Call for return to basics in arithmetic teaching

It seems that all the “new improved” math teaching methods tried over the years, are not so improved after all

Many students are entering university not even knowing where they are on a world map.

Many other colleges and universities have begun literacy upgrading classes for students, saying they are arriving without the literacy skills to succeed in higher education. Indeed a study in 2013 found Almost 30 per cent of Canadians who have at least a bachelor’s degree don’t meet OECD minimum standards of literacy.

Now, recent Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) test results confirmed what many parents have noticed, which is that their children are having trouble with basic arithmetic.

While the tests show that basic literacy in schoolchildren has been slowly improving, basic math skill are decreasing.

Dr. Anna Stokke is a math professor at University of Winnipeg who’s been critical of new methods of teaching math.

She questions a comment by Ontario Education Minister who said of the results , that children can do the simple arithmetic, but can’t apply it adequately. “Where the kids are struggling is the problem-solving and critical thinking part of the curriculum,” Sandals said. “So, it’s when they’re asked to use those math facts to solve more real-life problems, that’s when we find we have too many kids who are struggling.”

In fact, Professor Stokke suspects the EQAO results may have actually inflated scores, because Grade 6 students were allowed to use calculators.

“You can’t possibly say a student can do arithmetic or know their times tables if you have given them a calculator to do it,” she said in an interview.

“People think they want to teach creativity and problem-solving and all that sort of thing from the top down.Those are all really good things. We want students to be able to problem solve and think creatively, but they can’t do that unless they have a solid foundation to work on,” she said.

In response, she and other math professors started a successful campaign in the prairie province of Manitoba to include basic arithmetic teaching restored to the curriculum.

Medical doctor, Nhung Tran-Davies from Calmar, Alberta, was also critical of the kind of teaching her daughter was receiving saying Governments need to stop wasting money on expensive technology and get back to teaching basics.

In response to criticism about the new “discovery” math teaching method, Ontario’s Education minister said in an interview, “They should be able to figure out why 6 x 7 equals 42,”.  She said,  “It’s the kids who can understand why who can then go on to learn to do fractions and understand and go on to learn how to make change and understand and go on to solve other real life problems.

Still many parents are becoming more concerned that the current “new” methods of teaching is leaving children confused and unable to compute simple arithmetic problems, and are lobbying for a return to basics, which did work in the past.