explanations in language that a struggling student can understand.  I’m not saying we should forget centuries of math language development.  I’m not saying that we should “dumb down” the math content.  I’m also not saying that this thought process applies to all students.  What I am saying is that we need to have an option for people that just don’t get it.  We need to translate the concepts into language that provides an option for todays’ struggling students.  They need to have a chance to understand.  After they know how to do the math, it can be tied back to the language of math.

In my humble opinion, I believe that it is in most students’ best interest to be able to do the math before they can read or write a paper using correct math terminology.  We also need to remember that not every kid is going to be a rocket scientist that needs to document their work, so other rocket scientists can read it.  Many of my former students happen to be rocket scientists and engineers, and dang good ones at that.  Still, several other students are very successful as models, musicians, chefs, etc.  Although they likely use math on a regular basis, it is not crucial that they can write a technical paper using proper math notation.

So, what do you think?  Is it important for ALL students to understand proper math terminology and notation?  Should there be an alternative option for lower level students to choose to take math classes that focus more on doing the math than being able to read math books and communicate in math notation?  Or are we doing a disservice to kids at Stinky Kid Math by teaching math in language they can understand?

Please comment and let me know your thoughts on this topic.

I wanted to speak to the issues related to public education, testing and accountability for schools and those involved in the school system.  Instead, I’m going to let someone else speak for me in this case.

I recently was pointed to a video that very poignantly describes issues regarding privatization of schools, issues with accountability based on testing, and other issues such as pay for performance.  In the video below, Diane Ravitch makes an outstanding presentation dealing with several issues in our public education system today.

I encourage you to take the time to watch it, and to be open to what she is saying.  I would also like to embolden you to try to place yourself in someone else’s shoes:

• Someone living in poverty
• A single mother working 2 jobs to support her family
• A military widower trying to raise a family and serve a nation

People without the ability to homeschool, or the financial capability to send their kids to a quality private school

I would ask you to at least consider re-thinking some of your positions on public education.  Please take a second to consider what the education of the poverty stricken, and less fortunate looks like.  As unemployment rises and the number of those stricken by poverty grows, can we, as a society, afford to ignore the growing educational gap between the rich and the poor?  Do we, as a society care enough to try to change public education for the better?  Do we understand that there is a direct correlation between a lack of education and crime and teenage pregnancy?  

On a different note, what can be done to address issues relating to the structure of our current education system regarding teacher, school, and student accountability?  Is a punishment/reward system the best way to encourage teachers to be great teachers and students to be great students, or is it true that education needs to be structured differently, as Ravitch stated in the video, around “motivating people by a sense of purpose”? 

Please comment on this blog post to share your opinions of how our education system should address the issues Diane raised.  Here at Stinky Kid Math, we value the opinion of parents, educators, students… everyone!  Feel free to be candid, but please honor the opportunity for all to benefit from your opinions by remaining sensitive to appropriate use of language.  

This post will actually be a preface to addressing current problems in education.  Please realize, as you read through my commentary on educational issues that I am typically an extremely optimistic person.  Still, I feel that I need to set the stage by trudging through the current issues, which may sound a tad negative and hopeless at times. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so please stick with me.

I often see a lot of potential in people, organizations, and situations.  I suppose that’s the teacher side of me. It is any teachers job to look at kids, and do everything they can to buff away the rough edges, to help the world, as well as themselves, see what we have seen in them all along; greatness, talent, beauty, and genius!  I believe it is a gift/curse of any good educator to see the potential in EVERY student.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
–MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

Still, I also have a side of me that favors being practical.  That’s the engineering side of me. You cannot always simply look at potential, unless you want to be constantly disappointed at the lack of desire of others to attain to it.  Concerning systems, there is also a huge need to be able to look past the mere potential of something.  There is some point that you have to be able to look at a situation, and back up far enough to get an unclouded view of the chaos.  After you have taken everything in, it is important to identify the cause issues, and take realistic, intentional steps to find solutions to them.  To do anything else is, at its essence, no different than a dog chasing its tail.  The only thing that gets accomplished is that the dog gets dizzy, and ends up doing the same thing again and again because nothing was really accomplished after a lot of really hard work.

I am beginning with this because I’m going to address issues with our current education system, and explain why the current options we are pursuing to fix it are merely bandages on gushing wounds.  I don’t want you to think I am just another ineffective naysayer.  At some point we need to stop chasing our proverbial tail, and actually begin to move forward in our pursuit of the best ways to educate our youth.

Currently, the United States is looking at several options to fix our education system. Some of these ventures include:

• Creating accountability for students, teachers, and schools
• Increasing the length of the school day
• Increasing the length of the school year
• Raising the bar on the standards we are requiring from every student

First, you have to understand that in designing anything, you have to keep your end goal in mind.  I would argue that this is the biggest disconnect in fixing the U.S. education system.  We all think we have the same goal in mind, but realistically, people have several different goals that at their core conflict with each other.  Is it possible for us to put aside personal agendas, to work together, and to find something that works for all of us?  Or will it just be another case of the old adage: “If you try to make everyone happy, no one will be happy.”?  If the latter is the case, we should look at options that are not nationally based.  Are we even willing to do that?

In my last blog, I left you with the notion that I may have the answer to why we (United States) are not succeeding in the area of education, or math education specifically.  In order to explain what I believe to be the crux of the problem, let me illustrate with an analogy I express to my students each year.

Challenge:

Step 1: I want you to take a piece of paper, and I want you to write down every single thing you do, from basic personal needs (showering, personal hygiene, etc) to every daily activity and responsibility you have (sports practice, homework, chores, hanging out with friends, etc.).  If you come up with anything less than 40 things I would be extremely surprised.

