Why Do So Many Gifted Kids Think They Don't like Math?
Why do so many bright and gifted kids think they don't like math? Experience and the reading of lots of research leads me to believe that boredom, under-instruction and poor instruction throughout elementary and middle school lie behind the problem.
My best girlfriend since high school is a math teacher north of Philly. We've talked about this a lot. She and I are both aware that our own math instruction lacked a lot. As I give IQ tests, too, I see something that I thought many people would be interested to know. As those who have read the work of Benbow and Lubinksi, among others, know, math-reasoning ability has a huge ability spread among individuals of the same age. Even when kids are ability grouped, there tend to be outliers—people who are truly math geniuses compared to other really bright kids—in the top group. My friend Pam and I were not math outliers but we were 99th percentile people in math. Having an outlier in your class is a problem for self-esteem and confidence related to math. What I see really missing in math instruction for high ability kids who aren't outliers is twofold:
1. Their route through math during their school years is way too slow and easy for the first 8 or 9 years and then they're slammed with stuff that is really challenging and for which they aren't prepared;
2. They don't get nearly enough practice on "story problems," that is, how to recognize what needs to be done so they can set up the proper sequences and steps for solving the problems. There is far too much time spent on memorization of how to solve problems that are laid out for you (memorization of math facts, for example), and really bright kids who aren't outliers quickly become overwhelmed and conclude they aren't good at math as they see the smarter kids "get it" so quickly.
So, how can schools change the way they do things in order to promote the best learning for kids at all levels of quantitative reasoning ability? Here are some ideas:
1. Hire teachers who love and are good at math to teach kids math, starting in kindergarten or 1st grade.
2. Arrange for kids to move through math instruction at a pace that keeps them challenged while providing enough repetition for them to really “get it.” By 1st grade, the typical same-aged mixed-ability classroom already has 12 grade equivalencies of math ability in it. The outliers, the top kids (maybe only one in every other grade level of the typical school) could be ready for regular algebra instruction by age 8 or 9—at the latest! Kids who score at about the 90th percentile on math reasoning achievement tests could be easily ready by age 10 or 11. Folks, we are severely under-educating our bright students in math!
3. Make sure that all kids who have average ability or higher get lots of practice figuring out story problems. Way too much time is spent on fact problems such as 34+59 = ? We need to pose the question, “How many cookies would we have to share at the Boy Scout meeting if Peter brought 34 cookies and Paul brought 59?”
4. Make sure the outliers are grouped with other outliers as early as possible. When they are left in the same instructional math classroom as bright and gifted children who aren’t natural math geniuses, they are in danger of being severely under-educated and of losing their love for and interest in math. Get those outliers tutors or mentors, allow them to do online learning, etc., but if you leave them in the regular or accelerated classes, too many kids will conclude they’re no good at math and leave fields that require much math instruction.
Finally, whether people like to hear it or not—look it up, Folks—there are more boys than girls in the category of math outlier.
Fodder for more discussion, right? Keep in mind that you don’t need to be an outlier to be outstanding at math or outstanding in a career that requires it!
~Deborah L. Ruf, PhD ©2011
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Inspired and engaged children do better
I agree with much of what you say Deborah
A key point in my opinion is not that children don't like math, but rather that they often don't feel inspired for it, or recognise the benefit and future applications.
It is easy to blame a curriculum for such problems, but ultimately, I believe it is down to teachers, even with the restrictions (or structure) of a curriculum, to ensure they are engaging the children with the right materials and exercises to remain engaged.
Your suggestions that children are provided with instruction at the right pace to ensure they remained challenged is entirely apt, but often doesn't happen within schools. There are many reasons for this, and all too often "teacher workload" is used as a reason why teachers are unable to match the work for each child to their needs.
The fact of the matter is that many other teachers recognise that this can be achieved, but just requires a little more planning and continuous effort to stretch and challenge themselves, as well as the children.
One way of doing this is to look for new ideas, resources and ways to approach their teaching, which of course many do.
I would suggest that inspiring teachers lead to inspired children, who are more likely to reach their potential, in any subject not just maths.
We offer such resources for maths and literacy, which support teachers and enable them to differentiate and target their teaching to meet the needs of each child and maintain their enthusiasm and learning.
