Stupid education fad of the day: “Mayan Math”
Longtime readers of this blog are familiar with my critiques of Fuzzy Math, New Math, New New Math, Everyday Math, Chicago Math, and every other social justice-tainted effort by educrats to corrupt and undermine rigorous math education in this country.
Today’s stupid education fad of the day?
“Mayan Math.” I kid you not:
Math has moved beyond numbers and formulas at Mesa School in Somis.
A group of sixth- and seventh-graders still crack open their textbooks and practice regular math skills most days. But once a week, they turn their math attention to history, culture and places far from Somis.
Teacher Jill Brody’s class started learning about Mayan math in September, part of the school’s efforts to incorporate “ethno-mathematics” into some of its classes.
Ethno-mathematics links math with culture. Some educators say it can help kids feel more connected to the subject and better understand the why and how behind the skills they learn in school.
“Math is not usually treated as a subject with a cultural context,” said Faviana Hirsch-Dubin, a former elementary school teacher and lecturer at UC Santa Barbara who is working with Mesa on the special math lessons. “Being able to feel some cultural connection to math or other subjects can enable students to feel more ownership of the subject matter.”
This is creepily similar to the idiotic “lattice multiplication” lessons in Everyday Math that justify using incoherent, inefficient methods of multiplying because that’s the way the ancient Egyptians did it.
Once again, the educrats heap scorn on drill-and-kill, traditional rote methods because they’re too “narrow” and boring. God forbid we teach our children to compute without developing a social conscience first!
Ethno-mathematics is not the norm in public schools, said Hank Kepner, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, but it can be a powerful tool for getting kids motivated and engaged in math.
“It can help kids feel that they’re part of the mathematics world,” Kepner said. They learn where various math skills came from historically and the many different ways people have looked at math. “It’s sort of a motivation for kids to make sense of mathematics.”
In many schools, there’s too much emphasis on testing, Kepner said. Getting the right answer is important, but that’s too narrow. “Math isn’t just rote answers without understanding,” he said.
Perfect dogma in the Age of Obama: Feeling over facts. Cultural connection over competence. Diversity uber alles.
Johnny won’t be able to add. But he’ll be more ethno-mathematically correct than students from around the world.
Welcome to the Post-Accomplishment Generation.
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It’s the Communist way…
More Hoax and Chains.
It’s all good, Mayan Math says it’s all over in 2012 anyway! What a toolbag!
The dumbing down of America in the name of diversity and multiculturalism.
…And people wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us sometimes.
MM wrote:
Yup.
and we wonder why, on average, Asian and Indian children beat our butts at math.
I cant wait for Gay Math! Substitute teaching: Cindy and Meghan McCain!
=]
God, am I glad my son will be out of public school in 4 months!
I’m all for teaching based on cultural wisdom; for example: Fifties Father-Knows-Best Wisdom.
Under FFKB Wisdom, there’s nothing these idiots are doing that a punch to the nose and a swift kick to their asses won’t fix.
Who gives a crap if a student feels (there’s that hanky twisting word again!) ownership of a subject?! Did they learn anything! Bring back Sister Mary Elephant! She’ll learn something!
oops, She’ll learn you something!
Back in 1965, Tom Lehrer, a humorist/ musician, composed a song called “New Math”. It seems appropriate given the title of this post.
You can’t take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that’s really four tens,
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add them to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that’s nine.
Is that clear?
Now instead of four in the tens place
You’ve got three,
‘Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can’t take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.
From the three you then use one
To make ten ones…
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
‘Cause addition is commutative, right.)
And so you have thirteen tens,
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five…
Well, six actually.
But the idea is the important thing.
Now go back to the hundreds place,
And you’re left with two.
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves…?
Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won’t do you a bit of good to review math.
It’s so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Now that actually is not the answer that I had in mind, because the book that I
got this problem out of wants you to do it in base eight. But don’t panic. Base
eight is just like base ten really – if you’re missing two fingers. Shall we
have a go at it? Hang on.
You can’t take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that’s really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
And you add them to the two,
and you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that’s seven. Ok?
Now instead of four in the eights place
You’ve got three,
‘Cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you can’t take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours.
“Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into it?” I hear you cry.
Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don’t you see?
(Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.)
From the three you then use one
To make eight ones,
And you add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four.
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
And you’re left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves…?
Now, let’s not always see the same hands.
One, that’s right!
Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won’t do you a bit of good to review math.
It’s so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Come back tomorrow night. We’re gonna do fractions.
I just learned of a curious social phenomona called the “millenial child.” As told to me, the millenial child has had it so easy their entire life, that when faced with any element of adversity, they just don’t rise to the challenge, no matter how miniscule. Anyone else know of this? It seems that mayan math is an extension of the feely-good disappontments that have entered adulthood in our once vital & powerful nation.
The “fresh idiocy” of the month.
They have to keep them stupid. They’re potential future Democrat voters, after all.
Sure being a Mayan mathematician is good but just call someone an Indian giver and people jump all over you!
Does Teacher Jill Brody realize that Mayan Math is based on how many virgins were sacrificed to the sun god on average per day?
It doesn’t matter if they learn it.
What matters is that they feel more ownership of it.
(Frankly, I didn’t know students felt any ownership of it.)
“Mayan”, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Mayan an ancient civilization that no longer exists? So why on earth would we want to study their math? Sounds like a bad omen to me.
And now those children of the ‘new math’ all work at the IRS developing the cost and tax tables and directions to fill out the estimating forms.
Maybe they meant Spanish Conquistador math.
Higher-level thinking? They are an extinct race. G_d save us from higher-level thinking.
Want to know what Mayan “math” is? Tying knots in a string. Brilliant! My cat does Mayan math.
Please fire these people. They should not be teaching children.
Where, exactly, is the evidence that these students are not gaining competence in the subject?
There are plenty of studies showing that supplementing regular math instruction with ethnomathematics increases understanding of more complex conceptual issues.
For example, the Mayans used a base 20 system. How many people even think about the fact that our base 10 is not the only one out there? Well…anyone that wants to get into science, math or computer technology better know the base-2 binary system. Think about how many times you encounter a base-12 dozenal counting system. Every time you look at a clock, for starters.
The nice thing about “Mayan Math” in that every problem leads to the same final answer: 2012.
But the Multi-Culti immersion-fest won’t be complete until Dick & Jane learn how to multiply and divide with Roman Numerals.
If 3 Mayans take a train leaving Izamal at 4 suns past the horizon, what time do they arrive at Uxmal if the train is being pushed by 36 slaves?
I like the pic of the Census Worker Badge on the right of the article…. they will certainly use Mayan Math to compute a fictional number of citizens (who will probably vote Democrap), all in favor of The “0 minus 1″ (The Negative One), our prez.
Next year – learning how to use Roman numerals to solve quadratic equations. Not very useful for an actual paying job, but the cultural sensitivity gains will be phenomenal.
The current crop of public school graduates will be unqualified to operate McDonald’s cash registers. Maybe they can hold a broom.
Pig Latin may be next.
Does anyone realize besides me that all the people who invented/designed the first computers and calculators – didn’t have them as a crutch in grade school?
Learning to push buttons isn’t learning ‘math’. My cure is to go back to the math textbooks/teaching of the 50′s and 60′s because it worked really well. Nothing in the math taught at grade school level, (geometry, algebra, trigonometry or introductory calculus) has changed since then…or since the time of Isaac Newton for that matter.
(And yes – even make them learn to interpolate trig function table values so at least they’ll better appreciate what a calculator does.)
BTW, does anyone still remember how to calculate a square root by hand?
The end of the Mayan calendar falls on December 21, 2012. Does that mean we can stop using Mayan Math then, or stop using it now?
here is the culture of math that I need to know. Roman numerals were not as good as Arabic. And many of the folks that brought you the Arabic numbers would prefer to cut off your head if they get the chance. Can you add that up?
““It can help kids feel that they’re part of the mathematics world,” “
Maybe if they are Mayans, it might. How many of them are out there? As a Caucasian I would like Vlad the Impaler Math to be taught. You get the answer right or you get the stick. Very motivating.
Pretty tough to do – no zeros or decimal points.
Can I use Mayan math when I pay my taxes? And ebonics when I sign the check?
