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.

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)

Early Give 'Em Math Early

Desperate for work once, I applied for a job as an accounts receivable/accounts payable clerk for a small shipping company. I was a math moron (still am) but it was Edmonton, it was February, I was cold and I was broke. I thought maybe if I told some of the truth and was likable in the interview they might pity me and train me.

It worked. The woman was very nice, she assured me the job wouldn't be harder than balancing my cheque book. I didn’t tell her it would be easier for me to balance a knife on my nose.

I was on time every morning, raring to go, fun at break, won a few games of Name That Tune for them at happy hour but it was less than 3 weeks before they begged me to leave before I put them out of business.

That was the first and last time I ever had a job that required math. I have steered my way clear of it ever since.

Sucking at math is on a long list of things I don’t want my kids to inherit from me. They both go to Bright Minds, a Renert program for kids 5 to 12 and in reading this article that decision was once again validated. 

Turns out there is a name for people like me, we are functionally innumerate, a fact I readily boast about when in a crowd of fellow math morons and we are all vying to see who is the most incapable. 

It’s strange the way sucking at math is okay but being unable to read is not something people boast about. Those days are as good as gone. Math will be at the centre of most of the things our kids want to do and being good at it is now sexy - not geeky.

The article cites examples of the things kids should know about math when they are very young and I recognize them as being a big part of the Bright Minds program.

Both of my kids are math capable and could handle that accounts job now - they are 8 & 10.

Read the article, it refers to American stats but the facts are no different up here. Get your kids into math early, do more with them than they get at school -  the same way you do with reading. 

C Stands for Catastrophe

February 14, 2013

Grade 1 to 3 we learn to read, from grade 4 on we read to learn. I have written about this a few times, most recently here.

Moving kids ahead before they have a grip on this year's skills defeats the whole purpose of getting up to go to school in the first place...no?

That doesn't mean holding the kid back to repeat the whole year over again, that never made sense. But it does mean identifying the problem and fixing it in the class, with outside resources, a code, a tutor, whatever is needed but it can't be left unaddressed.

I picture it like an avalanche - a bunch of new snow falls on top of old snow that hasn't had a chance to solidify, the new snow can’t get a grip and begins to break apart, there is nothing under it to support it and the slide begins.

It’s not hard to spot the kids who are caught in the slide - they sit in class praying they are not called on. They feel judged and stupid. And it just keeps getting worse. They feel more inadequate, more confused and frustrated every day. The place they go to everyday that promised learning is making them feel dumb.

This quote comes from Philip Regier, a dean discussing university courses, but it applies to little kids too, kids that get moved ahead sometimes with much less than a 70% grip on what they have been taught: 

“It’s the Swiss cheese effect. You can’t have a big hole in your knowledge. If you get a C, you know 70 percent of the material for one course. 

But the missing 30 is likely to be important to passing the next course.”  (more here)

And for the little ones getting their footing it’s reading and math  ...  “Mathematics, for example, is “ruthlessly cumulative” and so missing a chunk of it early on can cause big problems down the line.”  Annie Murphy Paul

It’s like the Renert brothers (creators of the Bright Minds math enrichment program) say; Moving kids ahead before they master the material is like giving someone a two wheeler after they spent a morning on a tricycle and fell off it half the time. 

But, unlike school, if they never master riding a bike they can park the thing forever and get through life just fine without out. 

I Suck at Math More Than You Do, So There!

originally posted May 19 2012

A friend posted this picture on her Facebook.

In a very short time a bunch of people posted notes admitting their math deficiencies. They announced their hatred, confusion and hopelessness with math and they did with happy faces and winks and LOL's. No shame.

Math is something we are all quite comfortable admitting we suck at while those who don't suck at keep their abilities secret. It is cool to be bad at math and completely uncool to be good at it.

In a group whipping out their iPhone calculator to work out a lunch bill there is instant camaraderie in being numerically challenged, even a competitiveness to see who is the worst at it.

There is no pride in illiteracy. Those who cannot read develop intricate coping mechanisms to hide their inabilities and they are ashamed, embarrassed to admit they need help.

Why is it okay to not understand math?

Cantonese Math

Originally posted September 28, 2011

I am reading Outliers by Malcolm Caldwell. It’s a fascinating read in which he discusses how timing, legacy, opportunity, practice and drive (amongst other factors) all play a vital role in success. 

