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.