All kidding aside, the only cultural math I’d like to learn is how to use an abacus. I am fascinated at people that can work those things – and they are very accurate.
Reminds me back in ’62 when some of us that were good at math, were placed in “New Math”. No textbooks yet, and little homework. By the end of the first month, we couldn’t understand a thing. So, whenever Mrs. Beck turned to the blackboard, the four of us, in back, passed little chessboards, back and forth. Needless to say, it didn’t work out.
darn you beat me to it! yep…what a great album that was…I tracked him down and got him to sign it…what a great guy…and I still get a good laugh out of it…
Why are they teaching Mayan math? The Mayans didn’t speak Spanish!
“….for English, press 1; for Spanish, please press 2; for Mayan, please press 3………“
Chap asks a decent question, but I would say there is plenty of evidence that we are not teaching the basic math skills adequately. I hardly doubt Johnny is going to grasp binary and dozenal counting systems until he gets the basics down pat. Then again, this is a MESA school so it is probably Juan, and Juan was probably pretty smart to begin with since he was in the program. So maybe the objection here is not alternative math learning, but learning that requires one to be of a certain ethnic persuasion before one can be admitted. I know the program is billed as “disadvantaged and underrepresented students” but I knew plenty of rich minority kids that got in the program.
Abbott and Costello had the new math first.
Same here, except that I also learned to be an altar boy for Sunday Mass in Latin, and then had to learn it all over again in English.
I like the Ma and Pa Kettle math.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfq5kju627c
Hangfire, that I can understand. I went to France, afterwards, and learned to speak French. When I came back, after 3 years, I spoke French to people for the first month, confusing them. It’s interesting how impressionable kids are. By the way, I remember it was ’62, because, in ’63, we got placed in basic math. It was math class that we learned that JFK was shot.
True. But that is not the question. The question is whether this hinders or helps us improve upon that poor performance.
I’ve got your Mayan math right here.
500 warrior decapitations plus 200 hurling virgins from a precipice plus 60 throwing ball game winners into a limestone sinkhole equals one good growing season.
it makes perfect sense to me! the techer doesn’t know crap about math, having mastered gozindas in college, so let’s all pretend we’re in 14th century south american villages and counting sacrificial virgins. LORD IF WE DON’T GET CONTROL OF OUR SCHOOLS WE WILL HAVE TO IMPORT FROM THE WORLD ALL OUR SCIENTISTS, MATHEMETICIANS, DOCTORS, ENGINEERS, AND WORKERS OF ANY INTELLECT.
On January 25th, 2010 at 4:54 pm, Hangfire said:
Whew! I was worried there for a while that “ethno-mathematics” wouldn’t have a place for those of us descended from illiterate Appalachian rubes who still cling to our guns and religion.
My husband was a straight A student in Math … until they switched to New Math. Then he started failing.
Where is the evidence that they are?
I hate to say it, but this is more evidence that, rather than being some low budget Hollywood waste of time movie, the movie “IDOCRACY” was actually a self fulfilling prophecy?
Why can’t we teach them the same mathematics that Einstein learned in school? Like 2+2=4, E=MC2, you know logical math?
Check you public schools. Find out the qualifications of the math teachers. Chances are they took some remediation and actually majored in music, history or english, not math and not science.
The public school system is a con job.
Sino-mathematics: “We have all your money.”
I know they’re not teaching binary system.
Although computers use binary, it only uses the 1′s and 0′s, which ignores the Diversity of other integers.
LMAO!!! Wait, they’re serious? Look you dimwits, that is what I like about mathematics. There is NO GRAY area in Jr. High. You are either right or wrong. Period. Geez, soft courses, like Social Studies, lend themselves to manipulation and interpretation by the multicultural morons. BUT NOT MATH. Why even bother anymore. Reward effort, not accruacy. Liberal idiots.
That would be 2500 hours on February 30th. Per my Mayan Math…
Considering that the poor performance came about after we gave up plain vanilla math instruction – perhaps going back to what we used to would help. Or we could copy what the Indian, German and Chinese school systems do.
For true ethno-mathematics, we can enroll our kids in on-line math tutoring taught by someone in India.
