Kumon for children with severe disabilities, too?

Actually, the woman who ran one of the Kumon centers I brought my children to originally got into Kumon because she saw how much it was helping a profoundly mentally disabled child who she was working with. So I suspect it may be surprisingly beneficial for Andrew. I couldn't have done the outreach in my local inner-urban outreach without the incredible help I got from Doreen Lawrence, the Vice President of Research for Kumon, North America. Her phone number is 248-755-2587, and her email is dlawrence@kumon.com. Doreen is a wonderful person who is deeply oriented towards helping children. I'm sure she'd be glad to answer any questions you might have about Kumon (she knows EVERYTHING about the program).

You can feel free to post anything from my letter that might help. I just apologize for the poor writing. I just got back from China and am still jet-lagged.

Over the next week or two I'll read through your website more carefully and get a better feel for what's going on (I just found out about your website while I was in China, but scarcely had any time available while I was there). I've a lot of thoughts and background information related to what you're doing, and have some interesting and relevent experience with national policy setters in academia on this topic, but am a little bogged down now working on a book, research papers, experiments, and grant proposals. You know, the usual academic stuff! So I will try posting some once I feel I understand more fully what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Thank you ever so much for providing a forum for something that is so important to our children!

Plus--and I MUST post this--she's started a page of things she finds funny, which, thus far, has one link to a pdf file of what looks to be a PowerPoint presentation: Yours is a Very Bad Hotel.

All you World Traveling Kitchen Table Math denizens will relate.

it's getting clearer now

Why exactly, in the middle of my life, am I spending 18 hours a day WRITING A MATH BLOG? Excuse me, a MATH BLOOKI.

This was my husband's question as well.

I'm just coming off a newyorktimesbestseller, the goal nonfiction writers spend their careers aspiring to reach.....shouldn't I be Following Up with another book? (I will follow up with another book; Temple and I are working up steam. But still. Kitchen Table Math is a detour.)

So what was I thinking?

Somehow, it seemed like I was supposed to be writing a math blooki.

That reason turns out to be, in large part, the people who write comments and set up pages and create dimensional dominoes and, now, send me an email out of the blue telling me I need to take Andrew to Kumon.

That is exactly what I need to do. I need to take Andrew to Kumon.

Andrew is my little locked-in boy; he's bright--so bright, it's there, you can see it--and I don't know how to reach him.

The folks at Kumon may not know how to reach him, either, but it's obvious to me I'm supposed to give it a shot. If they don't know, something there will give me a new idea. It's a lead.

I wasn't going to figure this out on my own.

I was telling my neighbor about this today, complaining that I can't think of these things myself. I have to have complete strangers tell me: take your severely autistic son to Kumon Math.

My neighbor said, 'You can never think what you're supposed to do about your own life.'

Back to main page.

Comments

You can take a look at the Kumon research papers by going to her web site:

http://www2.oakland.edu/users/oakley/default.htm

selecting "Research and Publications" and then simply searching the page for "Kumon"

-- ChrisAdams - 19 Sep 2005

Chris!

Thank you!

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2005

"One last thought. I've taught in China as well as the US. The US is definitely way ahead on the "creativity" side. But we are so far behind in math that it is ridiculous--and it is potentially crippling for our source of engineers and other professionals."

... "creativity" side of what? Surely it isn't in math or problem solving, unless the problem is how to create prom attire out of duct tape. Are people saying that creativity and math skills are incompatible or that creativity somehow makes up for a complete lack of skills and basic knowledge? I am sick and tired of this "creative" business. They need to give specific examples of creativity as it is applied to math.

One area I think of is creative(?) modern, Gehry/Calatrava - type of architecture. Of course, it takes civil and structural engineers (well versed in the basics and the theory) to work out the ugly details. (Most architects are designers, not engineers.) When I think of the creative application of problem solving to math, I think of things like defining non-linear merit or objective functions to solve multi-dimensional optimization problems; then, having the knowledge and skill to apply various mathematical tools to get the darn thing to work and to verify the results. Many don't think that mathematicians and engineers can be creative. It's just that they don't have a clue as to what is creative in these fields. Surely, K-8 teachers don't have a clue. Creativity for an architect is quite different than creativity for an engineer.

In reform math, when they break the kids into mixed-ability, child-centered groups to "discover" a solution to a problem (without prior knowledge or skills), one student may find a solution (perhaps a poor one) and then proceed to DIRECTLY TEACH it to the other students in the group. Does this mean that only one student obtains the desired effect of constructivism, even though the solution might only work for special cases? This is neither necessary or sufficient. I distinctly remember many times having my own mathematical light bulb go on when I was directly taught new material. I remember exactly how I felt when I was taught how you can calculate the area under a curve by integrating the function and applying the limits. I thought that was AMAZING! Calculate the area and centroid of a closed loop by traversing the boundary. WOW! You should see all of the creative things I do with line integrals. Dick Feynman used to talk about all of the special things he could do by differentiating under the integral sign.

Of course, all of this talk of creative problem solving hides the dirty little secret of a much slower pace and little or no linkage to mastery of basic skills and knowledge. People still like MathLand in our town because it emphasizes "understanding" and "creative problem solving". (so they've been told) I don't think that it quite sinks in when I tell them that MathLand followed by CMP does not prepare them properly for college prep math in high school. Maybe they can't believe that the school would allow a content and skills gap between 8th and 9th grades and that their child will struggle without outside help or tutoring.

-- SteveH - 19 Sep 2005

"Many don't think that mathematicians and engineers can be creative. It's just that they don't have a clue as to what is creative in these fields."

YEAH! What he said!

If creativity is the capacity to think outside the box in order to conceive new solutions to problems, in the broadest sense, then math at all levels absolutely requires it. A kid learning how to do word problems is being hugely creative.

-- CarolynJohnston - 20 Sep 2005

Oakley is saying that Americans are creative in math--Americans who can do math, that is.

My understanding of the Americans-are-creative argument is that American math educators are saying that American math students are more creative than Asian math students and that they know math pretty well or even very well (our argument is that American math students don't know math so well).

That's the same problem troubling Asian Education Ministries: their math students score well on standardized tests, but aren't creative in mathematics.

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Sep 2005

Having worked in mathematics and engineering for 30 years and having read and torn apart countless techncal papers that were quite amazing, I have a good idea what creativity in mathematics means. I just don't know what the Asian Education Ministries means. If they think that it is simply a math issue, rather than a societal issue, then I would have to disagree. However, I have met (and roomed with) many Indian and East Asian technical students who were quite capable, creative, and driven.

-- SteveH - 20 Sep 2005

Steve, if you ever care to write something about what creativity is in math, I'd love to post it.

I used to read books & articles about creativity, but then I stopped, because no one knows what it is. (Not sure whether cognitive science has made more headway, but I haven't seen it so far.)

I've now got something of an idea, which I could probably put into words, about what creativity looks like in nonfiction writing.

But I wouldn't be able to describe it in any mathematics fields, apart from, maybe, economics where you have people like Steven Leavitt & Caroline Hoxby.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Sep 2005