Anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to education reforms in the past 20 – 30 years knows that rote memorization, or drill and kill, are the single worst things a developing child can be exposed to. Not only does rote memorization take the joy out of learning, it undermines children’s ability to understand numbers and arithmetic operations. Teachers forcing children to memorize math facts to automatic recall are committing what can only be characterized as educational malpractice. In this modern era the focus in education is on deeper understanding, critical thinking, and developing 21st Century skills, not on creating a generation of robots who mindlessly repeat steps they don’t understand.
Too bad those promises aren’t based on actual science. You know data, from actual studies, conducted by actual scientists and peer reviewed, that show that rote memorization undermines learning. Because the studies, the actual science and data, show the opposite.
The Journal of Neuroscience recently published a study conducted by two professors of neuroscience from the University of Ontario. The scientists observed something rather amazing during their study:
Students who performed well on the math section of the PSAT showed more activity in brain areas linked to memory of math facts. Those with lower math PSAT scores had less brain activity in those areas and more in areas associated with processing number quantities.
The findings suggest that the high-achieving students knew the answers by memory, while lower-performing students were calculating even low-level problems.
Amazing, isn’t it? Children who knew their math facts to automatic recall, or rote, did better in math than those who didn’t. College professors and high school math teachers have observed this for years, but have been scoffed at, belittled, and worse by the folks peddling programs they claim foster deeper understanding and critical thinking. Turns out the college professors and high school math teachers were right.
I don’t think anything will change as our country has sold it’s soul to the promise peddlers and has spent literally hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars developing techniques employed by these folks to undermine parent opposition to their programs. Virginia has fully embraced these programs and openly advocates giving calculators to children, starting in kindergarten.
There’s just too much money and too much influence at the highest levels of government for anything to change.
Virginia Virtucon recently noted that students in Prince William County lag far behind students in Fairfax and Loudoun in their performance on the PSAT and in the number of students who qualify as National Merit Scholars. Virtucon wanted to know why.
Prince William County is run by folks who honestly believe mastery of math facts and the standard algorithms are dangerous as they undermine student learning and critical thinking skills, and they teach that to our teachers. The science says mastery of math facts and the standard algorithms actually improve student learning. Virtucon, I think perhaps we’ve found part of the answer to your question.
I don’t expect anything to change. Education in the United States and Virginia is run by folks who are making money by the boatload selling programs that they claim help students develop deeper understanding, critical thinking, and 21st Century skills. Unfortunately, what they claim their programs offer will actually leave our children even further behind. The evil that our schools do will live after them.
