Which brings me to Linda Moran's recent post (I think instructivist may have left the link):

I'm no longer quick to recommend that parents help with math instruction at home, unless they have a love for understanding-based math and a strong commitment to a possibly steep learning curve. Math teaching isn't easy. The public schools, in taking such extreme about-faces as TERC math, are the first ones to admit this. That's why they're flailing about right now. It will take some time for good math instruction to settle down somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

Linda Moran, as it turns out, is a certified math teacher who took quite a lot of math in college, which means she knows more about math than I do.

So I'm a little hesitant to disagree.

At the moment, I'm feeling exactly the opposite about parents teaching math after school. It's certainly true that I had and have a strong commitment to a possibly steep learning curve, and a love for understanding-based math, but looking back... teaching Christopher math hasn't been that hard. It's been so not-hard that he is now teaching himself, at age 12.

Caroyn always talks about Saxon providing support for the teacher, and she's right. John Saxon's books can pick a parent up bodily and carry her through. (That's why they're called "Homeschool Editions" no doubt.) When you have two superb curricula like Saxon & Singapore to choose from, I think you're in a strong position to make up for the deficits in a school curriculum.

Or am I wrong about this?

Linda Moran is right about the time & energy I've put into this project; it's been huge. But that's me. I go overboard. I like going overboard! I don't think a parent has to develop a magnificent obsession to teach Singapore or Saxon after school.

Not sure, though.




afterschooling procedural math

I'm also now completely convinced that Carolyn (and John Saxon) are right: teach the procedural knowledge first & attend to the conceptual knowledge as the procedural gels. I'm convinced of this because I've experienced this staged process in my own learning & understanding many times now. Very often I will master a procedure before I understand it.

This isn't an artifact of using Saxon Math. Usually John Saxon gives you the explanation going in, complete with connections to previously learned material, as you begin to learn the procedure. I just don't grasp the explanation at that point. Then, later on, I find that I am grasping it, or starting to.

Conceptual understanding sneaks up on me while I'm doing procedures.

What this tells me is that it's perfectly valid for a parent who does not have a love for understanding-based math to focus on teaching math procedures and leave it at that. There are all kinds of terrific resources for doing this - workbooks mainly - including Glencoe's terrific Parent-Student Study Guides, which are available free online.

I just don't see any reason for a parent who for some reason does not wish to relearn all of the core K-12 math curriculum (difficult as that is to imagine) to conclude that she should therefore leave her childrens' math education up to the school.

I especially don't see any reason to leave things up to the school in the wake of our visit to the edu-attorney, but more on that later.

Glencoe Parent Student Study Guide Pre-Algebra
Glencoe Parent-Student Study Guide Algebra 1

your mother whips you

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Sep 2006

Back to: Main Page.