Boost your child's math intelligence! How you beat the odds with your child:
I was doing a radio interview in November 2009 when the radio host, Michael Ray Dresser (Dresser After Dark), made a parallel between phonics instruction and proper math instruction. Phonics teaches the WHY behind the reading and good math teaches the WHY behind the math. Much of the ‘reform’ math is like horrid sight-reading, where a child learns the sentence 3+4=7 by sight (or with a calculator) without learning the basic concepts underneath, that each number represents a specific amount and how those amounts regroup.
It has come to my attention that the public educational system holds children back not only in reading, but in math as well. I strongly recommend that parents do math instruction at home long before, and during, school age. Parent involvement is absolutely necessary for our children to join the technology workforce of the future, regardless of using public, private, or home school.
Obviously, ‘Reform’ philosophies have done for math what the Whole Language fiasco did for reading. [Note: Common Core has now ruined math exponentially more than reform math ever thought of!]
Math advocates such as Laurie Rogers of the Safer Child organization http://www.saferchild.org/ have been trying to put the WHY back into public school math, but the curriculum coordinators, college boards, textbook publishers, and government aren’t listening. Parents are the key to turning around the education fiasco for our children. Laurie Rogers is absolutely brilliant about the problems in public math instruction. To quote from her article, Rogers, Laurie. (July, 2009). "Why administrators don't listen." July 5, 2009, on Education News at http://ednews.org/articles/why-administrators-dont-listen-.html:
“A common complaint among math advocates is that the education establishment continually rejects pertinent data and valid research on how ‘reform’ mathematics curricula are deeply, fatally flawed.”
“It’s like watching a completely preventable traffic accident,” I’ve said. “How do they not see it? Why won't they listen to reason?”
“Many a public schools persists with its ‘reform’ math curricula despite all contrary evidence from the district, state and nation – and despite distressing results (a scary, black hole of dropouts, remediation and failed tests).”
“If the data and research don’t support these curricula, and the entire nation has found that a steady diet of ‘reform’ leads to math incompetence… what is the real reason for their continued use? …Infiltrate public education, teach the children to think conceptually about nothing, and then pretend to fret as the country falls to its knees. It’s the perfect crime: Infiltrate public education, teach the children to think conceptually about nothing, and then pretend to fret as the country falls to its knees."
Everyone loves the word ‘change,’ but change is not always for the better. To quote the experts:
“Another lesson of [Project Follow Through] is that educational innovations do not always work better than what they replace. Many might say that we do not need an experiment to prove that, but it needs to be mentioned because education has just come through a period in which the not-always-stated assumption was that any change was for the better. The result was a climate in which those responsible for the changes did not worry too much about the consequences. The PFT evaluation and other recent evaluations should temper our expectations.” (p. 179-181, Wisler, Burns, & Iwamoto, 1978).
“The most expensive educational experiment in the world [PFT] showed that change alone will not improve education. Yet change for the sake of change is the major theme of the current educational reform effort. Improving education requires more thought than simply making changes.” (Bonnie Grossen, editor, University of Oregon).
Giving children the foundation of the WHY behind numbers and letters in a direct manner is the best way to guarantee that they will grasp the concepts easily and progress rapidly, not only to competency but to excellence and intelligence. Wise parents who want to raise successful children will start at home before kindergarten to give their children a good foundation in mathematical concepts, patterning, and the WHY behind the math.
Laurie Rogers also wrote, “No advocate has the answer [to public education acceptance of reform math], although there are suspicions. Some of the possibilities I’ve heard include these:
· Kickbacks from [textbook] publishers
· Overly friendly relationships with publishers
· College Board pressure
· Ignorance
· Stupidity
· Herd mentality
· Indoctrination
· Ego
· Habit
· Personal comfort
· Political philosophy
· Ennui
What better gift could a parent give a child? Only parents can turn education around for their children, and they must start at home. Yes, even busy working parents. If I did it with a full-time job and 15 children, anyone can do it. Let me show you how. More to come!
http://thegodfreymethod.com
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