Canada Is Failing Math

The numbers are out and they are unimpressive 

"Canada has dropped out of the top 10 in international math education standings, a decline that is raising alarms about the country’s future prosperity."  

“The largest declines in student performance were in Manitoba, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Scores in Alberta, once a Canadian leader in math performance, have fallen 32 points over nine years.” 

The current math curriculum in Alberta schools is watered down and boring. It doesn't challenge the kids nor does it excite them about a subject that is part of everything they do now and will be necessary for just about every one of the cool jobs they will want to do in the future. They learn more math playing Minecraft than they do in school but only a handful of teachers even mention that Minecraft is math.

Both of my kids can do math beyond what they are taught in school because they have been given an opportunity to do more than and to discover they are capable, every kid is. They have been going to just one hour a week of enrichment at Bright Minds Math now for a couple of years and what they get from it is confidence, an understanding of how math works, an opportunity to play games that strengthen what they learn in the books, puzzles that challenge the skills they have been taught in class and an chance to tackle stuff that will take them more than five minutes to figure out. 

And, most importantly, they are being taught by people who love math, not dread it. My daughter had a 20 year old woman teaching her, she is a physics genius and rocket scientist, a real one, and Clancy looked up to her, saw possibilities in her she had never considered before. We were lucky, our kids got "good at math" before they heard people say it was hard, awful, easier for boys than girls.

Some folks think that if their kids show an interest or aptitude for something that isn’t math based that they will only need enough math to figure out the tip and fill in their tax return. I can tell from personal experience that that notion closes and locks too many doors. I was interested in language, hit a rough patch in math, fell for the “it’s not our thing” speech and took what was affectionately called Moron Math, squeaked through the exams with a sigh of relief and never looked back - until a few years later when I was keen on taking an interior design course and was told I needed math, when I had to stay late at one of my first jobs because it took me four of five tries to balance a small cash, when I found myself in debt more than once in my adult life because I can’t manage money properly. 

The days of finding a career that will allow you to side step numbers for your entire adult life are over. Assuming our kids need just enough to get by is a mistake. The world that awaits them will be full of amazing opportunities and few will be available without confidence in math which gives them the confidence and skills in problem solving, critical and creative thinking, logic and reasoning ... math is essential.

When we first started Bright Minds my kids fought it but I explained that they were not going to grow up and look back and ever ask : “Mom, why did you make us go to those math classes?” Recently my daughter was going over notes for a school math test and and I asked her if she was all set.  She said; “Easy peasy lemony squeezey Mom, I’ve got it.” Music to my ears, money and time well spent.

The system is allowing our children to fall behind in a critical skill, it’s inexcusable. It’s crippling. It’s negligent.

No one knows or loves your child like you do. Listen to your gut.

Report cards and parent teacher interviews are coming up. Before someone tells you there is something wrong with your child when you know there isn’t - or - tells you everything is okay when you are sure it is anything but  - remember this:

No one knows or loves your child like you do. Listen to your gut.

From the Elephant Journal blog: "My daughter is the reason I began listening strongly to my instincts again. Something is telling you not to walk away for that split second to grab your coffee from the next room, and you wish you’d adhered to your own advice when she trips and falls. Just a hypothetical example, of course. There are also other times when I’ve listened to my internal mother’s intuition—which began on day one—and I’m so thankful. Especially if you’re thrown into an experience with someone such as a physician, who can sadly be an intellectual bully, you might be less inclined to trust your own parental voice. Make sure you remember that no one has a better “degree” in your child’s behavior than you." more

These days if a child is inattentive in class, easily frustrated, distracted or has difficulty reading and writing chances are someone is going to say they need some sort of test, diagnosis and drugs. More often than not those suggestions come from someone entirely unqualified to make the call.

Having a behavioral issue is so top of mind that just about any of us display some sort of symptom for some sort of disorder at some time or another.

But the risk of over diagnosis is just as troubling as the risk of not diagnosing.

I have a dear friend who is brilliant but she thought she was stupid for years because she couldn’t learn like her classmates. It wasn’t until she was in university - a place she struggled to get to - that she discovered she was dyslexic. Give her an IQ test test and she will fail some sections simply because her brain doesn't see and digest information like the brains for whom those tests were devised. Give the high IQ folks a test structured to engage the dyslexic mind and they will fail miserably.

If your child struggles with reading, is loathe to do it, maybe skips words, guesses at them or says the words appear blurry there could be a number of valid reasons for their complaints. It could be that they don't think they read well, maybe they need glasses, or maybe it's simply a case of knowing their favourite show is on TV ... It's hard to know what the real reason is if they aren't sure how to articulate it, or are afraid to. 