Accuracy DOES matter!
Accuracy allows the use of smaller warheads.
It depends on what base you’re using. Now schools usually use base “10″; however, if you used any other base, you would come up with a different answer.
Just kidding….
This is complete foolishness and indeed dumbing down of a logical discipline.
Home school your children if you want them to learn anything!
Erra as long as it taught in Ebonics, I’m all for it. How many greeters does wal-mart really need anyway??!! Its all over in 2012 anyway . . . .
Because it is more important to the teachers to promate their personal hatred of western civilization, than it is to effectively teach mathematics.
Step away from the bong…
Don’t they have drug-testing policies for teachers?
Just asking…
Usually it is good form for the person arguing against something to show why it is bad.
New math isn’t new. Back in 1962 our seventh grade math class was introduced to algebra in base 2. It was such a success that our guidance counselor suggested we attend summer school so we would be prepared for 8th grade math.
Ummm-Didn’t the Egyptians also use slave labor to build the pyramids that they used “fuzzy math” to design?!? Are these nutbags advocating the return of slavery as well??
I have to agree with Chapoutier on this one; Anything that improves our dismal test scores is okay by me. Of course we were world leaders with the 1950′s text books so if it was not broken, why fix it?
Hangfire, actually any number can be representative of a one or zero depending on the application. For instance, I worked on a system for the USMC that used -4.8 volts as zero and 0 volts (or ground) as a one. It allowed for forward biasing of the old can transistors to make things run. When you have a -4.8 volt input, it opens the transistor coupling the output to ground, or zero, acting as a flip-flop switch. /
We know today, contrary to the movie “Ten Commandments”, that they didn’t use slave labor. According to the findings around the pyramids, they used skilled labor, and treated them well.
Don’t even ask me about hexadecimal coded binary…….
Reminds me of a geek joke: There are 10 types of people who understand binary math; Those who do and those who don’t.
This is how liberals can get away with telling kids big government legislation like health care will be “deficit neutral” – they make children totally math deficient so they can’t add 2+2.
Catholic school math worked ok for me.
Mayan Math will stop working in 2012.
I saw it on The History Channel.
That’s what I thought.
To be clear, I am not saying it is working. Only that I would like to shown that it is not.
Jarheads have electricity?
Good. Because that is the correct answer. You think their method is kooky? Okay. Show me. I am not the one here passing judgment on it. I just want to know MM’s basis.
Back in the day I was taught logic and counting circuits that used astable and bistable multivibrators, built with actual transistors and capacitors!
We had some circuits that didn’t even have vacuum tubes. Magnetic amplifiers!!
Much less prone to battle damage from shock, and resistant to EMP.
Counter-culture numb skulls masquerading as teachers! (to quote Allahpundit) “What could go wrong”!
I don’t care whether students are learning Mayan math or not. There are more important subjects being poorly taught or not taught at all deserve our attention. Here in CA, high school grads are so deficient in basic math and english that they have to go to remedial classes in our community colleges before they can be accepted at regular colleges.
We used to call such students janitors and chimney sweeps.
It reminds me of the Joke: Johnny transferred into Catholic school from the local public school because he was getting poor grades. After about three weeks of his mother watching him come home and feverishly attending to his homework, and getting straight A’s on his assignments, his mother asked him how the turn around had taken place?
Johnny replied: The first day I got there, I saw what they did to that guy up on the wall, and I figured they meant business.
The answer is it hinders because it’s wasting 1/5th of their time in math. There are more than enough topics in math that are relevant to today’s technology and science to completely fill any child’s math course work. In fact, enough for two periods a day. Time spent on irrelevant side subjects is time wasted.
If it’s deemed that elementary school children need to spend more time on math they need to spend it on calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, La Place transforms plus a few other odds and ends that will actually help those students preparing for advanced degrees in science and technology.
Covering some amount of the history of mathematics in various cultures, in my humble opinion, warrants little more than a brief discussion and at most a short homework project. The lesson being learned that…. “yeah, they tried this…. it wasn’t useful then, or it’s no longer useful. So we moved on to method with practical applications.”
