Math for the Global Marketplace : Concentrating on rote memory and formulas doesn’t equip students for competing in a high-tech job market.

By almost any measure, fewer than half of all students survive their experience with traditional math instruction, which generally fails to consider how most people learn, leaves most students behind and produces adults with almost universally unpleasant memories of math class. Yet critics of new approaches to mathematics education in California attempt to perpetuate a flawed premise that, somehow, the failed methods of the past offer the last best hope for the future.

Quite the reverse is true. What may work for a handful of math-savvy young scholars or for girls at a private academy where teachers can provide more individual attention does not begin to address the needs of most public school students, from the highest to the lowest achievers.

Year after year, our schools have graduated countless students whose innate aversion to mathematics was nurtured by mind-numbing drills, rote memorization and other exercises that in no way connected the dynamic principles of math to the real world encountered after graduation. Test scores plummeted and achievement lagged because even the best students could not see the relevance of mathematics to their lives.

Traditionalists blindly dismiss current reforms as “fuzzy math” that lacks the fundamentals students need. They seem to believe that continuing to hammer home the same old material in the same old ways ultimately will break through and make sense to the students. More often, however, the result is frustrated students and even more frustrated teachers.

It was this frustration that led thousands of California math teachers to embrace innovative mathematics curricula that meld basic skills instruction with critical thinking and deeper understanding. In most such programs, students are encouraged to learn the answers to math problems as well as the rules and reasons behind them. When they understand the concepts underlying the fundamentals, they develop a genuine appreciation for the power of mathematics to break down complex problems into clear, effective solutions.

If these programs are taught as intended, by teachers who understand and believe in the curriculum, students learn all the basics found in traditional math classes and also gain the confidence and ability to solve even more difficult application problems as they move ahead into college and careers.

The new approaches to math instruction engage students directly in applications of the subject to familiar and understandable situations. Rather than being de-emphasized, or “dumbed down” as some critics claim, the basics are reemphasized as the building blocks of a dynamic, problem-solving tool. The full spectrum of students, from those below average to those at the top of the scale, appear to benefit from this approach, as evidenced by recent test results.

Raw numbers, equations and esoteric formulas alone do not ensure future success in our high-tech world. Increasingly, companies seek out employees who can apply empirical facts to the development of innovative products and services. High technology industries in particular demand creative thinkers, good communicators and team players. In such fast-paced environments, the most valuable employees are able to make timely, educated guesses and then apply sound mathematical principles to validate them. This means that some of the best and brightest students, grounded solely in traditional mathematics, often lack vital skills needed in more advanced college science and math classes and in today’s job market.

Change of any kind can be difficult and emotional, especially for those who are unwilling to accept it and make it work. Change for the better in our mathematics classrooms is essential if we want to keep pace with the rest of the world. One-dimensional math instruction focused only on memorization and drills does not provide the competitive edge our students must have to enter a challenging global marketplace.