Symptoms for ADHD mirror those for dyslexia very closely. As much as meds can be the key for some kids with ADHD, it’s not the answer for a problem seeing or processing text. 

"It's not always easy to tell whether ADHD or dyslexia is causing your child to be inattentive, distracted, and have difficulty with reading and writing or verbal instructions. In some cases, your child may have both conditions." more

How does a kid know that his “normal” is different from the kid sitting next to him? 

If the words look like this:

on his page how does he know they don’t look like that to everyone else? He doesn’t. All he knows is that everyone else seems to be able to make sense of it where he cannot.

What if things look like they do in this video?

It's called Irlen Syndrome. You probably haven't heard of it and if your child has the symptoms they sure don't have a name for it.

There is a lot of information out there. There are new issues and behaviours and medications in the papers all the time. How do we know how our children learn, what they need and what they might now even know themselves to tell us?

We have to listen to our guts and we have to find a way to talk to teachers and doctors without caring if they think we are neglectful or overly attentive, hypersensitive or out of touch. Ask any parent who is a few years down the road from you and dealing with an issue  and they will tell you they "wish they and known then" ...or that they "had listened to their gut"... when it comes to our kids being proactive is a much better alternative to begin reactive.

Do I As I Say Not As I Can't Do

When my kids do something clever they "get that from me", when they don’t they "get that from their dad". I’m a laugh a minute.

As much as it it is lovely to see the best parts of ourselves in our kids it can be equally as painful to see in them the things we like least about ourselves. Is it genetics? Are they predisposed to be nail biters, control freaks or clumsy? Or do they emulate our behaviour? How closely do they watch and mimic until being overly sensitive or too competitive is something they became not something they are?

Nature vs nurture

The great debate. Our genes or our behaviour? Either way it’s our fault. Their shrink is going to tell them that one day, we might as well face facts.

You Can Do Math Even If I Can't   

My kids go to a math enrichment program once a week for an hour called Bright Minds. My daughter was less enthused about it than my son but she went for two years and he still goes, happily. She used to ask why she had to go to the classes and I explained that she comes from a long line of women-who-hate-math and that she would be the first woman on my side of the family tree who does not hate numbers.

She started the classes before she had heard that “math is hard”, “girls hate math”, “girls aren’t good at math”. And it has paid off. Last week, for example, she had a math test at school, she’s in grade 5, and I asked her if she needed to study, wanted to look things over and she said: “Nah, I’ve got it Mom.”  She aced it and was proud but pretty blasé about it. I asked if she had been nervous, was the test hard. “Nah, it was a breeze Mom.” and I reminded her: "Remember when you used to ask why you went to Bright Minds? It was for this moments like these kid, ones I never had."

She knows she can learn any math, or ANYthing for that matter, she encounters in the coming years. She has the confidence to ask questions, she can try to work it out, and she’s willing to learn how to solve the problems. Math isn't something she fears. For her it will never be something "girls can't do". I would have given anything for that kind of confidence in math.

Research shows that school-aged children are especially apt to emulate the attitudes and behaviors of the same-sex parent—a source of concern if we want to improve girls’ still-lagging performance in traditionally male-dominated fields like science and mathematics. If mom hates math, a young girl may reason, it’s O.K. for me to dislike it too.    (more here)

Well, there was no way I was going to be able pretend to be okay with math, I wouldn’t have been able to help her with her homework without having a breakdown, so instead I told her about her great grandmother’s, her grandmother’s and her mother’s math woes and explained that she wasn’t going down that path. It wasn’t going to be okay to hate math. I was going to get her the help she need to make sure it was a no brainer.

If we can’t model it, whatever IT is, we can sure help them to not make the same mistakes. That’s the job.

Do as I say, not as I do. (or can't do)

Our Children's Future

Our Children's Future

What they'll be when they grow up hasn't been invented yet

My daughter wants to be a writer, an artist, a candy store owner, an app developer and about a half a dozen other things on any given day. The other night she was getting settled in bed and let out a long sigh.

“What’s up puddin’ ?

“Well, I was just thinking ... there are so many things I want to be and learn and do, how will I ever decide?" 

There was no sense pointing out that she was only 10 and had lots of time, that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. She’s old enough and smart enough to know the reality of that truth, she was going deeper that night.

Instead I told her what I believe, what I envy about her being 10 - that the world she is growing up in will allow for her the chance to be all those things if she wanted. At various times, at the same time and not for all time. Gone are the days of being one thing, I told her. You could own a candy store that you decorate with your own art and about which you write and, in your free time, you could develop an app that makes art out of candies. If people are even still using apps by then. Or eating candy for that matter. They may just put on a hat that lets them experience the happiness of eating candy without being within five miles of a lollipop. You may want to make those and be a Cranial Experience Helmet Engineer.