Ho (Objective Hypothesis):
Mayan-couched math teaching produces equal or higher math understanding (test scores?)
Ha (Alternate Hypothesis): There is no significant difference between Mayan-couched math teaching and existing methods (testscores?)
Looks to me like the critical thing of importance is to prove or support the existence of something, not the absence of it.
It’s not if their test scores rise.
I am sure she would be fine with that as long as it was not a gay or lesbian virgin being sacrificed and the God in question is not the Christian God, as long as those two critera are met no problems.
Seriously though, I would rather see them show the kids practical applications for the math they learn. I know I had a tough time with algebra until my shop teacher taught us how to use it in carpentry then it all made sense.
Oh that’s easy! Go to a McDonald’s (you do go to McDonald’s don’t you?) Be sure to order the “Royale Du Fromage”. When it rings up $3.78, hand over $4.03. Guaranteed to dim the lights in the building!
Surely, followed up with query, once they hand you back two dimes and, oddly, a ten dollar bill: “So…did you have exposure to ethnomathematics?”
Never heard of a battery-operated grunt?
And there’s the rub….It depends upon what is on the test. Does the teaching of the Mayan Math, allow them to perform our modern mathematics with more accuracy, understanding and efficiency? or does it simply allow them to say “Well here’s a neat trick?”
BTW, 01/11/10 was a palindrome day.
Cultural math for us lefties, Michelle.
I always wondered what was in the backrooms of adult bookstores!
Chapoutier, I understand your point- and I think we are on the same page when I say IF it improves test scores, it is worthwhile. The knee-jerk reaction to new processes is what I am lamenting.
Mr. Kepner went on to say, “It is clear that Mayan Math” is the key to the longevity and success of the Mayan Culture. Their keen grasp of mathematics explains why they rose to the pinnacle of success, albeit briefly before either destroying themselves or simply giving up on everything and fading into obscurity.”
Mr. Kepner further elaborated, “I’d love to be teaching Latin for the same reasons but of course, except that Latin is a language of dead, white Europeans and that would not be politically correct like teaching math from a dead, non-white aboriginal people from Central America. But we are looking into teaching ancient Quechua or French since, while not quite yet dead, French is certainly heading toward oblivion with great rapidly…”
Also in the backrooms is a guy that couldn’t learn Mayan math, and now cleans the booths, replaces the Kleenex, and empties the wastecans.
Seems to me that we’ve had over forty years of implementing new processes. Nothing knee-jerk reactionary about it. Please point to the evidence that the average youth of today has a better grasp of mathmatics than the youth forty years prior.
Oddly enough, I was introduced to different numeric systems during elementary school in the late 60s without any need to discuss the Mayans or the Babylonians, Celts, Romans or Sumerians.
I still remember doing arithmetic in base 2, base 8 and base 12 in elementary school. I don’t remember doing base 16 back then but it certainly came naturally to me since it was part of the curriculum even way back then.
Of course, we chiseled our answers on stone tablets with dinosaur bones…
We are also educating, and testing, far more students than we were 40 years ago. At my school they used to have A track and B track. Basically, A meant you took the more difficult Regents exams and B…well B basically meant you were going to end up working on a dairy farm. The year I started 8th grade, they eliminated the tracks and basically taught and tested all the kids under the same standard.
The curriculum was the same but, as I am sure you can guess, scores were significantly lower than when the school was more or less self selecting the smarter kids to take it.
Our one-room school houses educated a generation that put men on the moon. I can’t for the life of me see what learning Mayan math would have contributed that would have improved their achievements. Just because something is interesting doesn’t make it valuable.
And this will hep in the real world how?
Well, the only math I care about right now is 7:00 minus 6:55 equals 5 minutes (or V in Roman or __ in Mayan) till Georgetown v. Syracuse.
Sporting interest or just looking to stock up on injury/liability lawsuits?
Mayan Math? Oh boy I can’t wait to see the word problems.
“A Priest on top of the temple notices a comet in the Southeast at an angle of 17.5 degrees above the horizon. The comet is sinking at a rate of .75 degrees each night. Also, the goat constellation is below the horizon”
How many human sacrifices are needed to placate the gods and prevent the comet striking the temple?”