Shaun Micallef-Green
www.right2learn.co.uk
Teaching to the middle
Thank you for this thought-provoking blog and the ongoing discussion.
I think that some of the issues mentioned apply not just to the gifted few at the 'top of the class' but the few left behind also. Teachers tend, rightly or wrongly, to teach to the majority - the middle ground. This is a hangover from the industrial revolution when the purpose of education was to churn out the maximum number of competent workers and willing consumers with a minimum of cost and effort.
Textbooks have also helped reinforce a linear approach to teaching, one page at a time, working from the front and aiming to get to the back of the book. In this classroom no individual in the class can move forward or back at a pace different to the majority in the middle unless they have a remarkable teacher. But students do not learn (and by learn I do not mean study) at the same pace, at the same time, in the same way or for the same reasons.
I am a director of a company in Australia called Cambridge HOTmaths www.hotmaths.com.au which is being used across Australia to challenge fossilized ways of teaching. I have seen classrooms with students learning different topics at different speeds and with different levels of teacher intervention - and it works. Classes that subscribe to HOTmaths are not limited to the subject matter in their prescribed year level either, allowing those that demonstrate understanding to pursue topics further, and even out of their year level, but also offering more reinforcement for those that want or need it. Because we have seen the effect that HOTmaths is having on students AND teachers, we have made the program free to teacher training departments of universities across Australia. This has had 2 quite different results - to inspire teachers who love maths to use technology in the classroom to free students from the one-size-fits-all style of study but also to inspire (particularly primary) teachers to take more of an interest in math, improve their own math ability and to make math an integral and enjoyable part of their teaching.
I am not suggesting that HOTmaths is the only such resource available, nor am I suggesting that it is any more than a possible part of a solution. What I am suggesting is that education itself needs to be reimagined to suit future needs and this means examining how we came to have a system that teaches only to the middle.
Why do so many kids in general think they do not like math?
Dear Deborah, thank you very much for your insightful posting!
My own testing experience in elementary schools shows a similar picture: many kids totally switch off when a math subtest comes up.
All involved in education, including education policy makers, curriculum planners, instructional specialists, textbook editors, etc. have access to the latest research in education, but the step to actually use it in schools seems a bridge to far. We need all aboard to turn this around!
Enthusiasm is key: unfortunately teachers colleges admit students who do not like math and later on elementary schools employ teachers who do not like math. Kids feel the enthusiasm of their teachers for a subject.
Math specialists are dearly needed, right now!
Families can help provide a positive 'math atmosphere' by engaging in fun number related activities.
Anneke Schreuder
founder at DyscalculiaServices.com
Been there and Back
"We are not "jailed" with those with the same skill set and mental acuity just as olympic runners are not "jailed" by working out together. Truly, only those who compete at the olympic running level will understand what the other runners are going through, the struggles they have, the joys they experience."
Those words and the rest of that posting glow like burning coals.
Since we are talking math, lets enter Dimension R4, i.e. ours, now, and not theoretical.
Some students give up on academics after having math proficiency beaten out of them by 6th grade after being called cheaters for "not showing work" they perform easily in their heads. They fatigue at all of the faces in the classroom turning around to stare with dropped jaws when they answer, to small advantage, questions no one else "got". They turn off to school except for that rarest of teachers that reaches in kindly to touch their spirit. They focus intensely on other things like athletics, becoming ho-hum-at-best students, maybe even getting expelled from school. Much later in life they may rediscover and explore their intrinsic intellectual abilities, They may even "find out" that they are really awesome at math.
If any of the many teachers, administrators, and policy makers that fail those of that breed are out there and happen to read this, please know that it is not good to tie together the shoelaces of the young olympic runners and then whip them when they fall. That sounds like what it is, abuse, albeit perhaps careless and unknowing.
Easier said than done
"Hire teachers who love and are good at math to teach kids math, starting in kindergarten or 1st grade."
I would settle for teachers who are at least marginally competent in or tolerant of math.
Back when the boys were young enough that I would go to parent teacher conferences (no longer an issue now that they're grown), more than once I pulled a simple arithmetic paper out of the folder, checked the answers, then asked the teacher something along the lines of, "Why does he have a 100% on this paper? All the answers are wrong."
