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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Dozenal? Is that even a word? Since “dozenal” supposedly replaces “duodecimal”, what replaces “hexadecimal”? Sixteenal, perhaps??
As for ethnomathematics, it’s another way for students to specialize in trivia. Unless we want future generations to spend the rest of their lives in the Cash Cab, it won’t help any of them make a living.
Oh, wait a second. Ethnomathematics is relevant after all. The next time the Democrats give us less of a tax increase, I’ll understand why they’re calling it a tax cut. It’s because of their culture.
Makes me glad we decided to homeschool.
BTW, “Arabic” numerals were invented in India, just popularised by the Arabs. Also, we can’t teach Roman numerals because the Romans were whitey.
The reason our schools are moving away from “traditional math” is because it’s terribly inefficient. Why spend time memorizing multiplication tables when kids have super computers in their cell phones?
Kids’ time is much better spent learning higher end mathematical concepts. Learning about a base 20 system (like that used by the Mayas) would seem to further this goal.
I guess I was wrong in thinking that Americans value innovation.
What a load of hooey. I doubt they are learning “Mayan Math” in China or India.
This is how you train democrat voters. The horrendous govt education system is poor by design, and it sucks billions of dollars down at the same time.
The proponent of change should be capable of offering evidence that the change will be effective.
But I have a feeling that they don’t care about being effective. They just care about trying to make students “feel” good.
Good idea. Let’s study the mathematics of two extinct civilizations. Huh?
Ever wonder why the meteric system is established on base 10 notation? Students do learn two alternate systems, base 8 (octal) and base 16 (hexidecimal).
bluesoc, I will let you ponder why.
Idiots! They missed their chance to give you a useful life on the farm.
You had me at”Faviana Hirs-Dubin”. How could she NOT teach something as amazingly fuzzy as “ethnocentric math”? Although I wouldn’t have expected that there were so many Mayan student around these days…
My daughter always struggled in math. Only in her junior year of high school was she finally ‘motivated’. What motivated her? A good teacher who taught and explained math.
She MAY be able for a college-level algebra class next year.
What a waste of a lot of years of struggle. She should have been where she is now in 7th or 8th grade.
And they wonder why CSAP math scores are so low…
How can teaching something dated from a thousand years ago even remotely be considered ‘innovation’???
I am open to using different approaches – but limited only to current subject matter.
Many things worth learning often take painstaking effort (and much time) to learn or master. Plus, the [presumed] systemic inefficiency may lie as much in the deficiencies of the teacher him/her self, than with the particular methodology employed.
On the issue of students learning the ‘low-level details’ vs. interpreting higher level outputs to calculators, software programs, etc. …
I recently had a conversation with a family member very similar to this exact question. We were discussing some models and approaches used in her field. She explained that she just ‘plugged the data in, pushed the “calculate” button, and then looked at the results’ – paraphrased, but that’s the general idea. I asked: ‘What happens when you put in data that causes the program to fail or to produce garbage results?’ Her answer: ‘uh, I dunno.’
In this case, avoiding the generation of ‘garbage output’ would be easy to do — *if* a person had a good understanding of the low-level matrix operations which are used to derive those ‘final results’. Not all software applications are sufficiently well tested and robust to inform the humble user if/when input data is ill-structured or is likely to produce incoherent output.
Bottom line: if a person only knows how to interpret ‘the output’ what does that person do when ‘the output’ makes no sense?
chap, you argue like a lawyer – oh, that’s right. You are a lawyer.
Never mind.
Uh, become a huckster, form a company and start selling carbon credits?
Whadda I win?
Basic math is necessary to be able to function in this world today. However, courses like algebra, geometry and trig. aren’t really going to be used by average people in their daily lives. That doesn’t mean that such courses shouldn’t be taught. On the contrary, such courses teach abstract thought. They teach the student to think outside the “concrete” world, which is necessary in life. Maya math, though interesting, should be left to advance math in college or, perhaps, as part of an master’s degree or doctorate; not for schoolchildren.
And folks wonder why my wife and I are educating our children at home. Two recommended reads on this topic:
1. “The Original Home Schooling Series” by Charlotte Mason (written in the late 1880s).
2. “Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality through Education” by B.K. Eakman.
