Great post Tom.

On another education blog I commented on how Jump Math wasn`t on the Trillium List in Ontario where the chosen curricula for instruction are vetted through Curriculum Services Canada.

You have to pay but even if you do,who deems to choose one over the other,would they be engineers like you,I think not….

Thanks Jo-Anne. 

John Mighton, the author of Jump Math, wrote on the op-ed page of the Toronto Star today:  http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/12/08/canada_needs_a_revolution_in_math_education.html

Mathematician John Mighton echoed your sentiments in an op-ed in today’s Toronto Star: 

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/12/08/canada_needs_a_revolution_in_math_education.html

“In 2007, Toronto teacher Mary Jane Moreau gave her fifth grade students a standardized math assessment called the TOMA. The class average was in the 54th percentile, with marks ranging from the 9th to the 75th percentile. But then Mary Jane adopted a new curriculum. Designed by the educational charity JUMP Math, the methods were based on the assumption that all children can be led to think mathematically. After a year of the new techniques, the average rose to the 98th percentile, with the lowest mark in the 95th percentile. At the end of grade six, the class wrote the Pythagoras Math competition: 14 of the 17 students received awards of distinction, with the other three close behind.” 

Further on he says , “To progress as a society, we must recognize that there is such a thing as intellectual poverty. Children can enjoy doing math as much as they enjoy making art or playing sports. It’s fun to overcome challenges and thrilling to discover or understand something that is beautiful, useful or new. Children love solving puzzles, seeing patterns and making connections. They have a sense of wonder that is only diminished by failure. If we could keep a record, even for a day, of all of the opportunities for emotional and intellectual engagement with the world that are lost when a child decides he is not smart enough to keep up with his peers, we would finally understand the staggering impact of intellectual poverty.”

It’s time that EQAO surveyed parents on tutoring.  What they may find is that affluent kids aren’t smarter at math, but that their parents can pay for tutoring.  It’s the elephant in the room.

“Our ineptitude at teaching math has knee-capped students who can’t afford tutoring.”  As I was reading Tom’s post, to which is a good describing the fallout when math is taught poorly or does not provide and meet the needs for all students - I was thinking about the inherently unfair inequalities that are produced in the K to 12 education system…....its very culture are promoting and educating to the social-income classes of the students. Then I read the comments, and the John Mighton’s article - “To progress as a society, we must recognize that there is such a thing as intellectual poverty.”

Never heard of the term until today, so a little search was done. But before I do that - what stuck me are the differences of opinions within the cultural framework. Mighton writes - “Teachers must be allowed to innovate and test new methods and they shouldn’t be required to use programs that aren’t based on rigorous research. I have seen again and again that teachers are eager to try new methods if given the chance, and that this can improve their own knowledge of math without costly and time-consuming retraining (not that that shouldn’t be part of the solution, too.)”

Within the cultural framework of the K to 12 education system, embedded and very much part of the landscape, its all about locking the access doors to the knowledge gates based on the cultural beliefs and values within the 19th century matrix. The hiring of tutors by parents is simply a reaction to forces within the education system who are insisting on locks to the knowledge gates.  I never could point to a term that I could described until today, when I read intellectual poverty. It is a relatively new term, and often associated with intellectual property discussion. There is no clear definition but many based within the cultural frameworks and belief systems. So what one sees as intellectual poverty at work, another will see none.

In one paper - Fighting intellectual poverty
(Who owns and controls the information societies?)
http://fsfe.org/campaigns/wsis/issues.en.html

What about education?  It is just beginning to be discussed and there is research and papers.  Glad to see it, because in the course of delivering education, the public education system begins to denied access to the gates of knowledge starting in grade one. The first victims are the students with the early learning struggles in reading, writing and math. It represent 1/3 of the student population, crossing all incomes. The one third represents the victims of curriculum/instruction practices and administrative practices that aids and abets to keep people from accessing the knowledge/information gates. Very hard to access the knowledge/information gates when one has low skills in reading, writing and numeracy.

It starts with the curriculum and instructional practices - intellectual poverty comes in many forms, shades and hues. The public education system is a good place to start in, because in my opinion the 21st century public education did everything possible to stopped my child from going beyond a 60 average. I had no choice but to tutored my child, in the after-school home schooling I was operating at my home. Intellectual poverty was imposed upon my child due to the beliefs and education practices of the public education system. Simply put, my child was written off as having no academic merit, and therefore not worth the effort.