Step 2: After you think you have an exhaustive list, write each item on a separate piece of 8.5 x 11 paper and crumple it up into a ball. (Please don’t get mad at me for wasting paper, I think it is a useful exercise. )

Step 3: Next, take each of your paper balls and place them into a standard 2 quart pitcher.

Summary: Most likely, if you did a good job thinking about ALL of the things you do, or are responsible for, you realize that there is not enough room to fit all of your paper balls into the 2 quart pitcher.

This is the point where great conversations can ensue regarding priorities, lifestyle, balance, goal setting, and identifying what is really important.  It is a fantastic exercise in helping students to see that they only have so much time in the day, and therefore,need to make some tough choices regarding what is good, and what is best.  (Perhaps it would be a great exercise for adults too. )

So, what would happen if we took this activity and applied it to the way we look at education today?  It might look something like this.

Step 1:

United States school system priorities:

• Educate ALL students to the level that 100% of them are proficient in core subjects
• Provide social education and build social and communication skills
• Teach students how to behave in a professional and public environment
• Provide for the physical needs of neglected or less fortunate students
• Teach special education students life skills and prepare them to integrate into the real-world
• Teach each subject using a wide variety of strategies that address various learning styles
• Provide extracurricular activities for students from clubs to varsity athletic sports
• Provide opportunities for weight training and physical fitness
• Provide access to technology and education on how to use it
• Give students opportunities for individual, subject specific tutoring
• Provide counseling and social services for students in need
• Provide college counseling and career guidance
• Create a disciplinary structure that will keep students from taking away from others’ educational opportunities
• Identify individual learning needs of each student in the school, and develop an individualized plan for remediation or advancement
• Provide services for gifted and talented students
• Prepare students to be influential, globally-minded, productive citizens
• Blah, blah, blah, blah….

I’m quite certain that you stopped reading LONG before you got to the end of that list, and realistically I could add to it or be more specific, and it would literally take me days to finish.

 The truth is that teachers and schools have been asked to fill in every gap that has been left in students’ lives emotionally, physically, educationally, and even spiritually.

Step 2:

It would take reams of paper to write everything down that society is asking schools to do.  It wouldn’t be “green” or responsible of me to do so, even for an illustration.

Steps 3:

We might fit a quarter of the paper balls into the proverbial 2 quart jug, and we begin to realize that there is little hope for fulfilling all of these goals.

Summary/Reflection:

I don’t know how it has happened, but somehow the American society has adopted a spectators view to raising a child. Much like the guy who screams and yells at the coaches for a struggling football team (without actually doing anything to help), society is now yelling at the schools and teachers, without really understanding what they are being asked to do, and once again they are doing very little to help the issue. Still, everyone from politicians to angry community members claim to be the experts; without having stepped foot into a classroom.  People often start to throw out simplistic solutions to a situation that is far from easily solvable. 

In my next few blogs, I will address some of the proposed solutions, issues with those solutions, and why asynchronous learning options like Stinky Kid Math are going to become more and more important.

According to data gathered during 2008 by UNDESA; Harvard researchers, Barro and Lee; UNESCO; World Bank; and the International Monetary Fund, there are 42 countries that fall into the category of having “very high human development”.  In that list, there is a ranking of highly developed nations according to something called the HDI, or Human Development Index.  The HDI is based on how a country takes their wealth and turns it into education and health opportunities.  In that list, the United States is ranked 4th, behind only New Zealand, Australia and Norway (1).

In another study that took place in 2009, the OECD, tested student populations and then ranked countries in the areas of math, science, and reading.  In the area of math, the United States was ranked 27th out of 33 countries.  The United States only beat 6 other countries, and 3 of them did not even make the list for countries with “very high human development”.

You may be forming opinions in your mind related to the previous 2 paragraphs; however, please realize there are a lot of things to consider when looking at results of statistical studies such as these.  For example, we must ask if all of the countries considered test the same segments of their student population; i.e. mainstream ed students, special education students, mentally disabled students, etc?   Also, is the testing done in a scenario that creates buy-in for the students?  In other words, are the results a true reflection of knowledge, or did some of the students blow off the test?  Is the HDI reflecting our post-secondary education, and the test is merely testing our our K-12 education?  The list could go on and on.  Still, if the HDI ranks the U.S. as the 4th best country in the world for providing health and education opportunities, it raises the question, “Why are students in the United States falling behind other students around the world in the area of math?”.

Once again, one could raise several arguments about the previous question.  For example, it could argued that just because individuals are provided with opportunities for education does not mean they take advantage of them.  Still, something seems to be very wrong.

The fundamental issue is that most people know something is wrong, but without thinking it through they simply start to throw darts at things that could be the cause.  As of late, the U.S. education system and teachers have been under fire.  I can’t tell you how many people I talk to on a regular basis that truly believe that kids are not learning because the majority of teachers are bad.  Shortly after people tell me this, they somehow come back to reality and remember that I’m a teacher.  Then after I stare blankly at them for a second, I always get the clarification statement, “Oh well, you must be one of the few, good teachers.”

Seriously?!  You really think that most of the teachers in the country are legitimately bad at teaching students?  I can personally attest to the fact that I have taught with a wide array of really bad to amazing educators, and the really bad ones are the ones that are few and far between.  A whole separate issue lies more with how much teachers are valued in the United States.  Take a look at any of the high achieving countries around the world, and you will see that a teaching position is a place of honor that is highly regarded and well paid.  That’s a whole other blog post though, but the point is that, in my humble opinion, the teachers are NOT the main issue.

So what IS the problem?  I will address that in next week’s blog: There’s just not enough time in the day.

Citations

1) Human Development Indexhttp://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table1.pdf Retrieved October 9, 2011.

2) Educational Score Performance Rankingshttp://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html 
SOURCE:OECD in Figures 2009 Retrieved October 9, 2011.