Remember, as the “progressive” John Dewey said: “Literacy is the greatest obstacle to socialism.”
These kids will be 20% more stoopid (intentionally misspelled) than the average American student, who isn’t fairing too well these days.
As someone who home-schooled back when the first question people asked was ‘Is that legal?’, I never wonder why someone else chooses to teach their precious offspring at home.
Kudos to you and your wife.
Literacy is also the cure for ignorance – if one is willing to make use of the ability to read. That’s where we as parents have to lead by example – Do as I do…. The best lesson we can give our kids is to admit when we don’t have the all the answers, and then, to go find the answers together. I’ve learned – and re-learned – a lot that way.
You know, just yesterday I saw a job ad looking for someone fluent in base 20 math. I felt so inadequate only having learned decimal, binary, quartic, octal and hexadecimal.
Regarding “new math” – note that there is actually a very sinister aspect to it.
Consider my own life example of where “new math” gets you.
Both my wife and I completed engineering degrees in college, I’ve completed a masters. The fact is, we are both very good in math.
We take the time to stay involved with our kids’ education….and readers of this blog can certainly let all their own personal reasons for staying connected with their kids school work come to mind; my reasons are – I want my kids to excel – I want them to appreciate how hard I’ve worked to attain my success, and how important it is to us for our kids to work hard to learn.
But there’s a problem.
When the content that is being taught – is completely disconnected, completely unlike anything I understood or learned in my MANY years of math through college and grad school – that is taught in such a strange way that it is completely foreign to me – what does that do?
What does that do to the connection I look for, the connection I want to make with my child, in learning? The connection that would be there but for a deliberate change to years of tradition?
It basically breaks it.
It make the kids completely reliant on the public education system, and forces me out of the picture (unless they expect parents to relearn what has been completely successful method in teaching all of the adults who have created all of the good things in this world….)
We see it in other subjects as well (social studies, recently).
Who devises these new ways of teaching the same subjects?
I’m really starting to understand the homeschooling movement.
The Chinese and Indians must think we are insane for what we are doing to our education system.
I heard the Mayan math class will end in 2012
God forbid that power should fail, the kid should forget his phone, calculator, etc. If the child can’t do simple math calculations in his head (call it memorization if you must), the child won’t be able to handle any situation when his toys aren’t available. You have a problem with self-sufficiency?
ECS
Innovation for innovation’s sake is wasting time. If innovation makes learning faster and more efficient, it is valuable. Teaching children “Mayan math” doesn’t help them handle ordinary math problems because NO ONE USES MAYAN MATH!
Geez.
ECS
I could work it out if I had to. We were doing cube roots by hand in 7th grade. Shortly after that we were introduced to slide rules.
Of course, my introduction to computers was as a keypunch operator for a work-study job in my junior year in college. I learned Fortran, Fortran A and Cobol back in the day. Battlestar Galactica tickled me every time they intoned something about the Lords of Cobol. I knew those guys!
ECS
And people wonder why we not only aren’t producing more engineers or mathematicians but the underlying reasons why our kids lack math skills and come out of school (and college) stupider than when they came in.
It’s saddening how low educators have stooped to communicate how little expectations they have in kids and their abilities and the methodologies they put up to avoid actuallly teaching the material.
It really boggles the mind.
Isn’t it the Mayan’s whose callendar is running out in 2012? Will this be a stumping point for Obama to run on to roll back the ‘end of the world’?
Or does Mayan math use an abacus…which we may have to use if Obama outlaws electricity and toxic batteries
that’s the liberal way…their magic word to cover all aspects of life a person may face…”feel”. Don’t “think” it though, “feel” it. That way you don’t have to be right, or correct as long as you feel good about the end.
I heard Odopo say America is going to become the wind mill and battery manufacturing capitol of the world…green jobs ya know. Guess you don’t need solid math to make either of those.
What is your evidence that it’s “terribly inefficient” to teach “traditional math?” It is unfortunate that you think it’s “inconvenient” to memorize multiplication tables but it needs to be done if children are to master later skills like, say, algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. Having super computers on their cell phones is a crutch and a cheat and, I’m sorry, as a former teacher, it irks me that an adult thinks that using “cheats” makes kids more “efficient” or even somewhat smarter. Are you even a teacher?