The replies ran the gamut from, "Oh I wouldn't know I had one of the students grade those because I don't do math" to, "He understands the way it's done and that's really what's important," to, "No they're not! I checked them myself!"
It was very discouraging. What math they know now, they learned from me.
Math in School
Dr Ruff, Great article.
Being a parent of an outlier (In Math) I have seen the problems in math instruction in Elementary and Middle school. My son is in a district with over 20K students. In regards to math there is nothing available beyond the normal standards, K-8 with 8 offering Algebra. No Honors, and a very rare few (Maybe 5-10 in the district) that can take Geometry in 8th. I noticed most (99%) of the math instruction is geared toward the middle or lower end of the spectrum. Because of this I started a Math Club at my sons ES for 4t and 5th grades. We do only word problems and focus on problem solving skills. Most students have a very hard time at first, (We use Moems). This is my third year and every year I have some students that are ahead and way ahead of what they are being taught. The schools are not structured to teach a wider or deeper Math program. I have started a MS math club and there are topics covered on the Math Counts contest (Like bases) that are not even addressed in MS. As a very concerned parent I made the choice to create what was not being offered, I am no math wizard (C student at best, and even worse with grammar and spelling); however I found a way to help my son receive the challenge he needed. I only wish their was a way to change how Math is presented, the students are much better, and deserve better then what they receive. On a side note, the district has been supportive of the two math clubs; we have about 50 students in each club.
Short answer...
This happens because elementary teachers are not subject specialists. Having a person teach math who doesn't even KNOW math is a HUGE problem. IMHO, but also backed by research. http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/emstl/journals.html
Carolyn K.
carolyn@hoagiesgifted.org
Results of research in education are waiting to be implemented
I do agree with you: the research is out there for all of us to read, but it is chronically underutilized. The big misconception is that implementation will make things harder, but using the research will make teachers much more happy and effective.
Anneke Schreuder
Founder at DyscalculiaServices.com
Challenging the outliers is absolutely the key
Thanks for the article. I have one child who was an outlier and it was obvious. I also have a daughter who didn't really like math and thought she was just average despite consistent 99th percentile scores. The school didn't allow acceleration. We pulled her to homeschool and she jumped 2 grades in math with in 1 month and loves math now. Most schools don't see the potential or don't have the capability of dealing with it.
Math
I tested as profoundly gifted. I am now a research scientist with two advanced math related patents. I grew up hating math.
1: Repetition. It takes me one exposure to be able to apply mathematics concepts immediately. I understand that it took my class mates more. Repeating the same technique 100 times over in class and home work drove me insane. It pushed me to hatred of the subject.
2: Show your work. I can do the problem in my head, my answer is correct, the demand to show my work to get credit added insult to injury.
3: Lack of application. Don't just teach it to me, show me how to use it. The concept on it's own doesn't interest me, making use of it does.
4: Wait for the rest of the class. Let me read the book. Let me test out of the class. Let me move on. If nothing else, let me skip the homework and take a quick daily quiz instead.
I learned to love math through computer science.
Math
There are also no societal role models for kids. Why study math, when you don't need it to bounce a basketball, marry an NBA player (and quickly divorce him), dance with stars, sing a song, or any of the important thing that our society values....Among professionals, lawyers seem to be in the majority, and that's not a career where quant skills are necessary.
Don't know how to make math "cool" for our entertainment-obsessed society.
Where did the numbers go??
So I was an accidental outlier discovered my freshman year of high school when I scored the 3rd highest score in the state on a math competition we went to.
I was blessed with 2 excellent high school math teachers, I would describe them as the yin & yang of math teach philosophies.
One was a brutal old school traditionalist focused on calculations with a secondary emphasis on word problems. And I do mean traditionalist, we learned how to do logarithmic interpolation to solve problems, no calculators allowed ever. As a traditionalist we also had graded hw every night, detentions if it wasnt completed, a quiz every friday, hw notebooks graded on accuracy as well as neatness.
The second was a more theoretical & collegiate style model. Emphasis on proofs, brain teaser challenges, logic, geometric construction. The collegiate model involved no weekly quizes, hw was optional, entire graded based on ~monthly test, with a midterm & final.
