Teaching Math, Ammi Style

After years of contemplating my failure as a mathematician of color (specifically Brown) it has been brought to my attention that contrary to popular belief: I have not failed my race, my race has not failed me, and therefore neither is responsible for my short comings. (Ok fine; race has nothing to do with it)

Then who is?

According to an article in yesterday's edition of The New York Times, the party responsible for this misfortune is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. It's a short opinion article but it does make evident a few interesting points.

Comparing the United State's education standards to that of Singapore's use of "rote learning," the writer claims that the Council's intentional rejection of such a method during the '80s contributes to an American student's poor performance in areas of science and mathematics.

Apparently, during my most formative years, the Council of Teachers of Mathematics decided it was high time students learned the ideals of independent thinking. So, instead of structure and drills, I was subjected to what this writer deems as "fuzzy math." Which makes sense to the extent that my retention of simple decimal division and fraction multiplication is also "fuzzy."

The writer then continues to lend support to Singapore's unadulterated method of education.

What's my take on all of this?

The article does not provide an explanation for the x amount of mathematical geniuses within my peer group but it does present the possibility of an education gap. Again, though this is only an opinion article, empirical proof would be a nice supplement to the argument.

Rote learning may be an effective alternative but it does not beat the independence found from "...waundering through problems in a random way." Entropy yo (had to throw that in there) On another personal note, I think my attempts to provide variations to the proven rule--F=ma--were good times.

Then, there were other "good times." Earlier I mentioned that race has nothing to do with it. Well, it does a little; but not in the uber elitist sense. Now, I do not speak for the people of Singapore, nor do I speak for all the Brown people from the South Asian community, but I will say this: nothing says learning like an angry Ammi with a chapal at hand hovering over your five years old body while you attempt the traditional method of "rote learning." That's Ammi style.

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Teaching Math, Singapore Style

The countries that outperform the United States in math and science education have some things in common. They set national priorities for what public school children should learn and when. They also spend a lot of energy ensuring that every school has a high-quality curriculum that is harnessed to clearly articulated national goals. This country, by contrast, has a wildly uneven system of standards and tests that varies from place to place. We are also notoriously susceptible to educational fads.

One of the most infamous fads took root in the late 1980’s, when many schools moved away from traditional mathematics instruction, which required drills and problem solving. The new system, sometimes derided as “fuzzy math,’’ allowed children to wander through problems in a random way without ever learning basic multiplication or division. As a result, mastery of high-level math and science was unlikely. The new math curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes, touching on dozens of topics each year.

Many people trace this unfortunate development to a 1989 report by an influential group, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. School districts read its recommendations as a call to reject rote learning. Last week the council reversed itself, laying out new recommendations that will focus on a few basic skills at each grade level.

Under the new (old) plan, students will once again move through the basics — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and so on — building the skills that are meant to prepare them for algebra by seventh grade. This new approach is being seen as an attempt to emulate countries like Singapore, which ranks at the top internationally in math.

All these references to Singapore are encouraging, given this countryÂ’s longstanding resistance to the idea of importing superior teaching strategies from abroad. But a few things need to happen before this approach can succeed.

First of all, the United States will need to abandon its destructive practice of having so many math and science courses taught by people who have not majored in the subjects — or even studied them seriously.

We also need to fix the current patchwork system of standards and measurement for academic achievement, and make sure that students everywhere have access to both high-quality teachers and high-quality math and science curriculums that aspire to clearly articulated goals.

Until we bite the bullet on those basic, critical reforms, we will continue to lose ground to the countries with which we must compete in the global information economy.

"My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine.....what?"

Familiar with the above mnemonic? (You can probably fill in the rest if you are) If not, then allow me to provide an anecdote:

Once upon a time, Masooma was in the second grade. It was a bright and sunny day--perfect weather for a treasure hunt--but Masooma did not dare look out the classroom window. Just like a diligent student, Masooma chose to center her attention towards Mrs. Leshkowitz's lesson on the Solar System.

