No wonder!

[snorri]

I had to tutor some college students in math - which was their major. They picked this major because they were so good at math in school and they thought it was easy and fun. They could not add fractions, let alone multiply them. When i asked them what did they do in school, they said math was fun, the teacher was telling jokes, doing head-stands, and they all got excellent grades.

This is what I am talking about, among other things.

That is scary...

[paK0]

I had to tutor some college students in math - which was their major. They picked this major because they were so good at math in school and they thought it was easy and fun. They could not add fractions, let alone multiply them. When i asked them what did they do in school, they said math was fun, the teacher was telling jokes, doing head-stands, and they all got excellent grades.

This is what I am talking about, among other things.

That is scary...

It happens to some extend in germany as well, whenever you have different authorities deciding on what is part of the final exams you get varying skills and those get mashed up again afterwards. My high school covered half of my first math class in university, but it was completely new to some other students.

[Bantari]

When i asked them what did they do in school, they said math was fun, the teacher was telling jokes, doing head-stands, and they all got excellent grades.

Doing headstands? Was that to illustrate 1/x?

Exactly what I wondered.
But apparently that gave the students the perception that math is fun, and that they are great at it. So in the end, all were happy - the teacher did not get complaints, the students got good grades, and the parents could go on ignoring the ignorance as they were before. Who knows, maybe somebody even got a promotion out of that, somewhere high up the school board.

Ah, good times.

[Bantari]

[..] Many of the students I have met thought of themselves as math prodigies. And since everybody around them was comparable, they were all great. And if they fail a test, the test was unfair, biased,

this far I can follow you.

and possibly racist, obviously.

But this smells bad.

Believe it or not, this was an argument voiced against a colleague of mine who did two things:
1. suggested applying higher standards during the admission procedure to a certain college, and
2. suggested that every student were treated according to the same standard, regardless of background.
The example made out of him convinced me to keep my head low, don't make waves, and hope for early retirement.

And you are right - it smells very bad, and I don't understand it either, but that does not change how people think and behave. Such is life.

[DrStraw]

I had to tutor some college students in math - which was their major. They picked this major because they were so good them. at math in school and they thought it was easy and fun. They could not add fractions, let alone multiply them. When i asked them what did they do in school, they said math was fun, the teacher was telling jokes, doing head-stands, and they all got excellent grades.

I regularly teach what is essentially precalculus for business students. Earlier this week I asked them how many were confident that they could manipulate numeric fractions. This was in preparation for discussing algebraic fractions. 50% said they were comfortable.

So I asked how many were comfortable adding fractions: 80% said yes. Similarly, 50% were comfortable multiplying them and 10% were comfotable dividing them. Asking them to actually do examples showed these numbers way off. The majority could not add fractions but most could multiply and many more than 10% could divide.

Clearly they were taught so badly in high school that they didn't even understand that addition is much more complex that the other two. Fortunately, by the end of the class almost all of them were comfortable adding algebraic fractions, nevermind numeric ones.

The problem is that most high school teachers don't appear to understand the process themselves well enough to teach it. So how are they going to pass it along to their students?

[Bill Spight]

The problem is that most high school teachers don't appear to understand the process themselves well enough to teach it. So how are they going to pass it along to their students?

Therein lies the nub of the problem, I think, in the US. Somehow we expect people who are not good at math to teach it. They don't do a good job, and so we reform the teaching of math from time to time, but they don't learn the reforms, either. Somehow we think that we can get good teachers on the cheap.

[Bantari]

so we reform the teaching of math from time to time, but they don't learn the reforms

I am not convinced the purpose of all those reforms is to improve the level of teachers or teaching or help the teachers to understand. My suspicion is that reforms are made for two reasons:
1. to show that "we are doing something, all this money is wisely spent, and you were wise to vote us into the office"
2. to kick the can down the road - when it will become clear that the reforms did not fix much, possibly even worsen the situation, another "board" will be responsible and it will be their problem then... and they will most likely introduce another set of reforms (for reason #1) and so on...

To truly change anything several things need to happen:

• strict standards need to be imposed, both on the students and more importantly on the teachers! i honestly believe that pretty much anybody can learn stuff like adding fractions, and if a math teacher does not know it it is not because he is too dumb, or his own education lacking, but because it was never really enforced, and there is no real down-side to not learning it - no lower bonus by the end of the year, no getting fired, nothing. So why bother?
• the school system has to stop getting intimidated by both parents or students. as long as the parents can ruin a board-member career by a well-paced and letter or email - not much will change.
• parents need to understand that education do not mean only grades, and that grades are not even that important. later on, in life, the ability to add fraction will have a much larger impact than getting an A+ in math in Grade 4. One of the reasons this point can be driven home is if employers actually have exams before hiring rather than looking at the grades and possibly a short interview in a social setting. I bet if children does not get a job because after 12 years of formal education he cannot add fractions, parents will start raising hell with the school boards.
• but then, to change that, you need to also reform the hiring process, in which the boss who hires you cares more about your skills than about covering his own behind. If you screw up, he will always be able to point to your resume and grades and claim "how could I have known he was a moron?" and so pass the buck back onto the school system.
• bot to accomplish that.... and so the list goes on.

It would take some higher-power involvement, like government. But this would probably create a riot among everybody - parents, students, teachers, and school board members. Its a closed loop, and makes me so mad... The whole system stinks. But then - we get what we deserve, and I have the feeling we were all standing idly by as the situation deteriorated year by year, decade by decade, secure behind our white-picket fences and in our assurance that we live in the best country in the world and nothing like that can never possibly happen here... maybe in Nigeria, or some such...

Bah.