Increasing amount of Math HS students take hurts, not helps math education

Great Debates
1

Ex-Math teacher here…and I put this in debates because I would like to hear the arguments of people who disagree with me.

I just read that there is a strong movement in my state to increase the amount of math courses high school students take.

This is a good idea, IMO, as long as it isn’t Algebra/Trig/Calculus… There are other math courses to teach. Really :slight_smile:

Increasing amount of Math HS students take hurts, not helps math education if that math is Algebra/Trig/Calc.

The reason being is that, in this country, HS teachers are held responsible if they fail students. This sounds good, in abstract, but fails in practice. What it does is reinforce ‘easy’ teaching and testing. If everyone must take a class, the class must be taught and tested at a pace in which the lower 20% of the class can pass. To tell a teacher to ‘not lower their standards’ invites angry students, parents and school officials. Sure, one could stand his ground and possibly not be fired, but he could be fired. Even if not fired, he will be thought of by the community as a ‘bad teacher’. It is so much easier to teach and test easy.

This was my experience. I started out with expectations of my students. This resulted in students with lower grades which then resulted in miffed parents and administrators. One day I was in a funk about this (because I felt in real trouble about not being allowed back next year) and it hit me…why not just give good grades? I then ‘acted’ tough but taught and tested easy. Within a couple of months I was thought to be a great teacher. Parents and students started loving me and the Principal said I had ‘turned into a seasoned teacher faster than anyone he had ever seen’. All I did was act tough and have low standards.

Back to the title. A class WILL be taught so that near everyone can pass. When the class is optional, only students that have an interest take it. This means the class moves faster, is more challenging and covers the material in greater depth. Changing Junior Algebra/Trig/Calc from an elective to required means a much more slow/simple/shallow course.

Have students take more Math. However, there is math out there besides Algebra/Trig/Calc that will better serve students not wanting to be there.

Thoughts?

2

I agree completely with this assessment, however I believe that instead of making algebra etc. only elective, classes should be divided into accelerated or non-accelerated choices. In other words, I think instead of just plain algebra there should be an advanced course or a regular course. This has worked (IMO) fairly well at my school in the social studies/history curriculum. I have been bored in every science class I’ve ever taken, but there has never been the option to take an advanced course before this (coming) school year. I think that more divided classes would allow more interested/capable students to progress faster, while others are not struggling to keep up.

3

When I was in HS, you were required to take 2 math courses to graduate. Didn’t matter what those two math classes were, but you had to take two. This pretty much guaranteed that everybody got up through at least algebra, and also made sure that nobody was in the upper levels of math who didn’t choose to be there. I think this is a pretty good way to go about it.

The problem with kids graduating from HS not being able to multiply, or whatever, isn’t necessarily a problem with HS, per se. It’s more a problem with your education prior to HS. If you go through eight years of schooling without learning the basics of math, there’s something seriously wrong. And further, HS is not the place to try and fix that, generally speaking - that’s just slopping a band-aid over the larger problem. If we dumb down HS to make up for crappy elementary schools, then we wind up screwing the kids who are up to par.
Jeff

4

In my HS we also had to take two tears of math…algebra and geometry. Mostly I despised math but that was due more to the teaching than the subject. The method while I was in school was rote memorization. Memorize this list of formulas and use them on the test…end of story. It’s sad really because my mind works in a fashion that I would think lends itself well to math. However, I need to understand why something is happening rather than be told to just do it because we said so and it works.

As such (in hindsight) I would have liked to see three years of math at my HS. 1.5 years of algebra and geometry each for ‘regular and slow’ students. Advanced students who could breeze through in a year could have advanced classes to get them algebra and geometry in two years and move to more advanced subjects (Trig probably) for their third year and then calculus if they so chose for their fourth.

This would allow more time to absorb material for the regular students. As such concepts could be taught in more depth and students would be more likely to retain whatthey learned rather than forget everything two days after the test they crammed for.

I think up to algebra and geometry is enough math for the bulk of the population. I view those courses as useful in anybody’s life. Beyond that math should be left for those who see themselves in careers where advanced math is necessary (scientists, engineers, etc.).