Mrs. Leshkowitz: "Now there are NINE PLANETS in our solar system"

Masooma: "Really? Which ones?"

Mrs. Leshkowitz: "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.......Pluto...But there is an easier way to remember all of these NINE PLANETS in the correct order. Repeat after me: 'My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine PIZZAS!'"

And so as the stellar public school education should have it, our dear Masooma learned of the solar system in terms of this yet-to-be-tampered-with-phrase. However, in order to truly understand our protagonist's fondness for the said phrase, it is important to mention that at that very moment, Masooma developed an admiration for Pluto. A tiny yet spunky loner, Pluto seemed akin to Masooma's own attitude. So emotionally attached was she to this particular planet that when her third grade teacher assigned her the role of Mars—Planet of War—in the class play, Masooma spent a full hour crying to her mother.

So one can only imagine my sorrow when about two and a half weeks ago, I stumbled upon this piece of news from BBC:

Pluto loses status as a planet
Astronomers have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.

About 2,500 scientists meeting in Prague have adopted historic new guidelines that see the small, distant world demoted to a secondary category.

The researchers said Pluto failed to dominate its orbit around the Sun in the same way as the other planets.

The International Astronomical Union's (IAU) decision means textbooks will now have to describe a Solar System with just eight major planetary bodies. Pluto, which was discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh, will be referred to as a "dwarf planet".

There is a recognition that the demotion is likely to upset the public, who have become accustomed to a particular view of the Solar System.

Teary-eyed

"I have a slight tear in my eye today, yes; but at the end of the day we have to describe the Solar System as it really is, not as we would like it to be," said Professor Iwan Williams, chair of the IAU panel that has been working over recent months to define the term "planet".

The need for a strict definition was deemed necessary after new telescope technologies began to reveal far-off objects that rivaled Pluto in size.

Without a new nomenclature, these discoveries raised the prospect that textbooks could soon be talking about 50 or more planets in the Solar System.

Amid dramatic scenes in the Czech capital which saw astronomers waving yellow ballot papers in the air, the IAU voted to block this possibility - and in the process took the historic decision to relegate Pluto.

The scientists agreed that for a celestial body to qualify as a planet:
• it must be in orbit around the Sun
• it must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape
• it has cleared its orbit of other objects

Pluto was automatically disqualified because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune. It will now join a new category of dwarf planets.

Icy reaches

Pluto's status has been contested for many years. It is further away and considerably smaller than the eight other "traditional" planets in our Solar System. At just 2,360km (1,467 miles) across, Pluto is smaller even than some moons in the Solar System.

Its orbit around the Sun is also highly tilted compared with the plane of the big planets.

In addition, since the early 1990s, astronomers have found several objects of comparable size to Pluto in an outer region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt.

Some astronomers have long argued that Pluto would be better categorised alongside this population of small, icy worlds.

The critical blow for Pluto came with the discovery three years ago of an object currently designated 2003 UB313. After being measured with the Hubble Space Telescope, it was shown to be some 3,000km (1,864 miles) in diameter: it is bigger than Pluto.

2003 UB313 will now join Pluto in the dwarf category, along with the biggest asteroid in the Solar System, Ceres.

Named after the god of the underworld in Roman mythology, Pluto orbits the Sun at an average distance of 5.9 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) taking 247.9 Earth years to complete a single circuit of the Sun.

An unmanned US spacecraft, New Horizons, is due to fly by Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in 2015.

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In light of this recent development I shall pay my respects to my dear Pluto.

Dear Pluto,

You are too tiny. It’s ok; so am I. You refuse to orbit around that pompous Sun. I understand. Some times your lack of coordination finds you in a bit of a tangle with Neptune. My lack of coordination finds me walking into random people on the street all the time. So while the International Astronomical Union is quick to label you a “dwarf,” I still believe that you are nothing less than a “little planet.” Pluto, do not worry, for I have not forsaken you.

I still have one major gripe. Nine…what? Can some one please tell me: Nine…what?

Testing