More on the subject -

Yesterday I read this great piece from a Gen Y mom. HAving read it I can say; "I wish I was 10 today and I'm so relieved I wasn’t 10 in 2000! 

Excerpt from The Question That Ruined Generation Y - by Lea Grover 

There is no, "What do you want to be?" There is only, "What are you doing now?"
And so I'm not going to ask my kids. I'm not going to imply that there's an end result -- that there's a final destination at which you have arrived, when you have grown up and are what you thought you wanted to be.
I'm going to ask my kids what they like. What they're interested in.
I'm not going to tell them that it matters what they get their degrees in. I'm going to tell them that opportunity is what you make of it, that your life is defined by your actions, and that whatever you're prepared for will be another door that can open for you.
I'm going to encourage them to study everything. Science, math, humanities, fine arts, business, languages. I'm going to encourage them to be Renaissance women, because there is no assurance that any jobs I know today, any careers, will still exist.

Please Tell Me When My Kid is Being a Sh*t

This morning I posted an article entitled "Is Your Daughter a Bully?" (read it here) on my Facebook page and added this note: 

A friend read it. It prompted her to tell me something that happened three weeks ago. She had deliberated bringing it up, decided not to and then read the post this morning and thought she should. We talked after school today.

My grade 5 daughter, Clancy, told this woman’s grade two daughter, and another girl, that the dance they performed with their class for the parents and all the other kids was “lame”. It hurt their feelings and one of them told their mom. These little girls like my daughter, look up to her and they were really disappointed, as was the mother. 

Was I disappointed in my kid? Yes. 

Did it come as a surprise? Not completely, no.

I think my kids are great and I like them more than most other kids but I don’t think they are perfect but when they make mistakes we are on them. If they are involved in something I usually lean towards blaming them I find out the facts. No, of course it’s not a great approach but given how well I know their mother (me!) I am apt to believe they must be somehow at fault. 

When Clancy came out of school today I presented her with the facts as they had been given to me, the mom was still there and assured Clancy that she still thinks the world of her.

I watched Clancy’s lips go dry, cheeks go pink and her eyes go everywhere but land on us. I said; “You feel bad and you’re embarrassed but it'll be okay.” She said she was both those things. We told her we were not mad but disappointed as we knew this wasn’t her usual behaviour.

Clancy left to apologize to the grade two gal and came back to tell us she had. She could look us in the eye, she was smiling, she felt better. She explained that she had said she was sorry, had not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings, that she was learning to not say what she was thinking and that the dance was really just kids spinning in circles so that was why she said what she did. 

I explained that the art of the apology is sincerity not qualification.

I saw the little girl a few moments later and asked if she was okay with the apology. She said yes. I told her that if it ever happened again she should feel free to tell Clancy; “Hey, that hurt me feelings. You need to apologize.”

Later in the car I asked Clancy how she felt about it and she good that she wanted to write about it. Here’s that:

Why does this minutia bear repeating? Because it never happens anymore.

Moms don’t tell other moms - “Hey, your kid needs to learn from something they did/said, didn’t do/didn’t say. Do you want me to handle it or will you?”

In the good old days my friend would have found Clancy that night and said; “You hurt my daughter’s feelings, you owe her an apology.” And the business of parenting my child would have been just as much her business as it was mine. We all need help with the stuff we don't see.

But what used to be a regular part of conversation between women is now verboten and can end friendships. Our relationships are so entangled with those of our kids that more often than not we ignore a child’s crappiness rather than lose the connection with the mother. There is an unspoken rule that we never discuss our children's failings, everything is peachy keen so what has become epidemic is the discussing of one another and our kids behind each other's backs. It's yucky.

Rather than say; "Myrtle, can you please tell Junior to stop punching my kid so we can just enjoy our morning together in peace? Or do you want me to go do it while you get us more of these delicious Peak Freans?", instead we chose to say nothing and the problem between the kids escalates until finally we just avoid Myrtle on the playground, Junior never finds out his behaviour is abhorrent, he beats on other kids until finally neither he nor his mom have any friends left.

If we feel comfortable relating our children’s missteps to one another, using all these normal behaviours, water-testing and line-crossing moments as an opportunity to teach and help our own kids and other kids, then the teachers could get back to teaching, the kids could get back to learning how to be good humans and the birds would sing all day.

Chris Ann, thanks for coming to talk to me. You and I and our daughters all learned something today. 

To all the moms of all the kids that my kids know and interact with; 

If Clancy or Jack MacNeil’s name comes up at dinner, if they did something that hurt, upset, disturbed your child in any way, please

tell me, call me, tell them. 

