Teaching Less Math, Makes Sense

A friend of mine came across this article a while back and I am finally getting to blog about it. This is from a March 18th blog on Psychology Today's website. The author of the article talks about schools teaching LESS math to young elementary school students. Yes, LESS math! Now, I am all for less math, but seriously, the article points to several studies that show that this "less math" idea has a lot of merit. Here is the proposal:

"One of the recipients of this challenge was L. P. Benezet, superintendent of schools in Manchester, New Hampshire, who responded with this outrageous proposal: We should drop arithmetic! Benezet went on to argue that the time spent on arithmetic in the early grades was wasted effort, or worse. In fact, he wrote: "For some years I had noted that the effect of the early introduction of arithmetic had been to dull and almost chloroform the child's reasoning facilities." All that drill, he claimed, had divorced the whole realm of numbers and arithmetic, in the children's minds, from common sense, with the result that they could do the calculations as taught to them, but didn't understand what they were doing and couldn't apply the calculations to real life problems. He believed that if arithmetic were not taught until later on--preferably not until seventh grade--the kids would learn it with far less effort and greater understanding."The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning.”
(Peter Gray, March 18, 2010)

This makes sense to me since MOST kids today do not understand WHY math works the way it does. Memorizing the formulas and memorizing the "math facts" does not lead to understanding. I know, I am the product of the 1960's - 1970's NEW math that really just did not make sense to me. I learned math while homeschooling. Sure I knew how to do algebra and the "math facts" that are drilled into our heads in school but real understanding did not come until much later.

"Today whenever we hear that children aren't learning much of what is taught in school the hue and cry from the educational establishment is that we must therefore teach more of it! If two hundred hours of instruction on subject X does no good, well, let's try four hundred hours. If children aren't learning what is taught to them in first grade, then let's start teaching it in kindergarten. And if they aren't learning it in kindergarten, that could only mean that we need to start them in pre-kindergarten!"
(Peter gray, March 18, 2010)

The above statement reflects my children's generation. The competitive aspect of school really cranked up in the 1990's when parents were routinely doing the work that their kids should have been doing so that Johnny and Mary could get an A. Parents were concerned that their little genius get into the BEST most competitive preschool for goodness sakes! This all lead to certain subjects such as math being taught WAY too early for the child to grasp. The researcher, Benezet, then asked schools to try an experiment in math.

He asked the principals and teachers in some of the schools located in the poorest parts of Manchester to drop the third R from the early grades. They would not teach arithmetic--no adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. He chose schools in the poorest neighborhoods because he knew that if he tried this in the wealthier neighborhoods, where parents were high school or college graduates, the parents would rebel.
(Peter Gray, March 18, 2010)

This experiment was a success!

“By "recitation" he meant, "speaking the English language." He did "not mean giving back, verbatim, the words of the teacher or the textbook." The children would be asked to talk about topics that interested them--experiences they had had, movies they had seen, or anything that would lead to genuine, lively communication and discussion. This, he thought, would improve their abilities to reason and communicate logically. He also asked the teachers to give their pupils some practice in measuring and counting things, to assure that they would have some practical experience with numbers”
(Peter Gray, March 18, 2010)

The results were fantastic! The students who did not learn formal math caught up within ONE year! Plus they did better on word problems.

Please read the whole article here:
Psychology Today
When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in School