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  • Math education in high school
  • Posted By:
  • Brian A
  • Posted On:
  • 15-Jun-2009
  • Math is not a very popular subject and well, only a few like it. There was time when students sat dedicatedly in their classrooms, grasping every sum solved or explained by math teacher. But times have changed every thing.

    It is so happening now that students rush through the first semester of their algebra classes and barely manage to grasp anything. They fail to hold onto anything in their second semesters too.

    Therefore, this is causing the math average to fall below every year now. This means nor the students, teachers or parents are happy with the situation. Therefore, schools in the Westport area have come up with an idea. The mathematics are really frustrated and therefore, decided to rewrite the curriculum for the math class. Now the portion of the math class is cut down by half of the large curriculum which was the typical course for the complete year. They are trying to ingrain a deeper understanding of math before the students can move on. So from the last semester, the teachers started to replace the 1000 pages plus math text book with their customized math portion. These portions were written down by teachers here and then sent to India to firm which manages Hey Math! This firm in return, makes learning math more fun with jazzy graphics and so on.

    This is happening because, some schools through their curriculum in top speed and this doesn’t ensure if the students have grasped anything at all. They believe that schools in countries like India and Singapore spend more time for each subject. Therefore, school teachers will focus more on math’s basics. This means no formal proofs or tough sums in geometry and algebra. Tougher portions are being written off mostly.

    There were many reports before that stated that the mathematics curriculum be changed because year after year it was seen that the students performances were being rated as mediocre. This was done by comparing results from all over the world.

    So the schools in Westport now are taking the less is more approach. They will stick to teaching lesser topics of mathematics for a longer time. This will help students to grasp things better. With this change, it was seen that the scores in mathematics amongst students rose to 86 percent from 78 percent in 2006. This is a huge leap. More students are being entered in the advanced placements calculus and statistics. More than 231 students have joined this group now.

    But this unfortunately remains the case only in the Westport schools. Schools other than the Westport area are still following the old norms and racing through their mathematics portions like before. These schools feel that if they cut down on the curriculum, it might adversely affect the Sat scores of the students.

    It is a fact that some students like math and some don’t. But not everyone can grasp it like the scholarly types. By racing through the topic, the education system is depriving students of their learning. They do not care if the students have learnt something or not. It’s like they are more interested in getting their jobs done. This problem is on the increase. Some schools just want to be known how their curriculum and teaching. But they forget that if their students cannot perform, everyone shall know this sooner of later. It is a difficult choice, but as a school, it has to make sure that they are imparting knowledge and just textbook knowledge.

    Therefore, it is up to one to make a choice. Whether they want to race through the subject without really grasping much or study less but study it correctly.





 

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