Math education????

by Steven Gottlieb
(Kingston, NY,USA)

Hi,
I want to say that I agree with everything you wrote about the American math education (or lack of). I have two stories to tell.

I attended elementary school through high school in the East New York section of Brooklyn, NY starting in 1965. I can say that not one of my math teachers ever motivated me or anyone in my class to think-not even once.

And this was math!!!!

I recall my algebra teacher telling one of my classmates that taking away two from both sides of the equation was wrong. Fair enough, the student should have been adding two to each side but none-the-less the move the student wanted to do was not wrong, just not very efficient (the equations were still balanced). I went home that day and actually tried taking away two from both sides-and then adding 4 to both sides- and I got the correct answer.

I managed to learn some math and eventually became a college math professor. It was then that I had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting MANY math education majors over the years. I have to say that they are the worst students I have ever had. They don't even like math beyond arithmetic!

I had one student who came to my office for help with a related rates problem from calculus 1. It doesn't matter if this topic is hard or easy but her statement was extremely weak to say the least. She read the related rate word problem which included the word radius and the phrase 3 seconds. She concluded that the radius was 3 seconds! I asked her if the radius got bigger then eventually it would be 1 minute? She readily agreed! Unfortunately I think that she will make it through college (whatever that means) and become a high school teacher. I assure you that she will be completely incompetent. And this is the biggest problem our math educational system has. We need to get qualified teachers in the classroom.

Steven Gottlieb