The complementary models for teaching I think was fantastic balance. As a student you learned to survive & thrive in different models. Both teachers were exceptional in supporting students, to this day they remain my most favorite of all instructors.
My basic point with all this is, the biggest benefit i saw was the dynamic range required of students to work in both environments. I would not have received the same education of two instructors as sort of an average of each. This then ends with my conclusion there is no single best way to teach, and it is the *teachers* not the specific methods that result in solid learning.
As for teachers not liking the outliers, it happens, I have firsthand evidence of it. To me, it seemed teachers that saw it as an opportunity to fill and shape a budding mind were the best. The ones that were intimidated or somehow attempted to compete with the outlier student were the ones that failed. Trust me, an outlier loves nothing more than showing up a teacher if they give they give the student grief.
Even my private school was crap!
My IQ is 145 and I've Never thought of myself as good at math.
Pattern-recognition, Yes. Math, Never.
Even in a private high-school the training was atrocious, especially Algebra.
The admins had invited a brand new teacher right out of uni who was just terrible.
As a result, I had to go through so many hours of out-of-pocket extra-curric tutoring to unlearn/relearn what is the math equivalent of how to speak English, it was embarrassing.
Honestly, unless directed by an individual private tutor or given a pile of lessons and challenged to figure it on my own, I was bored completely to tears in school.
decontextualized
Kids aren't taught why they need to learn math - why is it interesting and more importantly how can it be of use to them today, now, not 10 years from now.
There are some innovative and more situated math education approaches that address this, but many of them have died out or still haven't spread to most schools. One example was the Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) project. Another was the Jasper Woodbury series. Check out the Rescue at Boone's Meadow challenge here for example: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/projects/funded/jasper/preview/AdvJW.html
See my full response here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3317776
Did I ever tell you Charlie's reaction to word problems?
He'd been sailing through the 7th grade book, and all of a sudden hit a brick wall with word problems.
I back-tracked to the 5th grade book for a few days, and he was really bent out of shape about it! I explained that he simply needed to learn how word problems worked, and it would be easier and faster to start with some simpler ones until he figured out the process.
It helped that he was back in the 7th grade book within a week or two.
And I think it was a very good life lesson--to learn that being smart does NOT mean that you always know how to do things but it does mean that when you are humble enough to be willing to learn something, you will learn it quickly.
Coleen
She's two months old. She's gifted.
Take is easy with the "gifted" label. It's way too precious. And it's usually B.S.
Good Try, but Completely Miss the Point
Good attempt to explain problems with math, but the solutions are mostly off the mark. No, they are not only off the mark, they are potentially very dangerous.
So, what do we have? Math is bad. Why? CULTURE and ECONOMIC reasons. You look down on math nerds/geeks, you don't even pay lip service to importance of math, you treat teachers like dirt; then, you refuse to fund research, cut schools' budget, and pay teacher, again, like dirt. What do you expect? Brilliant programme that produces brilliant minds?
You also are missing the point
Math has two parts. One is doing the math. The other is taking a real problem and translating it to math and then taking the solution and converting it back to the real world. The math-only part is what mathematicians do. The other parts are what scientists, engineers, statisticians, and others who use math do. Word problems are an important part of math because they connect to the real world.
There's no reason to attempt to turn proofs into word problems.
Some things must be memorized. Others should not because deeper understanding is important in many instances.
Mathematical proofs are the heart of mathematical thinking. Exploring in a particular fashion is how science works. Making things is how engineering works.
The entire discussion omits that EVERY student should be challenged.
Obsession with taxes has caused much misery and degraded education.
Regarding social implications
You were not raised in America, so your understanding of what a brilliant student needs/can do in this society will be influenced by the society of Viet Nam, and will not have the understanding of the pattern of this society. No offense is meant by that AT ALL, but just as you astutely point out that society in Viet Nam is different than here, so must I point out that society in America is different than there.
In America, as you observed, highly intelligent children are not prized. In fact, often we are/were mistreated by those very schoolmates you offer we need to socialize with. Our peers do not feel the need to strive to meet us, they just beat us up on the playground.
Gifted people DO often crave social interactions, but we also are wise enough to know that others do not always crave social interactions with us. You recognized that in your own post--we are already called names (or bullied more severely). To put us in the same class so we can blow the bell curve, so we are standing out every single moment of the class (or hiding our abilities so we do not stand out) does not help the class, the social situation, or the gifted student.