From Amazon: “he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

In a chapter about China he talks about math - I learned some fascinating stuff.
The number-naming systems in Western languages is illogical.  (yes it is)
We say fourteen, fifteen, sixteen but rather than oneteen, twoteen and threeteen we have the nonsensical eleven, twelve and thirteen. Then we have fourty and sixty and seventy which make some sense but twenty and thirty and fifty don’t. Why not twoty, threety, and fivety?

When we get into the tens the ones number moves from the front to the back of the word: For example the number "four". In fourteen the unit is in front and twenty-four the unit is at the end. Madness.

In the Asian languages 11 is ten-one, twelve is ten-two and so on. Twenty is two-tens then two-tens-one, two-tens-two etc. (Eureka!) Children in Asian countries learn to count a full year ahead of Western kids and can easily do math in their head because they don’t have to translate words to numbers. 

For example: a child here is asked to add thirty-seven and twenty-two. First she has to convert the words to numbers: 37 + 22 then she has to add them: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 plus 20 is 50 add those together and you get 59.


Now try it the Asian way: three-tens-seven plus two-tens-two ... the equation is right there IN THE SENTENCE. It’s five-tens-nine. The answer and the number are the same. The 6 year old in me weeps with envy.

Caldwell goes on to point out that disenchantment with mathematics among Western children starts in third or fourth grades and that is perhaps due to the fact that it doesn’t seem to make sense - the basic rules seem arbitrary and complicated.

Asian kids however don’t feel that way. They can a count easily at young age, do sums in their head, hold more numbers in their sweet little heads and work logically with a very transparent system. And if you enjoy something you practice it, try harder, get better at it and rather than being disenchanted you are fluent.

Binding Our Children's Minds

Originally posted September 27, 2011

The mother I spoke about a few blogs back, whose child was bored and sad, has found hope. She took her daughter to check out a local grade 4-6 fine arts school last Thursday and the child was floating on air. She had her first day there yesterday and came home buzzing about the things she had done - AND - she was exhausted. A real, honest to goodness, pooped out kid who had been excited and challenged all day.

Sure the newness will fade to some degree but the interest will not wane. She met the kids who have been going to that school for two years and still wake up excited for the day to start. It’s true for anyone at any age - when we are constantly being asked to look at things from a new angle, to think independently and expand our learning rather than continually review the same things - we are invigorated.

Meanwhile my daughter’s grade three class spelling words this week included: “I”, “my”, “swim” and “wind”. I understand that not all kids are avid readers and spellers but shouldn’t there be a way to challenge the kids who are?

At home Clancy often asks me what words mean and we will look them up, spell them, conjugate them and use them in a sentence. And we play with them.

This morning she wanted to know about “fraternize” as she had read it a book last night. We looked up its origins and she was thrilled to learn that “frat” comes from the latin “frater” which means brother. She rhymed it with “brat” so her brother the “frat who is a brat”. She thought that was funny until she suddenly realized that by rearranging the letters she got “fart” and that resulted in gales of laughter. Poor Jack now is a frat brat that farts.

I asked her what she thought of having easy words on her list. She said it was great because she got perfect scores and that put her ahead. "Ahead of what?" I asked. "The rest of the class." she replied. It was sad to see she what she drew from all this. I told her: "Clancy, most of the other kids are spelling these words just as easily as you are. You are not ahead, you are behind in your capabilities. Finishing fast and getting more time to doodle is not a good use of your time and likely the reason that when I ask: "What did you do in school today?", you say you can't remember.

These young minds are thirsty and capable of so much more than we give them credit for and I thank my lucky stars every day that I met Aaron and Moses Renert (the frats) and that they excite and challenge my kids’ “bright minds”. 

Speaking of which ...

A parent in the Bright Minds group told her school’s principal that her child was taking the Bright Minds course where kids in grade one are learning to multiply. The principal said that wouldn't work because 90% of kids CAN'T learn stuff like that at that age. So the mom asked the principal if she had tried to teach the kids to see for herself. The principal said no she had not because "studies" show a child can't process that kind of math yet. 

The mom, whose grade one child CAN multiply, replied: “you keep saying you “can’t” do things. You simply won’t. It's like the chinese binding babies feet so they stay small, that’s what you are doing to our children's brains.”