Math reform has made learning better! - Reader comments at The New York Sun

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When Teachers Teach Teaching

Submitted by Cleo Burgett, Dec 14, 2006 20:43

Mr. Ferguson,
As I read through your article, I realized how little "rubber on the road" you have in an elementary classroom over the past twenty-five years! I am a teacher and I am no dummy! I graduated from high school twenty-first of four-hundred-thirty-five. I did not take underwater basket weaving. I was placed in advanced classes and did well in them. I have taken several IQ tests on the Internet and consistently score above one-hundren-thrity-five.
I became a teacher because when I was in fourth grade Mrs. Lillian Thomas loved me and protected me from a terrible home life experience. She helped me to have hope and to know that things would be better. I ALWAYS wanted to be the kind of person she was. I wanted to be a teacher so I could help our world be a better place one kid at a time.
Like all teachers that started teaching in 1979, I taught using a traditional math program. This was before the National Standards existed. I could parrot all the traditional algorithms, but certainly could not tell you or show you why you flipped the divisor to solve a fraction division problem. I had no conceptual understanding for many formulas. I remember the saying, "Mine is not to reason why, I just flip and multiply".
There are millions of phobic math adults in our country because we were never taught the "why" part of math.
About twelve years ago, my school district put a reform program on my desk and told me to teach it. I read and I practiced and I grew; until, now, I CAN show, draw, and discuss the basics of math in many, many ways. I can understand differing ways of thinking and really offer great suggestions to students that struggle.
I can teach math about ten times better now than I could before the math reform!
If you can't easily address the "flip", just email back to me and I will give you a little taste of what the math reform has done to almost eliminate my math angst!!!
P.S. Many teachers teach because they are good human beings that want our world to be a better place :)
Thank you, Cleo Burgett
Teacher of teachers at University of Alaska

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