THE WAY CHARLOTTE SCHOOLS TEACH MATH JUST DOESN`T ADD UP
Published: Monday, May 9, 1988
Section: VIEWPOINT
Page: 13A
By HAROLD B. REITER, Special
To The Observer
In preparation for teaching high school
math teachers this summer, I spent
much of the spring observing the way
mathematics is taught in a dozen or
more Charlotte-Mecklenburg junior
and senior high schools.
First, the good news:
The teachers I observed were
enthusiastic, generally well-informed,
attentive, articulate and willing to listen
to and answer questions from
students.
Their classrooms were upbeat and
colorful, with an ample supply of
computers, calculators, TV monitors,
overhead projectors and other useful
teaching aids.
The students were surprisingly eager to
learn, attentive, well-behaved and
responsive to teachers` instruction.
Now, the bad news:
In junior high and middle school
classes, an incredibly large amount of
time was spent on computation, and
mostly integer arithmetic at that. In
none of the more than 20 classrooms I
attended did the students use
calculators to handle these trivial
assignments.
Another serious problem was the
students` passive acceptance of ideas.
They seemed not the least bit inclined
to question the usefulness or
correctness of the concepts presented.
They were not reluctant, however, to
point out
computational errors, which says
something about their orientation to
mathematics.
Most of the teachers patronized their
students, praising them for correctly
answering easy questions but not for
asking hard ones.
Few teachers actually challenged
students to consider noncomputational
problems requiring higher thinking
skills. The most popular problems by
far
were those for which the model was
already developed and students simply
computed the answer.
Those are dull tasks, and requiring
students to do them repeatedly
misleads young people about the
nature of mathematics. Too many
people already think mathematics and
arithmetic are synonymous. Arithmetic
is an important
part of mathematics, but one which we
need not practice several hours a week
as we did in precalculator years.
The National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics recently recommended
that
students get a significant exposure to
calculators, beginning in the first
grade. Calculators have even caused
us to rethink the way we teach college
mathematics, including the calculus
sequence and differential equations.
The list of preferred mathematics
topics from the acclaimed PBS series
``For All Practical Purposes`` includes
management science, social choice,
statistics and computer science. These
may make the course seem like
anything but mathematics, but it
includes precisely what esteemed
mathematicians regard as essential for
life in the 21st century.
If these were the only problems I
observed, I would still be optimistic
about the future. But the worst
problem is that in all but a few
instances,
the classes I visited were boring.
Students were given no reason why
they should learn the ideas at hand
- for example, the tangent function or
the quadratic formula.
Mathematics can be exciting when it is
related to real and contrived
problems. Even the often intimidating
notation of mathematics can be
simplified by introducing problems
allowing the use of alternate symbols.
Let me emphasize one point to make
sure I am not being misunderstood.
Making mathematics exciting,
enjoyable and useful is a global
problem. Math
teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg
schools are surely no worse than those
in
most parts of the country.
Bringing about a change will require
coordinated effort by universities,
public school systems and the teachers
themselves.
First, teacher education programs must
require teachers to know
substantially more mathematics than
they would ever teach. Only then
would
teachers know why students need to
know certain concepts and how those
concepts could be taught to facilitate
higher levels of thought. University
math courses need to give teachers
more tools for demonstrating the
relevance and vitality of mathematics.
Second, public schools must be
allowed to compete with the private
sector
for people with substantial math and
science talent. That means offering
higher pay and better working
conditions.
Third, society can help create an
environment in which teaching is
regarded as a respectable profession
that attracts students who otherwise
might go into medicine, law,
engineering or accounting.
The Observer can help by covering
developments in the field of
mathematics. For instance, the paper
did not report the recent controversy
over erroneous
claims that a Japanese theorist had
resolved Fermat`s Last Theorem, one
of the great unsolved math problems of
the 17th century.
The paper also might report on the
success of Charlotte-Mecklenburg
math
students who, in the past eight years,
have frequently won full scholarships
to Duke, UNC-Charlotte and other
colleges and universities that participate
in the state math contest.
But math teachers themselves face the
most formidable challenges. In spite
of the many demands on their time,
they must find more ways to stay
mathematically alive and teach their
courses accordingly.