It’s Not The Funding, It’s The Pedagogy

     There is much to complain about “new” methods of teaching mathematics, regardless of if it’s under the moniker of “common core” or not. As has been noted here before, many of these methods can serve as useful shortcuts… to those who already grok the subject matter and know how to do it by more traditional “rote” methods.

     Many of these methods, however, are taught using small and simple numbers that become unwieldy once one starts getting into the thousands and exponentially after that. The “new” methods are not only more lengthy to do by hand, but involve far more rite steps—many of which are not adequately explained—than the more simple “traditional” methods.

     Case in point:

This is when I really had it teachers and teacher unions.pic.twitter.com/8fQqGJHvLz

— Hostessquickly (@hostessquickly) July 24, 2021

     Maybe, juuust maybe, the problem lies in the pedagogical approach to teaching mathematics. But then, if that were the problem, then teachers and colleges that confer education degrees are the root of the problem.

     And that’s something that any amount of additional funding can’t solve.

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