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0 pointsOsiris10y ago0 comments

I see parents talking like this all the time. "Who can understand how they are teaching kids to add these days?", but when I look at it what they are teaching my kids, it fits with how I do it in my head vs. how I was taught to do it on paper.

People are resistant to change even when they say they want change (politics is a great of example of wanting "change" but having a fit when things actually change).

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5 comments · 4 top-level

sanderjd10y ago· 1 in thread

Yeah I get really frustrated with this. It is one of the biggest struggles I have with trying to figure out how to disagree forcefully, because I strongly disagree with this sort of intransigence, without giving offense, because many of those who hold these views are loved ones.

I feel like there is some deeper cultural problem afoot. Why don't educators get the benefit of the doubt that other professions are given? I never hear people decry the way in which their doctors are going about their doctoring!

humanrebar10y ago

> Why don't educators get the benefit of the doubt that other professions are given?

On a practical level, people understand adding but they don't understand how the endocrine system interacts with the immune system and how diet affects that interaction.

If it makes you feel any better, the programming profession isn't much better.

Personally, I love educators for sticking in there, but:

1. There has been basically no major disruption in this field in at least a hundred years. I have a hard time thinking of another field like this.

2. I have no confidence that changes would happen even if someone figured out how to teach kids twice as well with half as many teachers.

3. Educators, as a community, aren't exactly scientific. For example, many of them push for universal pre-K, which isn't exactly settled science.

kbenson10y ago

And generally, when you see something that looks really odd, if there's someone around who's experienced in teaching it to put it in context, it becomes obvious fairly quickly. There seems to be a belief that just because it's elementary that anything a parent might see of their child's work should be immediately understandable. That may be true of the question and answer, but it's not necessarily true of the process.

mattmcknight10y ago

Imagine though that it doesn't match how everyone else does it in their heads. So, you are telling kids there is a right or wrong intuitive approach to a question- teaching an intuitive approach as a mechanical approach, which misses the valuable step of developing the intuition.

I have no problem with showing kids different ways to conceptualize a problem, but marking 5 x 3 = 5 + 5 + 5 wrong is just madness.

mjklin10y ago

"Every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves." - Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change

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