5

Non-math teacher here, and I freely admit that I don’t have much experience teaching subjects where there are actually wrong answers (well, except for formatting bibliographies …) However, I’m a bit disturbed by the implication that the only way to teach a math class so that nearly everyone can pass is to lower standards. I’d argue that all classes should be taught so that nearly everyone learns the material, and that students who learn the material should pass. If that isn’t happening, something needs to change. If the students need a slower pace, so be it – they’ll get there eventually. (Most struggling students, however, will do fine in a class taught at the same pace, but differently – e.g. with more hands-on activities or more visual aids if the teacher is primarily a lecturer, as most math teachers tend to be. Making concessions to students with different learning styles isn’t “teaching easy,” it’s teaching intelligently.) Most HS students should be capable of learning algebra and trig; the trick is finding the teaching style that works for them.

Of course, most of my teaching experience is at the college level, where nearly all the students want to pass, so perhaps I’m being idealistic here.

6

Perhaps I’m still in “when am I gonna need this?” mode, but why do they think it’s nessecary to add more math?

I took four math courses in HS, got at least a B average in all of them except trig (which I took pass/fail and got a C average), and I still can’t add or subtract without counting on my fingers. I’ve only been out of HS for a year, and I’ve forgotten it ALL. Except a little stats, but only because I like to be right and obnoxious and such. :slight_smile: I couldn’t solve the simplest equation, and I’m supposedly intelligent. Why bother?

Why bother with anything, actually? Why get out of bed? ::loads up on cheese popcorn and lies in bed watching Lifetime forever::

7

You may be too young yet to realize this but I think you will be surprised at how insignificant tidbits of knowledge pop up from time-to-time and make themselves useful.

Like you I have forgotten the bulk of my math classes. However, while I know I could not write down the quadratic equation right now from memory I bet I’d recognize it if I saw it (I know the 0=ax[sup]2[/sup]+bx+c bit…it’s the solving for ‘x’ equation I can’t dredge up…I think I blocked it from the pain in having it hammered into me [and I know too the formula can be deduced using basic rules but this is byond me today]). Anyway…I can at least pretend to look like I know something around my young cousins who produce such things asking me to help them (atr which point I sagely tell them they must figure these things out for themselves or how else will they expect to learn? :wink: ).

Anyway, you can say the same thing about history or physics or chemistry or most anything that doesn’t directly relate to whatever it is you do for a living. The bottom line is knowledge is good and useful and worthwhile for its own sake even if you don’t have an immediate application for it.

[sub]I shudder to think how badly I would perform on my SAT or ACT if I took it today.[/sub]

8

Learning math is also a good way to develop your abstract thought process. I think we all use our abstract thought process every day in way or another.

9

I am a middle school math teach who expects a lot from my students. I have heard many complaints, recieved many nasty notes and phone calls, but I have never backed down. I can have high expectations and still have a fun and interesting class, and I hope that I do. I am starting my fifth year of teaching, and at this point most people in the community know what to expect of me, so I don’t hear as many complaints as when I first started. I don’t care how much someone complains, I have certain standards that I have to stick to in order to be able to live with myself as an educator. I don’t think the other option is an acceptable one.

Most high schools offer a wide variety of courses that fit the needs of students of differing abilities. Our high school offers classes for college prep.(Trig, Calc…) and classes for students who need basic skills (Consumer math, General math, math review…).

I don’t think the problem is with students who don’t know what they are doing. I think the problem lies with teachers who are too lazy, too dumb, or too scared to have high expectations of thier students. We have all had teachers like this, and they give the teaching proffesion a bad name. We love them when we are in their class, but resent them later on.

Hopefully, new academic standards and teacher liscencesure requirements will eleminate many of these teachers. However, as long as administrators and parents remain more concerned about grades than comprehension, teachers will feel, and cave in to, the pressure to hand out grades that have not been earned.

10

Not likely till the teacher’s unions are crushed. IMO they are the bane of the education profession in this country. I admit to not being a big fan of unions in general but I really despise the teacher’s union.

Now that I got that sucker punch in I will say this particular notion is better handled in a thread all its own (which I would be happy top participate in) rather than hijack this thread. I just had to respond to that last bit because I doubt it will help as stated.

11

Y’know, I keep hearing about “abstract thought processes,” but I did just fine with my abstract thought processes without mathematics.

