Everyday Math Makes Me Want to SCREAM
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I don’t normally loathe things. But I loathe Everyday Math for the hell it put my daughter through and the poor math foundation it gave her.
Thank you so much.
You Don’t Know How to Subtract, Mom
My breaking point came one Tuesday evening. My sobbing seven-year old daughter told me I didn’t know how to subtract. To learn, I needed to read the four page Powerpoint presentation on her teacher’s website. (Here’s another teacher’s Power Point.) Four. Pages. ABOUT SUBTRACTION. (But, um, I do know how to subtract, don’t I?)
So, like any normal parent, while opening up the file, I ranted on Facebook.
(Did you know there’s a Facebook support group for people like me? –Parents Against Everyday Math.)
Her subtraction was backwards.
It looked like this:
Now, this kind of method is fine for mental math, sure. But NOT for pencil and paper algorithms – it’s confusing and takes too long!
To make matters worse, it’s certainly NOT a good foundation if the math curriculum doesn’t continue like this through middle and high school. A Facebook friend wrote, “After 6 years of homework battles in elementary school, kids get to un-learn [Everyday Math] in middle school with traditional math. How does that make sense to anyone other than the self-appointed Einstein raking it in?”
Everyday Math Leaves Kids Behind
It was bad enough in first grade when AJ didn’t learn money in the one week it was taught, or time in the one week that was taught, or the addition facts when they were taught. She fell farther and farther behind with the promise that the curriculum would spiral back around eventually.
Her teachers through out these years reassured me that, she’d catch on when she was ready and that the research on Everyday Math was extensive, and it was a really a good way to teach math.
[Insert bad word here that starts with BS.]
Because those statements weren’t true. Not good research. Nor did she catch on eventually. (Google EM research and you’ll see, I’m not going to go into it here.)
Since AJ hadn’t learned the basics, she couldn’t catch on to the next spiral months or a year later.
She believed she was stupid.
Conversely, students who excelled in math weren’t challenged at their ability level and were bored. Herein lies a big problem with Everyday Math — it teaches to the middle so you hit the middle kids and leave out the rest.
Blame the Teacher?
An Everyday Math trainer told my friend that it must be because the teachers were incorrectly implementing the curriculum.
Is the curriculum that easy to mess up?
I don’t think so.
. . .
New Math
In a recent phone conversation, Audra Haskins, Director of Lower School at Aspen Academy in Colorado, explained this about Everyday Math, “It doesn’t go deep; there’s not a lot of repetition, review, or application.”
A teacher friend of mine from Twitter added, “The material jumps around so much that mastery is not achieved on any level (at least in second grade.) It doesn’t make sense. I hate it! I am worried about the future of my students because I felt like I didn’t teach solid math this year.”
Investigations is another curriculum in the New Math genre.
Haskins said, “Investigations is designed to assume the kids are good at math and know the skills and apply them. If kids don’t know it, they’re never going to get there.”
Mom of eight and blogger, Gretchen White commented on Facebook, “I LOATHE Investigations. I’ve ranted about it extensively. It’s the main reason we left our former school. I remember our 2nd grader having to count the pockets in our family for homework one night and I realized it was failing him as a mathematician. I’ve been happy with Saxon, although I know there are plenty of Saxon critics. It seems like “real” math, for lack of a better word.”
Want to read more concerns about Everyday Math? Try Concerned CT Parent, Ed Weekly Blogger, Rational American, Amy Johnson, Andrea Merida, parents on this forum, Rox Dover, and Parent Pundit.
To summarize,
3 Reasons I Hate Everyday Math
- Everyday Math does not teach basic number sense.
- Everyday Math makes simple math operations harder than necessary.
- Everyday Math does not differentiate for kids who need longer time or kids who need to move faster.
Cue Music, Enter . . . Singapore Math
We moved schools to one with a FANTASTIC math curriculum — Singapore Math. It goes deep into twelve concepts and teaches to mastery (meaning that kids learn it before moving to a new concept.) Tomorrow I share my happy experiences with Singapore Math. 🙂
What does your school use for math? Or homeschool? What do you like or dislike about it?
We use Math U See in our homeschool. LOVE it. It teaches math concepts so clearly and there is zero jumping around. You don’t move to the next lesson until the current lesson is mastered. The program works in a couple of review problems into half of the worksheets, so the kids get a dose of a refresher without “spiraling” them backwards and getting them confused or forgetting new concepts. The word problems are real-life problems so I feel the it demonstrates how we apply math to every day life.
We’re now into our 4th level using MUS and my son, who previously struggled with the horrible spiral math methods in public school, is doing very well now.
Thank you! I said this about 10 yrs ago when I was teaching EM to 6th grader and wondered how they would ever learn anything. I heard the exact same “it will spiral back around” quote. So glad I’m not the only one who has these feelings!
Wow. I’m good at math, but that’s confusing. I don’t know what kind of math my kids’ school teaches, but it’s not that one, thank goodness.
Although I haven’t heard the term Everyday Math before, my kids do have investigations so I assume that’s what they are learning. Plus they are in the same school district Gretchen left.
I have to admit that when I was first exposed to this “new math” I was confused – that was when my stepson was in 4th grade, so 6 years ago. That group of kids had it hardest because the approach was switched on them after 3 or even 5 years of learning math the more traditional way.
However, watching my now 4th grader do math I think this math is a great foundation for teaching kids how to think about numbers – to work with them in their heads and “get” the concepts for gut checking, approximating, etc. And those are the types of math I use in my everyday life – how much is this granola bar box per bar? Do I care if it’s $0.19 each or $0.22 each? Not really, but close enough is fine. Same with mpg – I want to be able to quickly work out a solution.
I’ve seen some really incredible multiplication and division efforts in 4th grade with this math that astonish me compared to how tedious and time consuming it was when I was in 4th grade. So I guess I can see positives with this approach. At the same time I am very interested in learning about the Singapore Math.
And, btw, don’t think ANY topics are taught to true depth in our schools any more – the damn testing is what is taught – “This is what your questions may look like on CSAP, make sure you write down your thought process and your answer in full sentences because that will get you partial credit.” I hear how to take the CSAP in my kids’ classes as much as I hear true teaching.
And don’t get me started on the class sizes. After spending 1.5 hours in my son’s class, I think the actual time he was taught something was maybe – MAYBE – 10minutes. I can only imagine how much further he’d be if being taught one on one. Of course I am a big advocate of school being as much for learning social skills as academics so I am a bit bipolar here I suppose.
We are beginning to homeschool and going to be using Singapore Math. I have not heard much about it, so thank you for sharing that you like it. That makes me feel much better about it. Good to know it works!