Teenagers’ mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and COVID school closures are only partly to be blamed, the OECD said on Tuesday in its latest survey of global learning standards.
Teenagers’ mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and COVID school closures are only partly to be blamed, the OECD said on Tuesday in its latest survey of global learning standards.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but if you’re anything like many of the parents I’ve heard complain about modern math curriculums, you were probably taught that there’s a correct way to do every math problem and if you aren’t doing it that way then you’re doing it wrong. What modern curriculums do is teach children that there are multiple ways to get to the correct answer, so they can choose the methodology that is easiest for them to understand. Because not everyone’s brain works in the same way, and the old style of teaching sets up barriers for some students.
I got poor math grades when I was a teen because I didn’t always do the problems the way the teacher wanted us to do them, even though I got the right answers. I had come up with my own process. I scored almost perfect on the math SAT and ended up in computer science. Now, when my kids ask for help with their math homework, I see that they’re learning a bunch of different ways to do the problems. Not all of them are intuitive to me, but some of them are basically what I figured out on my own. I think it’s great.