Ummm…. hate to break it to you, but the reason that education is “terribly inefficient” is that public schools use outmoded models like the Mayan numeric system. They are a dead culture. Yes, we can learn from them but must we base our mathematics teaching, education, and learning on their interpretation of math? As a former social studies teacher, I find this dubious. It’s like saying that just learning European history will give our kids all they need to know about American history.
Do you live in a backwards universe? It’s attitudes like yours that allow our pooor excuse for an education system to thrive while we’re eating the Chinese and other countries’ dust in the educational ratings. Yeah, let’s do Mayan math…. let’s just skip all that foundational stuff. Our kids are stupid anyway…. it’s just better to skip a couple of steps instead.
Your insights astound me.
self-edit…. pooor should be poor…. I really wanted to draw out that word.
Why handicap our children with worse than useless backward lessons in ethnic separatism?
The ancient Egyptians didn’t use lattice multiplication. Multiplication only makes sense as an algorithm with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system invented in the 9th century.
ethnocentric math: for teachers who never learned the multiplication tables.
If you use Mayan Math + Speak Ebonics how many years until you get parole for stealing those cell phones?
No, Chappy is not suited for life on the farm. It appears no domesticated livestock would willingly mate with him and, like all good liberals, he consumed more than he produced. So the only choice left was to make him go to law school…
251.3…duh
…and, NO, I’m *not* going to show my work.
***
First learn the basic math needed for everyday use–base 10–with an explanation of what the number really means in powers of 10. And all the algebra and trig also–basic high school math.
***
Then learn the binary system–base 2–in introduction to computers. And it’s octal / hexadecimal cousins. Thinking in binary is really necessary for scientific and engineering people who do real “nuts and bolts” hardware, programming, and data analysis tasks.
***
I seem to remember from a MSEE course at NMSU long ago that we learned the Mayan (base 20?) system as an example of how all rational number systems have the same basic properties.
***
Then watch the PREDATOR movies when the expiring alien starts the “doomsday watch” nuke countdown and the display flashes a realistic new number system. Watch what happens when it gets to their zero symbol!
***
John Bibb
***
OK, Kepner you ride in the plane that was designed by the kid who studied Mayan Math or whatever.
Not me. I’ll take the bus that was designed by the kid who can figure out the value of X and Y where 2X + 3Y = 26.
Whadda putz!
“When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.”
-Paul Simon. The singer/songwriter, not the senator.
On the general question that our math education (and other subjects as well) is screwed, I agree completely. But I do have a couple of disagreements.
Lattice multiplication is no less coherent than the carry/shift method a lot of us were taught. In fact, if you look at both of them closely, there’s a lot of similarity. And the lattice method does make carrying a bit easier.
I think kids should be taught one method well so they don’t get confused. Only then, if you insist, show them another method.
baldolf #133 said,
Right. According to web sources, lattice multiplication was introduced in 1202 by Fibonacci.
chapoutier #73 said,
Nope. To be clear, here’s the way it works: group x wants to use it, GROUP X MUST show that it works better than what we have. Otherwise it’s a waste and we should be doing something that DOES work better or leaving things alone.
I suppose they have a lot of Mayan students in Ventura county./sarc.
Note that nothing is actually said about the curriculum being criticized. It is sketchily presented, and then supposition quickly takes over. Pretty typical smear tactic around here, where little of actual weight is ever seen.
If I were teaching a math course, I would love to take one class period per week to discuss wide-ranging topics concerned with math, but outside the “normal” curriculum in order to enhance what was being taught. An examination of Mayan, Babylonian and even older European counting systems, for example, provide a real-world backdrop to the otherwise abstract and esoteric topic of number bases. The mathematics behind the Mayan calendrical system could, by itself, form the topic for a complete course, and certainly holds lessons at a less formal level for those dealing with representation of large numbers and modular arithmetic. And, as hard as it may be to believe for some here, there are not only historical, but mathematical reasons why grouping things by dozens is practical, as is dividing the hour and minute into 60 parts, or the arc of a circle into 360, or the span between freezing and boiling points of water into 180 that have their roots in Babylonian mathematics.
Without any actual presentation of the curriculum itself, of course, it’s impossible to really discuss it’s merits. But that runs the risk of finding out that it may, in fact, be worthwhile, and reduce it’s usefulness as nothing more than a snark hook.
