Effectiveness of curriculum

Why are children not learning how to balance a check book or calculate their taxes in school?

I personally believe that this is the type of mathematics that children need to be learning. These are basic skills that adults in the working world use every day.

I recently opened my first bank account and one of the first things my mom asked me was "Jenna do you even know how to balance a check book?"  And that when it hit me. In all 13 years of math I had taken through high school, not once did I learn the basics of how to balance a check book. Don't you think that math curriculums should be required to include basic math functions?

This would help children later in their lives and eventually make better and more efficient members of society. What is the purpose of having a child memorize formulas for concepts that they will never use once they are out of high school? I strongly believe that if we reform the curriculum to be based on what every day working adults use that it would create a much more educated and productive population.

Anxiety hits young

When is it okay for children as young as first and second grade to be stressed out beyond compare over a test? Many children get very stressed when it comes to school but especially when it comes down to mathematics. 
What is the cause for such high- achieving students to be so stressed over math they they conversely lower their own abilities to excel? "The team showed that a high degree of math anxiety undermined performance of otherwise successful students, placing them almost half a school year behind their less anxious peers, in terms of math achievement." says the University of Chicago. 

This study shows that children who are high achieving at a young age actually put more stress on them selves and therefore increase their anxiety. Children who maybe aren't as high achieving seem to be more relaxed and able, in time, to reduce anxiety levels when it comes to subjects such as math. They believe that these children have no issues with anxiety because as they learn they develop simpler and over all less complicated ways of understanding the material. 

I remember as a child that I started out being very successful in mathematics. It sort of just came to me without much effort, which ended up being a major downfall. Once concepts started to get more complicated my mind would not be able to grasp a concept because i would only think of it in the original context. I dont know about other students but this was a common issue amongst the children in my school. 





http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/09/12/math-anxiety-causes-trouble-students-early-first-grade

Use of Calculators

According to an article that I read on Educationnext.org, studies are proving more and more that over the years the United States is dropping in its National rank for mathematics education. In 1995 the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, a math proficiency exam, showed that among 8th grade students the US was 28 out of 41 counties and among 12th grade students we were at an astonishingly low of 18 out of 21 countries. For a country that is suppose to be a super power how is it that our education system is starting to fail?

"In 1989 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) published its Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics–an extensive set of mathematics standards for grades K-12 which de-emphasized memorization of number facts, the learning of proofs, and algebraic skills, but encouraged the use of calculators and “discovery learning."" 

This caused the government to grant money to the development of new textbooks and their distribution. Which is a good thing right? NO not necessarily. These textbooks were more focused on children using calculators to solve simple problems for their academic level. If are children are suppose to be efficient then why are we teaching them to be reliant on mechanical instruments? I went through elementary school from 2000-2006 and the use of calculators was mostly in and out depending on the teacher. The us of the calculator was not really constant until I hit middle school, which is where i feel the downfall in my math competency went down the drain. It was so much easier to just type problems into the calculator than to have to figure them out in my head or long hand. 


http://educationnext.org/anamazeingapproachtomath/ 

Mathematical Games... Good or Bad?

Now that technology has become more and more popular, especially with the younger generation, is it smart to incorporate mathematical games on the computer into the curriculum? Children in this day and age are more capable of using an iPad, tablet, laptop, or phone than any other generation before. This brings up the issue of whether schools should start to make the children's use of this technology a active part of learning or suppress it and restore traditional teaching methods.

Since technology is developing at a rate more rapid than ever before, more "Math Games" are popping up for teachers to use. This is where the problem is, what math games are appropriate and are they really beneficial to kids? Online math games did not really come about in my education until I was towards the end of elementary school. I personally found them really fun and useful. These math games made remembering things such as my multiplication and division tables much easier because I could picture the game in my head. Granted at the time I didn't really consider playing these games as a learning experience but now that I look back it truly increased my knowledge of math.

I think that the companies that are developing the textbooks for children, since that’s what education has been based on thus far, should start developing online games. This gives the administration a reliable avenue to take for incorporating technology based educational games into the school’s curriculum. If these companies create these games it will keep the same mathematical information being taught to the children but in more of a modern way.

One thing that I wonder about is what parents think about having more technologically based knowledge being introduced to their children. Do they support this new trend or do they think it’s a bad idea because then children will be spending more time on the internet? 

Mathophobia or Teacherphobia?

Throughout my math studies in elementary school and middle school I was very successful. I always thought of math as my strong subject and I understood it well. I would catch on to the lesson very quickly and would be able to help others when the teacher couldn't.

Once I got into high school it was a totally different story. I knew going into these classes the material would be more difficult and take more time to understand. But I figured once I was settled into the class and got use to the new teacher I would be able to catch on and excel as I had in the past. This was not the case at all. The teachers just expected us to know exactly what was needed to solve each problem on lessons we had never even seen before. Also teachers in the high school were much more likely to not be there every day of the week.

This was astonishing to me as well as my other classmates. Why wasn't our teacher there every day to teach us? When the teacher wasn't there a substitute was in their place but that was not always helpful. Most of the time these substitutes were not trained math teachers; they were college graduates just looking for a job. This made each class harder and harder because how was I supposed to learn and understand this new and confusing material if the person trying to teach it to me didn't have an understanding of it. I believe this is what caused me to become a mathophobe.

I was never a star test taker no matter how much I understood the topic. Tests made me nervous and I would forget something that I knew extremely well as soon as the exam was put down in front of me. As my teachers in high school expected more of me the more nerves I occurred. I use to love math but now I struggle with it and truly believe that I have become a mathophobe. Now in this math class I am trying my hardest to push my intelligence, it also helps that my teacher is always in class and very helpful. I think that a teacher has the biggest impact on a child’s understanding of math and truly the deciding factor if a child will fall to mathophobia or not.