Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow.
Are they sure it’s pandemic? And not just a new product of the good ‘ol American education system?
I tutor college students. While many students struggled with math before the pandrmic, the fallout from the changes made during the pandemic made these deficiencies so much worse.
It could be long covid for some too, foggy brain probably wouldn’t help.
It could be but the reality is that the educational system by and large bungled the transition from in person to online classes. The quality of education during that time was severely compromised.
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The pandemic made everything worse, but students struggled with math as long as I have been alive. As someone who loved science and math stuff outside school, but hated it with a passion in school, this text really put my thoughts into words as to why :
Lockhart’s Lament: https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
TLDR: It is taught wrong.
As a dad constantly frustrated with the shittiness of my kids’ math curriculum: thanks, this is wonderful, puts to words a lot of what I’ve been feeling and more.
HS math teacher here. A lot of these problems existed prior to the pandemic. Parents making excuses for kids. Teachers making excuses for kids to keep parents and admin off their backs. Kids too reliant on calculators to develop “number-sense”. Parents perpetuating the myth of the “math gene” they don’t have because they failed at the "new math " of the 1970s, etc. The list goes on and on. The whole thing where ELA/Social Studies/History/etc. teachers are struggling with AI like ChatGPT? We went through that when Photomath and the like were released. The shortcuts you take in math WILL catch up with you.
That being said, maturity plays a HUGE part. A dedicated math student will struggle, but won’t take shortcuts. They are better for it. The only thing that has changed is that shortcuts are much easier to take and are much more readily available. I cannot count how many shortcuts I took as a teenager, only to realize later that I F$#@! up long-term with my learning journey. Just look at any community college. Students that were “bad at math” suddenly have the realization that if they put in the effort, then the intellectual and/or GPA dividends will pay off in spades.
This is the real problem.
“How dare you fail ME!”
“How dare you fail MY kid!”
They didn’t do the work, capable or not. Or they simply can’t do the work. Everyone has a ceiling.
I teach at an extremely high level. Post medical doctorate. I have to hire lawyers to make sure people who are dangerous to patients don’t practice.
And if I didn’t dot an exact “i” or cross an exact “t” they will be taking care of you/your mother/brother/sister/father. No matter what I say.
I’m a firm believer that a not insignificant portion of people had one or two really shit math teachers at some point, decided that they’re bad at math because of it, and then proceeded to just give up. Very often it was specifically related to fractions.
The math professors at my uni were fantastic, and I saw many friends who always thought they were bad at math have lightbulb moments where something finally clicks.
So, like personally, all of my math teachers taught math as a goal in itself. Which is incredibly un-interesting. It’s taught like a chore.
Which is an incredible disservice.
I can completely understand that perspective. However, some students are just not mature enough to handle every type of math thrown at them when it is. One “bad” teacher can ruin any subject. Some students just aren’t “ready” when the curriculum (or other powers that be) decides that they should be.
The maybe rheu shouldn’t advance and be failed? Like to me if you’re bad at a subject, you should be required to take it until you pass it, not push along to the next harder version of it. Kids don’t get left back or failed now. That is the problem. If you’re not ready fine, but you can’t take algebra until you pass pre-algebra.
I’m speaking as someone who didn’t learn to read until 3 grade and still graduated on time and went to a good college. Failing classes is fine as long as you can also catch up if you rapidly learn the material as well.
The maybe rheu shouldn’t advance and be failed
Most people can fake their way enough to pass the test without having a true understanding of the concepts behind it.
Yeah, but math isn’t really relevant for most people past the elementary school level.
It’d be pretty messed up to fail them for something they aren’t going to use in the real world. Lots of people who justifiably ‘don’t care about math’ would be held back for no good reason, except maybe to stroke the ego of people who do.
Do you ever think a lot of people just don’t care about math because it isn’t relevant to their every day lives?
Math is kind of this thing that we patronizingly tell children is so important and force them to learn. Many of them then go home and realize math, unlike reading, doesn’t actually matter for most people past the elementary school level. It really doesn’t.
Except it does, which is why so many people are so bad with money.
I could agree with criticisms of outdated teaching methodologies or uninteresting course material, but saying math is irrelevant is totally misguided.
One of my high school teachers, when asked what the relevance of some maths concept was to the real world, threw a literal tantrum about how all of school is bullshit and you don’t need to read Shakespeare to get a job so how dare you ask that? He would also yell at us when he made a mistake on the whiteboard and nobody noticed. I don’t know what compelled this washed up boomer with the emotional maturity of a toddler to teach.
I kind of feel bad for thinking this way, but regardless of whose fault it is, if you don’t understand fractions you should not be pursuing a STEM degree.
What constitutes ‘understanding fractions’ in your mind?
“It’s not just that they’re unprepared, they’re almost damaged,” said Brian Rider, Temple’s math chair. “I hate to use that term, but they’re so behind.”
It’s as if there was a highly-infectious pandemic that’s known to damage most organs of the body, including the brain
Or maybe the scientists and doctors that said shutting down schools was terrible for development, were actually on to something.
That doesn’t track. Only thing school did was make us spend less time sleeping. Pandemic shutdown was actually a blessing for many overworked people.
And it was awful for students who basically weren’t taught for a year. We are now seeing the results of those policies in lower test scores and competency in basically every subject. This was entirely predicted by people who care about child development.
I blame the way they teach math
Math is fucking boring and we have way more things to do now versus decades ago when solving math problems could be entertaining.
We also have tools to do the computation for us. It makes more sense for people to focus on theory and application over calculations.
Let’s try with a real life (but slightly simplified) math example taken from my mostly innumerate coworkers.
Problem:
2.5 + 2.5 = ?Many will answer “5”
My coworkers won’t type 4 extra keystrokes into their calculator, so they follow the written rounding rules (which shouldn’t apply here) and key in 3 + 3 = 6. Six. It’s six every time.
And they will argue it to the fucking death.
This is the depth of the problem. They have the tools to avoid doing math “in their head” and use their amazing modern tools but no conceptual understanding of the fundamental principles that will bring them from “2.5 is the same as 3 because I learned rounding!” to “there’s a fundamental difference between 2.5 and 3 if you’re trying to add them.” They just never came to that breakthrough understanding because no one taught them.
Sounds like a very specific case that I don’t see in the real world.
Not saying it doesn’t happen, but just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it’s a widespread problem.
Everyone I know, especially in a work setting, wouldn’t ‘round because they don’t want to type.’ Lol. That sounds like a shitty employee who has bigger problems than math.
you’re missing the forest due to the single example being given; kind of like their coworker missing the point about rounding. the lack of the fundamental understanding of mathematics is leading to this person making a mistake repeatedly and their insistence that they followed the rules (which they don’t actually understand don’t apply here) leads to confidently incorrect answers. these types of behaviors will show up repeatedly in many contexts.
Lol. I’m tired of explaining things to ya’ll.
Keep living in your own, neurodivergent bubble. You were going to anyways.
its amusing how you can’t realize you’re demonstrating the same behavior as the coworker.
It’s amazing how you don’t understand survivor bias, lol.
My kids learned these in 6th and 7th grade. But sure, it wasn’t the classes 6-7 years before college, it was only the ones 2-3 years ago…
Yeah the timing doesn’t work out for this to be pandemic related. These students would have been struggling with basic math in the middle of high school before the pandemic even started.
I took a semester off math in college and it was a huge mistake, the year off most kids had resulted in a huge backslide. It’s also important to remember that even pre pandemic the majority of kids weren’t competent in math to start with.