And the only time I’ve ever needed most of the math I’ve ever learned was to pass math courses. The only real use I’ve ever found for higher algebra and trig was for getting through college algebra and trig classes.

Does this mean math is useless? No. Taught properly, and with a little pizazz, it can even be fun, and large chunks of it, particularly geometry, can be tremendously useful in the real world.

Unfortunately, we can’t have this in the public schools.

We begin with the odd belief that a good teacher can teach anyone. This is a load of hooey. NOBODY can teach a kid who absolutely refuses to be taught, and certain learning-disabled children are considerably harder to teach than your mainstream kids.

All children can LEARN, to some extent, but holding a teacher hostage if they don’t all pass his tests is… well, frankly, it’s putting the temptation in front of him to simply talk tough, then pass everyone. Furthermore, it also tends to cause “teaching to the test.” This has caused no end of crapola in the schools in Texas, because when the TAAS tests became God, and your school’s TAAS results could command state and federal funding or get your entire faculty fired…

…allofasudden, anything that was not TAAS related suddenly quit being taught. Children were no longer taught how to write narratives, or descriptions, or much of ANYTHING that would not be found waiting for them on the TAAS.

In short, the children of Texas were taught how to pass the TAAS, as opposed to anything that might be useful to them in, say, college.

So they’ve changed the tests. The new ones are great. They’re going to teach the children of Texas new ways to think abstractly.

Crap, again. I know more than a few grown adults who can’t think abstractly. If we’re going to fire teachers because they can’t teach this skill, we’re going to go through a lot of teachers, awfully fast.

Oh, I should probably point out that Texas has an open shop law, so there ARE no unions here to speak of. Consequently, they can’t take the blame for screwing up Texas education. That must be laid firmly at the feet of the Texas Legislature, which has been thumping the Education issue every election year for decades. They don’t DARE fix it now. If they do, what will they do next time they need an issue to harp on for reelection?

But I’m hijacking. Bad, bad me. We will now return to the topic at hand.

Shouldn’t we make a point of determining what the children need to learn for their future? Oh, wait. I already know.

Some of them will need to know the things that will help them get jobs, pay bills, support families, and so on. The rest will need to know those things, plus the skills and knowledge that will permit them to get and make use of college educations.

Shouldn’t that be our priority, here?

12

I’m one of those silly scientific types, so I say that first somebody has to actually go out and observe how people live before trying to “fix” society. Where do they use math in the real world? Where does innumerancy hurt people? Then design a “core” public school math curriculum around that. Everything else should be elective. I’d say that a good course in fundamental logic would go a lot farther in teaching coherent thinking than mathematics. Yes, I have studied logic, the basic syllogistic and rhetorical forms and more formal predicate logic. Getting people to be able to follow a syllogism and diagnose a false syllogism would do much better in helping their thought processes than is loading on more mathematical methods.

13

I totally agree with the OP.

I really wish I hadn’t taken Trig and Calc in HS.
I passed it sure. Did I learn it… no.
But had I gotten to take Logic or Stats…
I would have loved it. I think Stats is a ball (yes, I’m wierd.)
And logic is neat.
I mean, how often can you prove Ray Charles is God?

14

Fine ideas.

But curriculum is not made by teachers. It USED to be hammered together by teachers, administrators, and local school boards.

Now, it’s largely in the hands of elected officials and their appointees… people whose concept of the “real world” may be radically different from anything you or I have to put up with on a regular basis…

15

At my high school, students have to take at least 5 years of math. There is no Algebra teacher. The main reason this works is that they have a very tough selection process: 1 out of every 7 students who apply gets in. Only the people who really want to learn are accepted; as a consequence, there are teachers from everything from Geometry to AP Stat, which is, IIRC, 4 years past Calculus.

Bottom line, as people have said, there need to be advanced and regular courses, and they need to start doing this sort of stuff in elementary school, because high school is too late to patch it up.

16

I can understand not requiring trig or calc, but algebra? That seems pretty basic to me.