Please carry on promoting ignorance and stupidity.
Wow – the stupid is strong here.
You do realize that you can’t solve a single equation for two unknowns, right?
By the way – I’d much rather ride in the airplane designed by someone with a deep understanding of mathematics – including it’s historical basis and variations – than someone who got through their math course using sheer rote memorization. More brain engagement required.
Although that would be something you wouldn’t be familiar with, apparently.
I think the education system needs to stick to basic math, since most of our engineers come from foreign countries—-mainly because liberals and lazy school teachers come up with all kinds of excuses (discrimination, background ect ect) on why students actually don’t learn anything.
Fix that before you try and further enrich everyone on irrelevant excesses.
I guess you and the rest of the left can keep on promoting socio-political concerns and diversity in the classroom while India, China and Brazil zoom past the so-called “enlightened” and leave them in the dust.
But hey, at least you were “tolerant” and knew the history.
Tests don’t determine intelligence.
Marxist Math Method:
(Gobblety Gook) + (Dumbing Down) X (Endless Money) = Zero
Maybe they could learn math and critical thinking skills by using the unions and elections as a cultural reference. Like:
How many union members would be exempt from paying a 40% Cadillac tax on their health insurance, and how much more would non-union members have to pony up to make up for this sweetheart deal?
Or – If only 38% of the population support a proposal like “Health Care” what are the odds that voters will revolt if the will of the people is ignored, and it is crammed down their throats?
Nope. here is how it actually works.
Michelle claims that this method is sacrificing competence. SHE made a substantive claim.
I merely asked her for the basis of that claim. It is not incumbent upon me to prove a damn thing because I am not the one throwing around substantive assertions about the program’s efficacy.
There are much worse things…
there’s that word again…
But you’re not taking into account that the milking cows would love Chap because he’s got really really soft hands.
X=7, Y=4
Maybe you can’t.
Ayefirmative! (snaps off half-assed salute)
The reason SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) uses PI as the signature for alien intelligence is that it is a universal constant, based on ratios observable throughout the visible universe.
In other words … the prime root of Mathematics.
You can’t get any dumber than teaching horse and buggy skills to a generation required to easily handle algorithms.
Reminds me of lessons in New Math and base 8 and base 6 math in the fifth grade. Parents went to my school en-masse ad demanded the Principal’s resignation.
You’re a betting man, how about you give the odds based upon the average performance of the public educational system these last, oh, I don’t know, say 20-30 years?
You do realize that ‘sheer rote memorization’ does not help one acquire a job designing airplanes?
I took “new math” in 7th grade the year after Sputnik went up. 1001010100011..neer did understand it. Then I studied algebra, geometry the rest of junior high. Then in high school, trigonometry, calculus I and calculus II.
I am an artist by vocation (yes, I support myself with my painting). I use algebra and geometry all the time. This year I had to figure arcs and sections, etc., for a dome mural design and also had to calculate the area of a cone for a turret mural done on canvas. Golly, I am so glad I had good math teachers. The “calc” thing? Uh, don’t know about that one. But boy, did I love my slide rule!
It’s like the movie “Independence Day”. They beat the invaders using good old Morse Code. Now, when the power goes out and they run out of batteries, will they still be able to figure out the math? I will. I keep my pencil sharp. Doubt they have ever even SEEN a slide rule.
I vaguely remember doing square roots by hand, but I can’t remember how to do that now. Slides rules (which I met in 7th grade), however, I enjoyed–and still use from time to time in my office if only for the shock value. Of course, sometimes the slide rule is still easier and faster than logging in and getting the calculator application a computer.
Never got the hang of an abacus, but sorely miss my typewriter when I am trying to use WinWord in a way other than the MS “standard” way.
New Math (I think I hit the tail end of it) was weird.
He said single equation. x=10 and y=2 also works.
SixDegrees is right. There’s more than one set of solutions to that problem as it’s written. Which one is “right”… depends on things you don’t know yet about this particular problem.
2 variables… 2 equations.
X=1 and Y=8 also works.
as does.
X=13 and Y=0
then there’s a whole lotta fractional solutions….
Oh, I got it. I was just having fun at his expense.
I also could have converted them to base 24 leaving Y as the only unknown, but I went the easy route.