As I stated before, I found little under the education umbrella but it is just beginning to be discussed in the education circles.  A rather large PDF file - could be seen as a reference tool, under the title - EDUCATION
AND POVERTY
THEORY, RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRAXIS.
http://education.msu.edu/resources/faculty-staff/AERA-Program-2013.pdf

I plugged the words intellectual poverty and it comes up 12 times.  The introduction reads, “We conceive of poverty broadly. Poverty exists not only through the lack of material goods; an intellectual poverty can also pervade educational organizations and society. In
The Idea of a University, over 150 years ago, John Henry Newman wrote, “Knowledge is something more than a passive reception of scraps and details.” Newman called for intellectuals to be in intense engagement with one another, with students, and with society so that we might better understand the flaws of one another’s argument. Through this engagement Newman believed that a better world might be created. To that end, we are particularly interested in designing a conference where individuals do not cordon themselves off from those with whom they disagree, and instead hope to create conditions for difficult dialogues.”

Next stop for me - John Henry Newman. The K to 12 education system of the 21st century and how the forces to be institutionalized intellectual poverty in the education systems of the 21st century.

My experience mirrors what Doretta is saying.
I’ve been looking into this as a personal project during past five years trying to find out a bit more about my son’s classmates that had consistently good results.
Each and every student who can read, understand and write well and can do math well by high school has behind him a tutor, a parent who has solid education, who can commit the time and who is self-assured enough to ignore the fluff that passes for instruction in school or a grandparent!.
Also, quite a few of the students that are very good in grade 7, 8 or high school have come to Canada after having studied in a different country - China, Korea, India - are first to come to mind -.
Because for these kids the basics are automatic, because they have solid work habits and because the parents don’t believe that learning can happen without consistent work a lot of these immigrant kids do very well despite the handicap of having to switch to a different language.
There are quite a few high schools in GTA, known for their good results where more than half of the student population is as above. For example Richmond Hill, Earl Haig, Zion Heights, A.Y.Jackson.

I am willing to bet that any student who is decent in math in high school has had help of some kind. And not just a few weeks one year. I’m talking about years and years of at least weekly sessions.
The reason is that it is simply impossible for anybody - let alone a child or a young adult - to understand based on the math textbooks and teaching used in schools.
Parents don’t openly talk about this. Some hide because they don’t want to be perceived as elitist. Others because they have learned the hard way that they would be condemned as “pushing” the kid and others because they don’t want to create problems for the kid. It’s one thing to be naturally good at something it’s quite different if you admit you work at it because your parents make you do it.

Our current culture is also anti-math and also in general anti hard work and repetition.

What do I mean by that?
Well, to start with it is perfectly socially acceptable to say “I’m just not good in math.” a lot of time followed by “I’m into more creative stuff.”

Moreover there is this myth that if you have to work hard at learning something then it’s not your natural inclination and therefore you should give up and follow something that comes to you more easily.
Also, working hard is geeky and shows that you are not creative.
Well, I’m an engineer, I am good at math and I like it but dang’ I also had to work for it. I have never ever met anybody who is good at math and who hasn’t had to work for it.

Why do a lot of parents who religiously get their kids to 3 hockey practices every week year after year after year and try hard to get their kids in the programmes with good coaches think that math (or writing well) can come naturally without practice and without good teaching?
They try very hard to get their kids to be in the highest skill level group that they can qualify for with the best coaches that are close enough and they can afford however in math the coach and the group don’t matter?!

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for sports. I’m just dumfounded by the reasoning.

A lot of parents actually believe in system the way it is and they want it. It feels good that all you have to do is praise your child.
There’s no return from that once the child is in grade 5-6. Even then is late, very late. If you do become aware that something may be not quite right, how do you get the correct information on how to fix it, how can you find the resources for such a big commitment, and how do you work with a child that has bad learning habits?
Most likely you, the parent are going to quash your questions, hope for the best and tell yourself it was just not meant to be, your child simply didn’t have enough natural ability.
How sad is that? How utterly, painfully sad is that?

Most psychologists will tell you that there are differences in ability but they are a lot less significant in school success than most people think. We tend to think of bright, weak and average as 3 catagories therefore they are 1/3 each. Psychologists will point to the bell curve and say, actually about 5% of us seem born brighter than the rest and 5% duller than the rest but 90% of us are profoundly average. Almost all of the average group have the intellectual firepower to finish HS and attend university or college. The rest is accounted for by opportunity and motivation.

Also, although it is unlikely a very weak IQ person can become a brilliant mathmatician, IQ is also not fixed and people who apply themselves and have good instruction can “move up the intelligence scale” over time.

Stanford Binet IQ tests were given to arriving immigrants at Ellis Island during the great turn of the 20th Century wave. The conclusion, since many were peasant families was that “Eastern and southern Europeans were too dull and unsuitable to make much contribution to American life” clearly history tells us the tests had been measuring opportunity not intelligence.

Schools matter because they CAN take the inate factors and maximize them or minimize them depending on whether they do a good jobs or not.

Yes there is still the odd autodidactic around but almost all highly educated people went to school.

The recent PISA results clearly show that emerging nations like Brazil, Turkey, Mexico and so on can move up as they become richer. They can pay for longer schooling, better teachers, better teacher training, and so on.