I dunno. We’re assuming that high school students know what classes they will need, which isn’t the case. At my high school, you had to have gotten up to trigonometry to be considered “college prep”. If trigonometry had been optional at my school I probably wouldn’t have taken it. And then I would have been in trouble when it was time to apply to college. Pre-calc was the lowest math offered at my university, and you couldn’t get credit for it. So either I would have not been accepted to my particular college, or I would have had to bear the expense (and embarrassment) of being remedial. All just because I didn’t want to bother with math my senior year in high school. We’re assuming that high school students would be smart to avoid this kind of situation, but I have my doubts that most kids are that conscientous. Most of them still don’t know what they want to be “when they grow up”.

Other high school classes–like chemistry and physics–require certain math skills. I remember you had to have taken algebra II to take chemistry in my high school. So if algebra II is no longer required, you’re also going to have to make chemistry an elective. Either that, or admit that high school chemistry does not require knowledge of algebra II (I don’t think it really does).

Aren’t math teachers hard to find as it is? If more math electives were added into the curriculum, wouldn’t this require more math teachers? And are high school math teachers currently trained in subjects like logic or statistics?

17

Statistics is “past” calculus? Oh, but that is funny! I’ve taken formal statistics coursework in and after college and use it on a near-daily basis at work.

Unless one is actually the sort of statistician who does research on statistical methods, in and of themselves, the actual math involved in statistics is only barely past counting on ones fingers.

18

Dogface is right. An understanding of calculus is essential if one is dissecting statistical concepts. But anyone who can operate a calculator can do and appreciate statistics.

19

A few years ago I took a college-level stats for psych majors class – we got taught the basics that are used in that sort of research, though there’s a lot more to stats than that. I am a confirmed math-hater, but I got a B in that class because it all made sense. I knew WHY I was doing WHAT.

The first day, the professor looked at us and said, “You only need to know seventh-grade math to get through this class.”

He was right. The hardest past was him making us memorize the formulas. I got a lot of satisfaction out of doing a whole page of equations and getting the right answer at the end!

20

Apart from politics of holding to a job as a math teacher, the OP poses the following three questions:

1- Is increasing amount of math courses in high school a good thing or a bad thing.
2- Should these courses be elective or required
3- Should these courses be replaced with other type of math rather than just Algebra/Trig/Calculus

IMHO, unless we fundamentally change the educational curriculum in elementary school, the answer to the above questions are:

(1) - Not a good thing. Because if the kids are not motivated, and have no interest in learning more math, there is no point in trying to force them.

(2) - Should be elective, because of the same reason as (1).
(3) - Both categories should be available. The student will decide and choose which category he/she wants to concentrate and be examined.

But as Dogface suggested in the post above, a better way to handle the issues is to fundamentally change the educational curriculum in elementary school, so that the kids develop a liking for learning math as they progress towards high school and beyond.

This is not very difficult to do. One suggestion is to have a class (from 1st grade through 6th) entitled “what do we want to be when we grow up”.

Answers will range from “I want to be a Barbie”, to “I want to be just like my mom”, to “I want to be a plumber like my dad”, to “I want to be a fireman”, to “I want to be an astronaut”, etc. The teacher will then have to start from those objectives (for every kid) and back down, laying a roadmap (in child language) as to what the kid needs to do to achieve the objective.

If the teacher is well trained, she/he can start planting the seeds and growing the interest in the kids as to why they need to know certain things (don’t even call it math) to achieve their objective, from the need to count the number of lipsticks for Barbie, to the need to measure the distance from here to moon for an astronaut.

By the time the kids get to the 6th grade, they have probably changed their dream/objective to something else. but they still would be interested to know how to get there. Even if the kid still wants to be a Barbie at the age of 12, she needs to know how much money she needs to have for the car, the Jacuzzi, and the house. A good teacher can then use the kid’s motives to make sure the kid appreciates the need for having the basic tools required to achieve the ultimate aim of becoming a Barbie.

Now, if the kid absolutely insists on becoming a skidrow homeless, an NFL champion, or a dope pusher when he grows up, while you can still translate those aims to roadmaps requiring some elementary math, you may decide to recommend that the kid not take an elective math class at this time.

As for Algebra/Trig/Calculus, I believe the fundamental problem in getting the kids interested is because, before we teach it, we do not make it quite clear as to why the kids need to learn this stuff, and exactly how this mambo-jumbo relates to the ultimate objectives of the kids. Just telling them “you learn this stuff, and you’ll find later what it is good for”, is simply not acceptable. There is no motivation there.