Utah Considers Teaching Mathematics the Singapore Way

July 10, 2008

A bit of Singapore mathematics came to Utah in early June.

There, in Salt Lake City, was Yeap Ban Har, representing Singapore's National Institute of Education. He had been invited by state educators and lawmakers to explain how it is that Singapore has the world's top math students. State officials wondered whether that small nation's approach to the teaching of mathematics has a niche in Utah.

"We only have one resource—our children," Ban Har told the Salt Lake Tribune. "If we don't do well in that area, then economically we are a doomed country."

Singapore's students, Ban Har said, are encouraged to think visually. Their teachers stress the importance of mental strategies. Students use calculators only for more complex problems. "When they do not have a calculator they are not allowed to do tedious calculation," Ban Har noted. "That will frustrate them and make them hate mathematics."

So what might happen the next time Utah revamps its mathematics standards? "You see the winning team or the winning strategy and you want to borrow ideas from it," said Utah State Superintendent Patti Harrington, whose office had arranged Ban Har's visit. ne day, perhaps, "our kids will be competing against kids from Singapore," she said.

Other states, such as Florida, have already based mathematics standards on models from Singapore, Finland, and other countries.

Source: Salt Lake Tribune, June 13, 2008.