Primary school maths: A vicious circle (from TODAY May 8)

[peapot]

In our university days, weren’t we tested on what was taught? AND when the lecturer was in a good mood he might even drop hints what will come out for exams. The primary school kids are having a harder time than uni students?

[Pris.011283tang]

Suz855:

Sorry, I cannot agree w u, our children drink expensive milk powder wit DHA ...etc .... They are suppose to help in brain development blah blah blah .. So how can their brain grow smaller


:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

Dont say my kids drink all this so expensive milk powder my granny been telling everyone i drink s26 when i was small so my brain also cannot be growing smaller

[peapot]

Wah! Did I read correctly? are you implying that All the parents and children in this forum are small brain?? Think you can argue your case but no need for insult.

[Pris.011283tang]

peapot:

Wah! Did I read correctly? are you implying that All the parents and children in this forum are small brain?? Think you can argue your case but no need for insult.

Peapot i am not implying anything hope i did not hurt u in anyway

[Suz855]

Deleted

[peapot]

Hah? Now I m confused. Are you lookingfortutor? I thot she was the one who say that?

[Pris.011283tang]

peapot:

Hah? Now I m confused. Are you lookingfortutor? I thot she was the one who say that?

Nope cause my post was above urs mah lol misunderstanding then

[Laura02]

Chenonceau:

Laura02:

I agreed that learning the model method is quite challenging, but how can we expect our kids to master the model method, if we ourselves give up on trying to learn it. What sort of message are we giving our kids if we say to them \" Ah girl or Ah boy, mummy and daddy don't understand your maths, but die-die you must not only learn it, but must also score 100% for Maths.\" it isn't fair to them.

So the expectation is that every parent must all learn the content in primary school so we can teach our kids? In that case, what is the school for?

You actually KNOW parents who don't bother to help their kids... who don't bother to gve their kids tuition AND still expect their kids to score 100? Then who is funding the billion dollar tuition industry?

And if your child fails Math, you will look at him and say... \"It's ok. Fail, is fail lor... you're just not capable. I am not giving you tuition nor extra help. Go ask your school.\"

IMHO, every situation, every circumstance is a learning opportunity. We spend all our lives learning ... and teaching ...

I accept your point of view. Your sarcasm hurts. I was merely stating my point of view. Which is : don't expect your child to do what you yourself cannot do. I empathise with the child.

In truth, I am waiting for my child to fail, or at least, to not do as well as she expects to. Perhaps I am idealistic, or naive, but I hope that she'll learn to pick herself up and motivate herself to do better. You see, I believe in learning from my mistakes, my failures. I hope that she learns resilience from having failed. I am sorry that failure does not always motivate, but that is an individual response. But its good that there is a diversity in experiences, and responses, and opinions. Even if I am a lone voice.

[atutor2001]

My kids are in their twenties now. I thought them math some 10 over years ago. A year before my eldest’s PSLE, the question on 1+2+…+99 came out in PSLE. The next day, our local press was swarmed with complaints. Today, if a P6 kid can’t solve that, he/she is in trouble. Yet we have parents here saying that there is not much change in the PSLE math standard. Very funny.


I learnt the model method to teach my kids. Luck for me, my eldest’s math teacher taught them the "unit method". He is a great teacher who accept all methods. He went on to become GEP teacher and is now in MOE. I have said this many times in this forum and am going to say it again. Model is not a mathematical method. It is an explanatory tool to promote understanding. How it become a tool for solving math amazed me. In reality, we need to know the way to the solution in order to draw the model. Simply starting with model to get to the solution of a complex problem sum is near impossible. Parents are hook winked by model solution because it is a great "tool for explanation". I saw some funny terms like internal transfer, constant total, constant change/difference… in this forum and when to browse through the math assess books. I was saddened. They were categorising each problem type and giving them names, each with a specific solving method. How many types of question do we expect the poor kid to memorise. Yet many parents here are praising the wonder of models. Very funny.

[corneyAmber]

Laura02:

IMHO, every situation, every circumstance is a learning opportunity. We spend all our lives learning ... and teaching ...

I accept your point of view. Your sarcasm hurts. I was merely stating my point of view. Which is : don't expect your child to do what you yourself cannot do. I empathise with the child.

In truth, I am waiting for my child to fail, or at least, to not do as well as she expects to. Perhaps I am idealistic, or naive, but I hope that she'll learn to pick herself up and motivate herself to do better. You see, I believe in learning from my mistakes, my failures. I hope that she learns resilience from having failed. I am sorry that failure does not always motivate, but that is an individual response. But its good that there is a diversity in experiences, and responses, and opinions. Even if I am a lone voice.

Do not be dishearten Laura, there are people who share your views. I do. I agree that we should not expect our children to do what we cannot do and I often wonder why some parents push their children so hard on things they could not achieve themselves but driving their dreams through their kids, so I have respect for parents who would try and then guide. I later realise that there is one category of parents who are not exactly expecting their children to do what they cannot do but there is a lot of expectations from some schools as well. As mentioned a few times, the problems we face with today's education is not one-dimensional, there are many who contributed to the problem, in fact every category of people has culprits though it may not be everyone in that category as in not all are parents, not all are teachers, not all are schools...etc...but certainly everyone is dragged along in the process.....

I would like to continue to hear your viewpoints. Diverse views give a balanced approach to all problem solving. cheers!