anyone else have a 4th grader in MCPS who can't quickly rattle off multiplication facts?

[Anonymous]

I am 60 and we drilled at home. At that time memorization was considered an inferior form of education. But not when it came to multiplication tables!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My kid can't do it as fast as I could as a kid, and his teacher reports that a number of kids are still struggling with this. I'm convinced it's because the new curriculum really didn't teach the basic facts the way we all learned them way back when. I remember doing math races/flashcard competitions every day when I was a kid at the end of each math class (catholic school --- sink or swim, that sort of competition was encouraged). My kid does well in school (not gifted, but straight Ps, FWIW), and he can figure out the answer within a few seconds by adding/counting --- but he can't rattle off SOME of the multiplication facts the way most of us could within a split second.

Just curious if anyone else has a kid in a similar boat --- or if it's just our school (which is not a Title 1 school by any stretch of the imagination).

We have never depended on the MCPS math curriculum or math teachers (it and they are inadequate). I taught all 3 of my children their multiple times tables before they entered Kindergarten (age 5). I figured if my Dad and Mom taught me (and 4 other sibs) this in the late 1950s; it's the least I can do for my children. It took about 4 months on average for each of them on the 5 min drive in the morning to their kindergarten class. We made a fun game learning the tables forwards and backwards (in reverse) and skipping by 2s, 3s, 7s... forwards and backwards.

Best investment of 5 min in the morning ever.

Lesson 1: If you depend on the MCPS elementary school curriculum and teachers, alone, to teach your children basic mathematics you may be disappointed. We did not let this happen from day 1 with any of our children.

You sound like fun.

I bet all your kids' pals hang at your house after school and on weekends.

What's next? state capitals?

We learned all the state capitals. Learning how to memorize is an important skill. Use it all your life ... until you reach older age and it starts to go...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is well and good that people think parents should be teaching this at home. What about parents who are not able to do this--maybe they have two jobs, or have health or other problems, or don't have a lot of schooling themselves. Are their kids just not supposed to learn these things? This is a school's job to teach and if they can't teach basic math facts to mastery they are not teaching.

Good luck changing that!

[Anonymous]

It is well and good that people think parents should be teaching this at home. What about parents who are not able to do this--maybe they have two jobs, or have health or other problems, or don't have a lot of schooling themselves. Are their kids just not supposed to learn these things? This is a school's job to teach and if they can't teach basic math facts to mastery they are not teaching.

This is a good point and why there is such a huge achievement gap in MCPS and why there is so much anger over 2.0 math. MCPS really needs to increase the resource allocation of math specialists and math rigor in the curriculum if it wants to address the achievement gap. 2.0 went in the opposite direction. Less rotor, less depth, and just slower with more repetition isn't going to work. If someone says something to you in a foreign language that you don't know, saying it slower over and over again isn't going to work. At some point, the person has to point to what they are referring to or show you what the sounds mean..fast or slow. Same thing is going on with math. There will be some success in hiding the lower achievers because the high achieving kids who are supplemented at home will be in the same class several levels below their ability BUT if anyone compares the score data against socio-economic background the gap will be worse.

The other pervasive problem is that the people writing 2.0 don't understand math at all. An education major is one of the easiest majors and requires very little challenging coursework. The teachers/educational specialists can convey what there were told about how to teach math but this all verbal and writing based and doesn't come from any mastery or understanding of the subject. 2.0 really reflects this in an amazing way. The problem "Explain why 2X3 =6" in sentences is asking a kid to write back what the teacher verbally said about multiplication. Its familiar to the teacher but conveys no deeper meaning than solving the problem or showing a series of equations.

They also miss the point that drill is actually not about memorization. In order to learn math, you need to do math, not write about it. The more equations and number interactions a child encounters and solves, the more patterns he or she sees and understands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem "Explain why 2X3 =6" in sentences

I have not seen ANY "explain why 2x3=6 in sentences" under 2.0. None. That doesn't mean there isn't any -- but I haven't seen any.

And, actually, more repetition does work. You say so yourself.

[Anonymous]

Drills and mastering the facts before you move on is not repetition. Repetition is doing a little of something, doing something else, coming back and doing a little of the original thing again, and repeating this process over and over again for several years. MCPS is repeating the act of verbally explaining the concept again and again. This doesn't help kids that don't get it. It bores kids that do get it. It does nothing to help either group develop mastery of the facts.

In 3rd grade 2.0 the math classes start writing sentences and paragraphs to explain basic facts. Some teachers even correct the grammar. The way to get an ES in math now is to write stories about a basic math fact, doesn't matter if you can't do multiplication facts with enough ease to do higher order math. Very sad and very stupid.

[Anonymous]

The MCPS educational bureaucratic dimwits think any drilling and repetition is bad for learning, education and performance:

Tell that to elite musicians, athletes, brain surgeons, pilots, great orators and actors ... and any other intellect or elite.

We have the "less than the elite" in education trying to teach are kids to become elite (more likely to be like them).

What a paradox. They have no clue. They do not know and have never experienced what elite and mastery was or is.

So we all have to put up with this nonsense decade after decade.

[Anonymous]

The MCPS educational bureaucratic dimwits think any drilling and repetition is bad for learning, education and performance:

Tell that to elite musicians, athletes, brain surgeons, pilots, great orators and actors ... and any other intellect or elite.

We have the "less than the elite" in education trying to teach our kids to become elite (more likely to be like them).

What a paradox. They have no clue since they do not know and have never experienced what elite and mastery was or is.

So we all must put up with this nonsense decade after decade.

[Anonymous]

Can you guys please discuss this amongst yourselves?

MCPS is bad because there is too much repetition. Also, there is not enough repetition. Also, there is too much drilling. And not enough drilling. And too many topics are covered. And too few topics are covered. And it moves too fast. And it moves too slowly.

Meanwhile, there is one thing that is very clear, namely your contempt for your children's teachers.

[Anonymous]

Can you guys please discuss this amongst yourselves?

MCPS is bad because there is too much repetition. Also, there is not enough repetition. Also, there is too much drilling. And not enough drilling. And too many topics are covered. And too few topics are covered. And it moves too fast. And it moves too slowly.

Meanwhile, there is one thing that is very clear, namely your contempt for your children's teachers.

No one has expressed contempt for MCPS teachers. Some are doing the best they can under the circumstances. They can't help themselves. This does not mean one buries obvious problems with the school system.

I repeat, a number of elementary school teachers I have met trying to teach math and science to children are not the sharpest tools in shed. I feel for many of these children, who by the time they get to high school and college, will feel locked out of a number of exciting areas of current and future study because of their sense of inadequacy in math and science.

Save for the courageous and disciplined, most will have lost the ballgame before they leave middle school. Unfortunately, this is to the burden of trying to overcome fundamental deficiencies dating back to their elementary school education.

I am sorry you do not agree with the airing of legitimate concerns by concerned tax paying citizens.