Saying Math Education is Broken is no longer a controversial statement.
There are 1,000s of start-ups trying to fix it.
But no one’s fixing the right problem.
The problem isn’t the method of teaching (though that's terrible too), it's that the way society uses math has fundamentally changed and no one has bothered to fix the text-book.
Let me explain.
In the failed 1970 mission to the moon, made famous by the movie Apollo 13, astronauts (and mission control) were literally doing hand written computations to get them home.
Today, engineers no longer do this. Why? Because in the world of modern computers, engineers use functions to perform these calculations. It’s like how you wouldn’t multiply five digit numbers by hand on paper, you’d use a calculator. An engineer doesn’t do the calculus by hand, they use a computer function to do it.
Does this mean we should stop teaching calculus or long-division? Absolutely not. Stripping great literature out of our classrooms has only led to the further decline of literacy in the West. Stripping out mathematics, the culmination of 1,000s of years of study, will do universal harm not just to our children but the future success of our society.
So what then?
We must update not just how we teach kids math skills, but what skills we teach them.
Kids don’t need to spend more hours practicing long-division and calculus by hand, but they DO need to demonstrate that they know👇
What long division and calculus are
When and how to use these techniques
How to instruct a computer to do them
And most importantly, develop intuition, built on a logical system, to validate the answer the computer gives them
The best math programs are doing a decent job teaching what and how to use math, but to my knowledge, there exists NO math program teaching kids how to properly use and validate the math done by a computer.
In my job as a research professor, one of the most troubling issues was my graduate students would bring me data processed by a computer that was obviously incorrect. A simple look at the numbers they had calculated compared to the raw data files demonstrated to me that there was something amiss in their code (or the functions they used to perform the math). But I had to catch it; the students had never received training to do this.
How many engineers are out there are just simply doing math wrong?
Well, a decent number actually. Nearly 50% of science can’t be replicated (REF).
So, what does this mean for YOUR children.
I just told you there is no formal math program that solves this problem, but that doesn’t mean your children can’t have these essential skills.
3 Ways to Modernize Your Children’s Math Instruction
In today’s post, you’ll learn 👇
3 TIPS to ensure your kids can understand & use math fluently, instruct a computer to do math, and most importantly validate the computer’s answer
A revolutionary way to think about your kids math homework (you’ve never heard this before)
My personal recommendations for free programs to add to your child’s math education to set them up for long-term success no matter what career they choose
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