Comments on: Hacker Job

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:27:53 +0000

At the private school I teach it, we definitely shifted from “everybody has to take calculus” to everybody has to take statistics in the last two year. We adopted “Everyday Math” about 6 years ago and our first kids who started it should be getting to algebra soon. We’ll see if it makes a difference. But it’s not like there hasn’t been a ton of research on Everyday Math (and other competing programs) that teach math concepts and real world applications. I’m pretty pleased with the way it’s played out for my kids so far (1st and 3rd grade). However, we have had a ton of teacher training in everyday math for our lower school teachers and have a super math coordinator (who also teaches in the Upper School when needed). We have enough confidence in our Math teachers in MS that they were told to cut the time teaching for everyday math in MS from 1 hour to 40 minutes a day without sacrificing content and pulled it off no problem.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:15:03 +0000

Well, neither did I, and I actually took the class!

Anyway, what I recall is that in the early 1980s it was a ton of polynomials, quadratic equations, graphing complex numbers, logarithms.

By: Gavin Weaire

Gavin Weaire — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:10:06 +0000

This is mostly not new, but I’d like to pull out a strand of criticism in some of the above comments and flag it as being a particularly salient flaw in the article, one where I thought it went completely off the rails to begin with in its initial framing. What is this unified monolith called “algebra” that we are either to keep in toto or eliminate completely?

Also, it’s silly to discuss this in isolation, without exploring its impact on other parts of the curriculum. You’re also making a decision about (e.g.) what physics you will teach.

Standard disclaimer: didn’t have an American education and don’t (for instance) have a clue what “Algebra II” means.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:26:54 +0000

Is it possible that this is Andrew Hacker’s second (on record) unnoticed satire? http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8hpQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2514%2C2554084

His other articles seem to offer a much different perspective on the ability of all students to participate in college-level education. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/college-rankings-2011-everyone-should-go-to-college.html

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:00:56 +0000

Stephanie (in particular), I’m old enough to have experienced “new math” in the 60s. The intent was blameless, to introduce concepts like set theory and use them as the underpinning for arithmetic. (“Why do we carry the one?”) Unfortunately the whole project wound up crashing and burning: as I dimly remember it, there were issues ranging from teacher training to overall skepticism about the whole idea. And guess what, not everybody is good at everything, and some kids turned out to be unable to grok set theory, and it all went down in flames. I would not be surprised if there’s lingering skepticism in the mathematical educational community.

I’m a software engineer so I don’t really have a dog in this fight: my profession requires facility with algebra and “numeracy” in general. But every time you face a question like, “my car gets 32 MPG, and I’ve gone 300 miles, and I have an 11 gallon tank, so am I in trouble yet?” you’re facing algebra, aren’t you? Even if you call it something different?

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:33:03 +0000

I like Laura’s suggestion very much, partly because it coincides with an argument I’d make about literature and history in junior high and high school–that when those subjects alienate students, it’s often because they’re taught using materials that a teenager can’t generally connect to or taught with no sense of their relevance or importance to the world. I’d almost argue that taking a break from math for three months in the fifth grade and trying to program Lego Mindstorms robots would be a better lead in to algebra than anything else they’re asking kids to do.

By: AcademicLurker

AcademicLurker — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:33:42 +0000

I did well in and enjoyed English and history and struggled with and disliked math for most of elementary and high school. Subsequently I ended up going to graduate school in physics and am currently co-investigator on a grant from the mathematics division of the NSF. So I think I have some perspective on the “math is hard” issue from both sides.

I think quadratic equations keep getting mentioned because they play such an outsized role in high school algebra. I can recall endless homework sets that consisted of solving various quadratic equations over and over again with no context whatever. I can see how that would discourage people (it certainly discouraged me).

Hacker’s piece is worse than useless because it distracts from a real issue (can we do a better job at teaching algebra in high school?) and replaces it with “who needs that stupid old algebra anyway?”

BTW, did the New York Times editorial page always hate education as such as much as they have in the last 5 years? It seems like anyone who a) has never taught a class, and b) is willing to say that we should abolish tenure/get rid of algebra/crush teachers unions/replace everything with YouTube videos, is welcome to some space on the editorial page these days.

By: Daniel Rosenblatt

Daniel Rosenblatt — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:21:42 +0000

There’s another aspect of 5a where the essay really seems to fall, short: the question of whether our teaching is at fault in so many people’s inability to get algebra even as it is currently formulated. At this point I think a look at the data from a bunch of different nations/educational systems is in order. I seem to recall that the US is especially bad in math compared to some other things relative to other places. Obviously this is complicated, one would need to sort out the affects of tracking on the test population vs those of teaching on the scores, etc. But it probably too easy (and self-congratulatory) to assume US scores are lower a higher percentage of people take the tests – other places now have more economic mobility, is this correlated with more democratic educational systems.

Then of course we could get interesting: if tracking is more acceptable in Germany than the US is it because the financial stakes in the choice between professional-managerial class and other kinds of work are less stark? How is our school system shaped by its ideological function of demonstrating that income inequality is based on merit (or in what amounts to something very similar, by the hopes we place on it for solving the problem of poverty)? As for Hacker’s animus towards educators, I think it appeals (if it isn’t driven by) the way teachers function as gate-keepers for mobility.

By: Mechelle

Mechelle — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 01:23:33 +0000

Funny that anyone would ask that question at all. Because some people might not be good at a subject then we should dumb it down or not teach it at all?? I teach many students at the high school level and many of them are in calculus and above (which I would have never thought possible when I was in high school). Many students do well at math and if encouraged and fostered in the right way, I think many students would do better. Parents and teachers as a whole have failed in supporting students by encouraging them to perform at a higher level than what is expected at a public school. They fail by accepting failure.
I don’t think anyone making the claim that algebra shouldn’t be taught just because students might be bad at it, is making an intelligent argument. Although, I think it is safe to say that many of us don’t use algebra or higher level math on a regular basis, there does come a certain satisfaction from the fact that if confronted with it we would not be at a complete loss. Just the same as reading classic American literature – I hated much of it, but was required to learn about it anyway. Does that mean I shouldn’t have been exposed to it? If his argument had been that the way math was taught needed to be changed and had some suggestions as to what that might look like, then possibly he might have a good point. However, doing away with a core subject because it may set people up for disappointment is much like saying everyone should get a participation award. Real life is full of disappointments and that is what teaches us to strive to do better. Encourage children to do better and support their ability to think and they will do just that.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:37:23 +0000

In most schools, math concepts are taught early. I’d say by 3rd grade, many students are learning algebra concepts even if they aren’t called that. Word problems, for example, often use concepts from algebra. In the younger grades, students use different strategies than they do in older grades.

I’d actually advocate–selfishly–for teaching computing sooner. Then you have a very practical field to use algebra with. Making a simple game like pong requires serous algebra, and then you can see why it’s useful. It’s also fun to get the computer to do all your calulations for you, but you still have to tell it what to do.

I do feel like students should be able to forgo math after algebra, which in most schools, they can’t. Maybe they’ll come back to it later in life when it makes sense. I also think, in addition to computing, more schools should offer courses in statistics or data analysis, more good applications of math.