Your typo is very accurate :-)
I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly.
I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.
I'm a college math professor, and I've talked to people who've taught the required "math for elementary ed majors" class.
From everything I've heard, it's bleakly depressing. The students (i.e., the future teachers) show little aptitude, curiosity, or work ethic. They just want to be shown algorithms that will always lead them to the correct answer.
I haven't taught such a course myself. I hope what I've heard is exaggerated. Liking kids is well and good, but if you're going to be a teacher then you should also like learning. My own elementary school teachers did, and everyone deserves an education as good as the one I got.
Outside of people who explicitly want to teach math, the math skills of most K-8 folks I've seen is abysmal.
Your elementary teacher may not be a math major because they are expected to teach all subjects. There is also probably some bias against deep content knowledge because "it's elementary school after all".
Secondary Education degrees are subject specific, so secondary education math students would, in fact, be mathematics majors.
In general they won't be, and I wouldn't expect them to be. The subject matter of these classes is usually much simpler than freshman calculus.
It's not math per se that I care about here. If, for example, these future elementary teachers disliked reading and displayed the same attitude towards being asked to write critically about a novel, then I would consider that equally disqualifying.
I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this).
> were taught math badly
> teach it badly
Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
> Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
I don't think there's anything wrong with "badly" here, and at least one dictionary [0] seems to support me; see esp. sense 2. But "poorly" works just as well.
Agreed, but that doesn't mean parents are not able to be encouraging. Their support, I believe, is more valuable than their level of absolute education on the common subjects.
If the parent can get the child to explain it, that also helps. AKA rubber duck debugging.
Blame the English teacher who thunk it badly. :-)
Ultimately it's on the parents.