We are not "jailed" with those with the same skill set and mental acuity just as olympic runners are not "jailed" by working out together. Truly, only those who compete at the olympic running level will understand what the other runners are going through, the struggles they have, the joys they experience. We LONG to find other people who understand us. If you put us together, then we can find some solace in being with people who understand and respect us.
As for why America has more innovations than other countries, I would have to chalk it up to the fact that some societies emphasize memorization and perfection of what is already known, while our country emphasizes innovation of what is unknown--which by necessity includes MUCH failure. Our country DOES give people room to fail...and fail...and fail. Eventually, if someone is persistent, then they achieve something incredibly innovative. We differentiate between failing at a task vs a moral failure of character. We do not associate the failing of a student at a task as a reflection of the parenting. That freedom to fail allows for more innovation, I think.
I respectfully disagree
It seems you see the beauty of math for itself--patterns, integrations isolated from the unpredictability of the "real world". Perhaps it is a cool, calm place, and you enjoy one equation at a time, content in the moment of such. That is wonderful.
Some brains do not work that way, however. Some people need the big picture, the paradigm, the goal. Some need to see the necessity, using math as a tool to a destination of, say, how to manipulate imaginary numbers and why and when. They are contextualists, and that is good too. Each way of thinking has its strengths AND its weaknesses.
It is like this:
Some people can memorize a route quickly if they are given step by step instructions: "Turn right . Go 100 meters . Turn left ". At the end of that, the driver has memorized the route. They like building upon one fact at a time. They are comfortable with "A, then b, then c". They can keep each direction in order without using destination as a frame of reference because their brain uses the sequential order of the "turn right, turn left" as their frame of reference.
Some minds, however, use context as their frame of reference. It is not enough to say "turn right, turn left" because their brains work fundamentally differently. They understand better when they see the overhead view. Their brains form a mental picture by seeing the goal, where the process is leading. To give step by step, without any reference or basis or overview or reason, is just meaningless, isolated, random facts--facts which are merely morphemes that make no words, words that make no sentences, sentences that make no sense. Give these people the overview, the reason, the understanding of what the puzzle is supposed to look like. THEN math opens up into an incredibly profound, integral, pertinent skill.
Perhaps the former uses time as a frame of reference and the latter uses space. That might be a good way to look at it.
I would also offer, respectfully, that math *IS* real world, it is the language of understanding, of predictability, of logic. I never knew that trigonometry was the study of the properties of TRIANGLES. Triangles. If I had had that simple bit of information, that might have made trig more understandable.
Wow. Inconceivable.
If someone actually "taught" you trig without drawing lots of pictures of right triangles in a unit circle, they should be taken out and summarily shot without a blindfold.
I think YOU miss the point.
Any kind of scientific problem requiring math is essentially a "story problem".
Memorization is over-rated. My freshman physics prof pointed out that it was much simpler and more efficient to note certain basic facts--and re-derive formulas from those facts when needed. And what was my entire physic major? Nothing but math story problems! Ditto chemistry, engineering, etc.
You seem to be thinking that language problems can mask math skills in story problems--and that is true, but any student who has this problem has a language problem that must be addressed, anyway.
Grouping outliers together is NOT bad! It gets them AWAY from the other kids who poke fun at them, and supplies them with peers who appreciate them for the unique ways they think.
I will agree with you about the way Americans in general fail to value teachers. But not about what kinds of math learning are most helpful in the real world.
At the core, I agree with you, but...
I've always done math exactly as you said, learning just enough that I could reconstruct a formula or theorem on the spot from a few basic concepts and a few fundamental facts. Got the concept, yep, that's a recipe - you need the quadratic formula, I'll take a^2+b^2+c=0 and complete the dang square.
But the downside of that approach is that I never learned my "times tables" very well beyond the fives, so even though I (barely) passed Diff EQs, when I need to multiply something like 7 times 9, I actually have to stop and think, hmm... 7 times 8 is 56, so 7 more makes 63.
That probably makes me sound like a complete dolt, but I love "real" math, and I'm actually really close to understanding *why* e^-pi*i-1=0, which is Euler's Identity and one of the coolest things I've every seen. (Gauss is supposed to have said that if that equation wasn't intuitively obvious, you would never be a mathematician.)