Thanks for Reading

Every once in a while someone will mention to me they have a favourite post or two and there seems to be a few that people like best. It's a really nice thing to have happen. Feel free to comment anytime and make my day.

Here are a few of those that are mentioned most. 

I hope you like them too. 

Cheers, P

My Kids’ Appalling Table Manners

Bullying is a Parenting Issue

I Feel Shame

E-Reader at the Kids’ Movie

Heroes and Cads

The Day My Son Googled a New Word

my summer vacation - by an 8 year old boy

my summer was great, it felt like it was really long, my sister thought it went by quickly.

we went to the mountains a couple of times, went to the pool often, mom loves Menchies so we were there A LOT, sometimes we’d go during the day and not tell Dad so if he wanted to go after dinner we’d get to go again!

i have always been a bit scared to go down the water slides but a friend convinced me i would love it, i did love it!  it was awesome! i must have gone down a million billion times.

i also did something mom found out about and i wanted to die, i looked at naked people on youtube.

mom said Miley Cyrus’s new video was inappropriate so i couldn't help myself, i went and looked. and a friend's brother told me what "stripper" was so i typed that in too and there were lots of pictures and videos of people, girls mostly, taking off their clothes. i couldn't NOT look, but it made me feel so weird. so i stopped. but i did go back to the places that didn’t make me feel too bad.

then one night mom picked up my iPod and saw the pages i had left open!

i thought i would die.

she said she wasn't mad and that looking at this stuff was normal but i felt so embarrassed and bad that i could stop crying and that made me feel even worse!

and she kept talking and all i wanted her to do was STOP!

but she explained some stuff to me that had been bothering me so i was kind of glad she kept talking.

now every once in awhile she asks  “have you been looking at naked girls?” and i want to die but i tell her the truth. i haven’t  gone back to naked sites but i told her i have watched that miley cyrus video a couple more times.

Our Summer Vacation - By the Mom of an 8 Year Old Boy

This summer my son got the nerve to go down the water slide. I had tried for last few summers to convince he would love it but no luck, not even with bribes. I tried cash, ice cream, lego - nothing. Apparently I should have bribed him with porn.

He’s 8 and he had a big summer full of firsts. It’s the year he got the nerve to open his eyes under water and to focus them on naked girls on the net.

Good grief.

Not that long ago a curious boy (likely older than 8) would have had to find their dad’s hidden Playboys to get a look at a naked girl. Motionless women posed on fur rugs and haystacks so benign in comparison to what a kid can find today... girls that move, peel of their clothes, attack the pizza delivery guy and cavort with farm animals - sometimes all at once.

We talked about what I found on his iPod. He was mortified. I assured him I was not mad and that it was normal but that it needed context. For example; the game show he found that featured female contestants shooting baskets and having to take off a piece of clothing for each missed shot was not what his dad and I played on the driveway after he had gone to bed. 

As we talked I discovered he felt bad that he felt things “down there”  for these girls he saw because he did not want to marry them. God love him. So I explained that those stirrings will come at various times and for various reasons and that I had felt them for some fellas before I met Dad. “DOES HE KNOW????” 

"Yes he does and he felt that way for other girls before he met me and that’s the way it is. All normal."

So, as disinclined as we are to talk about these things because it makes everyone squirmy, when you do talk you often find that it is not the obvious that lurks heavily on their conscience but something you would never have guessed. I could never have predicted that thing my son felt most badly about was that he was attracted to girls for whom he felt no lifelong commitment. That’ll change!

Next we discussed the rules. He can keep his iPod but:

• I will be checking his on line history and only I am allowed to erase it. 
• If he is looking at something on YouTube and the options down the right side offer something racy and he simply cannot help himself and looks, he has to tell me.
• If he has questions he is to ask me or his Dad.
• He is not allowed to share what he has learned from us or seen on his iPod with anyone.

I cannot keep him from seeing any of this. If I take his iPod away, he’ll see these images and videos at school with the older boys who can be spotted on the playground and the bus, groups of horny boys, heads smushed together starring down at the screen and the little kids poke their faces into the scrum. He wouldn't tell me what he saw and we wouldn't talk.

I want to keep the conversation going. So that when he sees a picture a schlong hanging past a guy’s knee he doesn’t feel inadequate (or terrified) or that when he sees naked girls, hairless from chin to toe, seemingly thrilled to have every orifice filled by something  that he doesn't think this is what his dating life will look like. 

He, and his sister, deserve to have perspective, context, self respect, respect for their partners and a willingness to let us help them learn all that. And that's all there is to it.

After it was all over and everyone had gone to bed, that night I discovered his porn past, I had a quiet cry. He stills believes in Santa but has googled "strippers". It goes faster than ever these days.