Whose fault is it that you aren't good at math?

Yesterday, Seth Godin posted Good at math on his blog. There was a lot that I agree with in this short piece. For example, the second paragraph begins with:

I'll grant you that it might take a gift to be great at math, but if you're not good at math, it's not because of your genes.

Unfortunately, this is followed up with:

It's because you haven't had a math teacher who cared enough to teach you math. They've probably been teaching you to memorize formulas and to be good at math tests instead.

I am not surprised that Godin employs the "blame the teacher" canard. Our nation loves finding easy explanations to complex problems and, therefore, falls back on the "bad teacher" narrative on a regular basis whenever it comes to problems in education. However, this explanation of why you aren't good at math misses an important point. A point Richard Skemp makes in Relational Understanding and Instrumental Understanding.

I used to think that maths teachers were all teaching the same subject, some doing it better than others. 

I now believe that there are two effectively different subjects being taught under the same name, ‘mathematics’.

Skemp's realization can help us to make an important distinction. It isn't that your teachers didn't care. In fact, probably the problem was that your teachers, like the rest of our society, cared too much - cared too much about you being good at math tests. And this is the crux of the problem (and another place where Godin and I can find some agreement). In the third paragraph, he writes:

Being good at standardized math tests is useless. These tests measure nothing of real value, and they amplify a broken system.

So here is what I wish Godin had written in those two paragraphs (my edits in blue):

I'll grant you that it might take a gift to be great at math, but if you're not good at math, it's no because of your genes. It's because of your experiences. You did not encounter in math class the experiences you needed to be good at math. What you received, because of our broken system's obsession with test scores, were experiences meant to prepare you to be successful in schoolmath - memorization of facts and formulas that can be easily assessed using standardized-tests.

What can we do about this disconnect between math and schoolmath? We can begin by recognizing that being good at standardized math tests is useless. These tests measure nothing of real value, and they amplify a broken system.

What do you wish Godin had written? Because until we can understand the problem, to be able to put it into our own words, it will be nearly impossible to solve it. 

WTH?

The analysis of pointers is pointless.

Eckhart Tolle (at 2:12)

Yesterday, I sat with a group of concerned parents and teachers as they discussed what was happening at their children's school. They had chosen this school because it was a public (charter) school dedicated to developmentally appropriate methods of teaching and learning. But recently the school had been implementing more test-prep based on the recommendations of certain "experts" who were concerned about the school's standardized-test results.

You see, when Michigan decided to change their cut scores on the state test the school's pass rate had plummeted. I tend to think of this as a manufactured crisis meant to sell more test-prep programs but that rant may have to wait for another post. The consequences to these parents and teachers are real - and heartbreaking - and demand the attention of this post.

The parents and teachers had selected this school specifically because of its  commitment to being something other than a "factory" school; a commitment to being a school where natural learning was valued above all else. Now, however, the school seemed to be succumbing to the push to standardize teaching and learning. Parents had attempted to express their concerns to school leaders with no success. This group was now thinking about alternatives - home schooling, starting a private school, starting their own charter.

I did my best to explain what I understood to be the some of the pros and cons of each of these options, all the while empathizing with their situation. These were not people of means who could afford to stay away from a job to home school their children or pay the tuition at a private school. They wanted to know what assurances they would have that a new charter school would not result in the same heartbreak somewhere down the line. Unfortunately, I had no assurances to give.

It was energizing to find these parents so passionate about developmentally appropriate education but I left the meeting angry. I am angry that we have developed this unhealthy obsession with standardized-test results. I am angry that parents committed to learning, not test scores, find themselves looking around for alternatives and find nothing available/affordable. Pardon the violence in this video (and the earlier comic meme), but the situation has left me thinking, "What the heck!?!" and makes me want to slap someone. [Fortunately, I chose to use my words instead.]

[Important part starts at 1:15]

We need to quit focusing on the finger (test-scores) and begin looking to the moon (learning). Our current approach is shortsighted. And if we continue down this path we will not have the educated citizenry we need to survive.