Math Outlier
While I wouldn't consider myself a math "genius" per say, in elementary through high school, I was usually 2 or three years ahead of my peers.
One of my most salient memories was when I was in third grade. I was taking math a couple of grades up at the time. My teacher tried to tell the class that anything divided by zero is zero. Obviously this is false. I tried to set her straight, but ended up being disciplined for "talking back" to the teacher.
My mother heard about the disciplinary action, and when I explained to her what happened, she went and set my teacher straight. I remember being very amused by their conversation. My mother was at the time on the Math faculty at the local university. (probably had something to do with my math skills.) Anyways, remembering a stupid teacher sheepishly putting her foot in her mouth always makes me smile.
Get the outliers out to save the others?
I've got one math outlier and one who is very good at math, and this post is making a lot of sense to me. I've wondered once or twice if my son got his 3 yrs acceleration in math partly to give the other students more time to grow in math understanding. (And to relieve his early elementary teachers of the need to brush up on algebra.) He's still an outlier 3 years up, but hopefully it isn't as extreme an effect.
What is difficult though, is trying to protect the self-esteem of the child who is only very good at math at home. I haven't solved this problem - any ideas?
How to "Arrange"
Nice thoughts, but the clincher is item number 2, where you say "Arrange"...how exactly do you "arrange" for schools to do this, especially public schools? We fought this losing battle for several years, as the local school system did away with differentiated learning in favor of No Kids Left Behind, which resulted, therefore, in leaving the "gifted" kids behind. So we personally "arranged" for (A) our family to start a new business for additional revenue, (B) our kids to move out of the public school system and attend a private gifted school, and (C)our time to be spent in direct, fruitful collaboration with teachers and administrators we were paying, along with additional tutors, to adequately address the differentiated learning our kids needed. Long story short, to "arrange" things like this is simple - you need to privately pay for it - the alternative is to fight hard over many years with the "system"; you may succeed, but by that time, your kids may have already passed through the subpar environment.
From a female math outlier
It's true that there are more male outliers in math, but people should not forget that girls can be outliers in math, too, and may not be as outspoken (and therefore noticeable). I am one of those kids, and because I didn't fit people's mental picture of a math outlier, my talents were unrecognized at school until we moved to another district and I was tested.
About the self-esteem issue: sexism can come into play there, too. When I was in fifth grade, my class was a self-paced 5/6 combo. I quickly finished the fifth grade math curriculum, but when my parents asked the teacher to allow me to work on the 6th grade material, the (female!) teacher refused because she said that would make the 6th grade boys "feel bad."
I amused myself by inventing my own binary operators... nobody was interested when I tried to explain what I was doing. So many elementary teachers are weak in math and are not able to recognize math talent in students.
Female outliers especially need support because of sexist attitudes about math ability which are so prevalent. Later in my K-12 career I was a 15 year old junior taking Calculus. My teacher seemed to resent me for "ruining the curve" and scoring 100% on all the tests. He made sure to single me out and announce my grade to the class as the person who made everyone else's grade lower. I certainly didn't have any friends in that class! An outlier student can apparently threaten a teacher's self-esteem as well.
Back in the 80s
My recollection (as a man) is that back in 85-86 when I was in high school and going to math bowl, half of the team was girls, and they were all very good. I distinctly remember one of them (who is now a surgeon) explaining to me how functions work and me still not really getting it. (Ironically, 25 years later I write functions every day as a computer programmer.)
My trig and calculus classes had plenty of girls and many of them were very good at it. I don't remember any of us joking that "girls can't do math" but that may just be because I wasn't the target.
Now that I think about it our math teacher was a woman and everyone loved her teaching style. My physics and chemistry instructors were both women too.
It isn't just female outliers
One of my stronger memories is my third grade teacher thinking that I was being "smart" with her when I asked her which average I should use. She had asked the class to find the average of something, and I had just finished reading about mean, median and mode. I think that any teacher can feel threatened by someone who makes them feel bad about their own abilities. When I tried to explain to her a faster method of calculating the solution to a problem, she wasn't interested and insisted that I do it her way. The school had a counselor who explained it as being like a toolbox. I gave in. It would have been nice to recognize I had invented a sail to replace rowing by hand.
