Mathematicians Argue the Value of Teaching Mathematics the Old-Fashioned Way

February 12, 2008

"Mathematicians are always questioning the axioms," said said Dennis DeTurck (University of Pennsylvania). "Everybody knows that questioning those often results in the most substantial gains in terms of progress." In his latest book, scheduled for publication next year, DeTurck's "progress" means ending the longstanding practice of teaching elementary school students fractions, long division, the calculation of square roots, and multiplication of long numbers.

DeTurck argues that the study of fractions, for instance, should come after students learn calculus.

Architect Rick Longo agreed that DeTurck is on to something, at least from a practical standpoint. "Get rid of them. It's just so difficult to add all these fractions," Longo said. "It gets to be a nightmare. Decimals are so easy," he said.

On the other hand, "All of that is absurd," said George Andrews (Pennsylvania State University and president-elect of the AMS). "Arithmetic is the basic skill. If children do not know arithmetic, they can't go on to algebra, which leads to calculus. From there you go on to other things," Andrews said. "It's fine to talk about it, but this is not a good pedagogy."

"I think it's an interesting discussion," said NCTM President Francis "Skip" Fennell, "but fractions are fundamental and I'm not kicking them out." Likewise, Janine Remillard, associate professor of education at Penn, finds value in the status quo. The decimal system is "incredibility powerful," she said. "Fractions, if taught well—and that's a huge caveat—can actually help kids understand the value of the size of the pieces," Remillard said.

DeTurck claims that today's students "Want to know why they are forced to do complicated and difficult calculations. You can't say, 'Have faith and it will all become clear,'“ DeTurck said. ”Kids figuratively throw up their hands. It is no longer seen as relevant. By the time they see the relevance again they have missed the intermediary stuff."

Andrews said he believes DeTurck's ideas will "unfortunately" gain traction because of the misguided belief that math education can somehow be made easy. "Math is hard. The idea that somehow we're going to make math just fun is just a dream," he said.

Source: Delaware Online