Chap, re: better test scores. I don’t buy they’re premise that talking about how Mayans performed mathematical operations is going to make the students feel “connected” and thus get them more into the subject matter.
It’s more likely that they’ll be more into a “day off” from math while the teacher yaks about cultural significance.
They’d be better off learning about and practicing personal responsibility.
lol
You realize that was extremely geeky…
…of both of us….
Yeah, it was so geeky that I want to steal my own lunch money.
Ok, but if you put the equation in the form of
y = mx + b
You should be able to plot a line with negative slope.
Something like
y = -2/3x + 26/3
I think
which I suppose could be considered.. “a solution”
someone change the subject please… this is going downhill fast.
John Deaux–later I’ll tape your head to the toilet seat.
NJ Aviator; I’ll give you a virtual wedgie.
The more ignorant the populace, the more likely the possibility that some moron can spout the word “change” on the campaign trail and make it into the whitehouse without any real substance or taking stances on any issues. Surely this couldn’t happen in the US with our wonderful education system…oh, wait.
BTW, 01/22/10 was a palindrome date as well, but January 11th was a binary palindrome, which meant left handed computers around the world were partying like it’s….well….01/11/10.
Watch got in store for me, Spacey?
Sounds like almost time for “Slide Rule Whipitout!”
May I suggest a Locker slam, followed by a Purple Nurple, then a Swirly, and topped off with ride on the Noogie Ambulance!
heh
I had to wash the geek off of me.
….back.
Cool. Just don’t mess up my pocket protecter.
Now I suppose you want to hear about my base 8 calendar. 8 days in a week, 8 weeks in a month, 8 months in a year, 8 years in a decade. You might say I’m Octal obsessed. The opening of the Beijing Olympics on 08/08/08 was like, Nirvana.
#167 properly SOLVED the presented math problem.
Yes, it was solvable – the line is the solution.
I bet the Mayans didn’t know that.
Actually, I’d really like to step on the back of your shoe & shove you at the same time…down the stairs…
Southpaw–I’m just kidding of course…
do you have a pet octopus?
That’s funny.
Does anybody get the sense that I’m a little bit burned out on all the political stuff?
I think I have Obamanitus.
I’m really, really, really, really, really tired of the man.
Southpaw:
really?
You and “OctoMom” would make a cute couple.
Ok, so I’ve drifted OT far enough. I think if you want to educate kids about ethnocentric math, take five minutes to give them a link like this. Then let them explore it on their own.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mayan+mathematics&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=yChfS83dKJTIsAPs0pnQBA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQsAQwAw
Otherwise, get back to the basics. But Michelle Malkin is right, this really isn’t about math, it’s about political and social agendas.
Obviously, young Mayan students are excelling at math while their impoverished friends to the north of the border aren’t doing quite so well.
http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/math_scores_in_us_hit_a_plateau
They were too busy making calendars out of hub caps.
Which brings something else to mind…. If someone ever unearths a Barnes & Noble a few thousand years from now and finds the calendar rack amidst the rubble…. will they believe that North American indigents believed the world was going to end on December 31st?
“’Math isn’t just rote answers without understanding,’ he said.”
Of course it isn’t. Math in lower grades is about achieving rote answers with understanding. No wonder kids can’t add 2 + 2 and get in the same neighborhood as 4.
“You do realize that ’sheer rote memorization’ does not help one acquire a job designing airplanes?”
I spent almost nine years in the work of designing airplanes, before getting involved in my present engineering work. I can say without a doubt that memorization, along with learning that followed that memorization, played a very large part in helping me acquire a job designing airplanes, and also, helped me design airplanes. Math is just one of the many tools necessary in that vocation.
The biggest challenge in the engineering field is making sure new engineers understand the basic concepts and are able to use the computational tools correctly and are able to judge the magnetude of things intuitively. Strong intuition is built on being able to work out rough estimates in one’s head – and that requires well practiced math skills that don’t use calculators, or programs and use common, well understood math systems as their basis.
I rue the day when some new hire engineer approaches me with some calculations performed in an alternate number system or such, and they try to convince me that this system is equally sound
Major accomplishments in large, complex business organizations and civilizations depend on a common language, be that english, math, or whatever. Introducing something that is different for the sake of checking a box next to “diversity” does nothing to support that.