I honestly don't think that your teacher resented you for ruining the curve. I think your teacher resented the extra work that comes with dealing with bright students.
What extra work? Every day
What extra work? Every day he would say to the class, "Did anyone besides C. [me] do the homework?" Nobody would raise their hand. Then he would tell me to go up to the board and explain all the problems to the class. That took up most of the class period. I didn't think I had a choice, and I was a very compliant kid. After a couple of months I went to the school counselor because I was upset about being singled out all the time. He said, "What's the problem ... you're getting an A aren't you?"
Interesting points.
Interesting points.
Not Just Story Problems
I think the outliers need slightly different math from what is offered regularly. Yes, they need story problems, but they also need depth and connection. They need to learn about number bases, topology, Fibonacci, Escher, statistics. Show them how scientists use math; how economists find trends.
I could have been an outlier, but I was a very compliant girl. No one looked for it and it never occurred to me to question what people gave me to learn. [I have gotten more obnoxious with age.]
Hi Dr. Ruf, Very interesting
Hi Dr. Ruf,
Very interesting article. Detection of the "outliers" from a young age is certainly useful, but there needs to be a fast test that all students take to be afforded the opportunity to stand out. Recognizing that each child has a different rate of development and learning style it would be interesting to see if alternative means of testing detected different outliers and if a portion of 99% ever catches up. Again, very interesting article!
Why So Many Kids Don't Think They Like Math
I am the parent of some math "outliers" and it is a primary reason why I got into this field. I taught 4th through 6th grades before I had kids. I was a smart girl who took all the advanced classes in math through high school. This leads me to why I can say that I developed such an assessment and it is right here on this website, "The Ruf Estimates of Levels of Gifted Online Assessment." I would happily change the price to accommodate schools' use it of for screening students in kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade, before it is feasible to do formal testing. Parents complete it at home. It's virtually tamper proof. See the descriptions.
Such natural talent shows up very early and it is rare that the parents of such children haven't had the opportunity to notice it. It doesn't show up well in school because real math doesn't often show up in school --- arithmetic does --- and rote memorization. That isn't quantitative reasoning at all! Do others catch up? Not to become outliers, but kids who are very capable and get a poor education can indeed catch up when given the chance. Thanks for writing. ~Dr. Ruf
Math outliers
Hi Dr. Ruf,
You had me, right up to "more boys than girls in the category of math outlier". Like to hear it or not, what is the point of this comment? As one of the girl outliers, it sounds like you're telling folks not to look too hard in our direction. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but why say it at all? What is the point?
Why So Many Gifted Kids Think They Don't Like Math
What's the point? As a girl outlier, you are a precious commodity. You exist. Because there are more males, many people don't expect to find females at all! The key to my statement (indeed, the quotation) is that there ARE female math outliers. Many people didn't know that. Second, more girls "do well" in school math, especially during the elementary years, because more girls are likely to cooperate even if it is boring. So, more girls are actually encouraged and recognized for their talent in math in the early years. Why bring it up? Because many parents of math-talented boys get as confused as the teachers by what appears to be incredible math ability and then very poor performance once they get to school. One of my sons, who is a math outlier, actually scored at the tops of individual achievement tests in math (9th grade equivalency+ --- he hit the ceilings of the tests)shortly after his 7th birthday when he was in 2nd grade, and yet his teacher chose not to "tarnish her opinion of her students but looking at their permanent files" before she got to know them and said he wasn't any kind of standout in math in her classroom. She based this on his refusal to complete the Math Mad Minute perfectly each day while she had other students who would and did.
Blogs need to be short and pithy;-) But I can see why you were irritated. Hope this explanation helped. Thanks so much for weighing in. ~Dr. Ruf
From a female math outlier
"Second, more girls "do well" in school math, especially during the elementary years, because more girls are likely to cooperate even if it is boring."
This may be true, but again, I don't want people to assume that girls who "do well" and are compliant are *not* math outliers. As you pointed out in your post, elementary school math is largely arithmetic, and math outliers of either sex have little opportunity to show their abilities.
Blogs may need to be pithy, but the topic of female outliers in math may merit its own blog post to remind readers of these nuances.