Editor’s note: This op-ed is by award-winning journalist Telly Halkias. It first appeared in the Portland Daily Sun.
Last week we established the importance and purpose of mathematics, arguably as the basis for all human thought and action. This was in light of the nationwide concern with improving math performance in our schools.
But how to teach math in the Digital Age, and just as importantly, how to learn it? It turns out the best new method is really the oldest.
Mathematics has followed a millennia-long, proven path from teacher to pupil, the unsexy but effective method of daily repetition and in-class verbal testing known as recitation, or oral/verbal recitation. But in the late 1960s we began to alter such educational models, citing them as anachronistic and oppressive.
Note I didn’t use the word “reform,” which implies improvement. Instead, some changes were effective; the jury is still out on others. Yet none have been quite as unfulfilling as those applied to math.
When put in the context of worldwide student performance, Americans have fallen behind. It doesn’t have to be that way; the established methods of daily recitation in math classes can be modified to our current realities.
During the aforementioned transition, prescription was out; spectacle was in. Bells and whistles entered the classroom. Textbooks focused on colors, pictures, and sidebars. Somewhere in there you had to look to find the math.
I experienced this cultural transformation as a fifth grader in a program known as Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI). It and others like it swept the nation, trying to find an alternative way to accommodate many types of learners.
IPI was well designed and intentioned. Skill levels were from easiest to hardest. Then each level had the same subjects broken out: addition, subtraction, fractions, geometry, etc. Students independently worked in large combined classes while roving teachers answered questions and graded tests when completed – all at the students’ convenience.
The atmosphere was relaxed, like an extended study hall. Intended to take three to four years, once done with IPI students moved on to pre-algebra in more traditional class settings. Of course, the flaw was the naive premise that elementary school children were mature enough to not goof off when left at steady state.
Not only did those years hurt my development and confused me at an age where I needed structure and guidance, but it took several dynamic math teachers in high school, both challenging old-schoolers who subscribed to some form of consistent verbal recitation, to get me back on track.
If ever there were a subject where “teaching to the test” actually produces the required learning objective, it is, indeed, mathematics.
It also helped to have parents who cared; admittedly, many kids don’t have that. My father spent hours drilling the multiplication tables into my head to make sure I wouldn’t fall behind because of something that was eminently learnable.
And we didn’t have technology to distract us. Even when calculators began to appear, they were tools to the process, not an end unto themselves.
Make no mistake, computers can aid math instruction. But when veering away from what works – the daily grind of verbally demonstrating proficiency – there’s a risk of breaking something that never needed fixing.
To that end, a gentler form of daily recitation could return to math classes today. If ever there were a subject where “teaching to the test” actually produces the required learning objective, it is, indeed, mathematics.
The way to learn fractions is by doing fractions. The way learn to factor equations is by factoring equations. The way to build a case for proving two lines are parallel is to do proofs until the logic clicks and becomes second nature.
And the way to learn analysis based on reason is to do all of the above, preferably expressing the results not just in writing, but also orally, in order to reinforce them to memory.
As intimidating as it sounds, a teacher randomly calling on students on a daily basis in class, to be evaluated, is still the way most of the world reinforces math lectures, homework and testing at levels below college.
It ensures students are prepared in a subject where they can’t afford not to be. Step into most European math classes and virtually all Asian schools – which are known for their excellence in math — and verbal recitation is still heavily used.
Turns out, on our shores, this is nothing new.
Not to be mistaken for the “recitation” sessions in most college math degrees today, variations of verbal daily recitation are used effectively in higher education where the inculcation of subject matter proficiency is vital. First year of law school. Hospital rotations in medical school. Graduate engineering programs.
Even the vaunted British tutorial system is built on a recitation model. American teachers used it in primary and secondary math classes into the 1950s. Then, for some reason yet to be supported by any statistical results, we labeled it antiquated.
At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, can we bring a form of it back for the Digital Age? It’s tough to say, but a generation of global decline is enough to tell us something is wrong.
With mathematics, we must remember the important thing is not whether two times two equals four – that never changes. Instead, math is about solving problems, to include riddles about ourselves.
Improving American student performance is not an insurmountable task. The answers are there under the layers of well-meaning, but failed ideas. We have great teachers; they are naturals. The trick is how to get the non-naturals proficient, and daily recitation is the way.
Sometimes the best ideas are the ones we had from the start. It’s only when we are reluctant to admit we’ve gone off course that the math doesn’t add up.
You may e-mail Telly Halkias at tchalkias@aol.com or follow on Twitter: @TellyHalkias.
