Math STEM USA school

Les filièeres STEM (science, technologique, enginérie, et mathématique) comme d'autre secteurs sont la cible du féministe. Elle déploi les méthodes traditionnelle

- En premier elle s'indigne et condamne

- En deux elle dise aucune différence et elle en fond sur les méthodes scolaires

- En trois elle s'empare des programmes et contenu scolaire

- En quatre elle font des partenaraits avec les entreprises et les écoles qui ont tout les deux mis en place des normes ou des lois visant à féminiser une partie de leurs écoles et entreprise

Et enfin comme tout ceci est dans le but de combattre une discrimination systémique basé sur le genre elle pratique une discrimination systémique basée sur le genre mais qui soit n'existe pas, soit est légitime car il y a un genre qui n'est jamais discriminé par contre l'autre genre en dessous de 50 % c'est de la discrimination. Elle sanctuarise toute ceux qui compose une société au nom de l'égalité et impose leurs normes qui sont basées sur le genre et discriminatoire et des plafonds de verre imposés un genre par la loi ou par engagement c'est un plafond de verre.

Nous sommes opposés à un féministe inversé ou reproduisant leurs méthodes. Le nombre de professeurs masculins n'est pas une solution d'ailleurs c'est un argumentaire féministe et ceux qu'elle souhaite dans leurs cadres de leurs sociétés. Nous 90 % d'hommes dans une école et 75 % de professeurs femmes nous n'imposons rien. Nous accordons plus d'importance à la liberté de penser et d'apprendre et à des contenus et programmes scolaires qui aident garçons et filles et non qui remplissent des quotas ou qui soient spécifiques à un genre sans oublier qui non rien de légitime.

The purpose was to help advance girls in math and open up STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) opportunities for them. And the intentions were well meaning but—like so many educational movements—tend to focus more on girls than boys under the pretext of Title IX, which was never meant to discriminate between boys and girls but to ensure equal opportunities.

The Common Core approach was used when the SAT changed its format in 2016 to include more reading into the math section, even as data across the U.S. then and now shows that boys are having a harder time with reading. Much of the thinking and rhetoric in the educational system is still geared toward girls because there is a cultural belief that they are behind (even though that is not the case) and so there are constant policy pushes to help girls advance, often while ignoring the outcomes of boys. Despite decades of boys’ poorer performance in reading, school districts, policy makers, and media are not placing as great a focus on boys’ needs as they do programs like girls in STEM.

When students are penalized for not using the “preferred methods” of solving a problem, boys who cut to the chase when it comes to solving math problems are penalized by feign egalitarianism. A student may get an answer wrong and receive more points on a test because the student followed the teacher’s method. Another student may use a different approach, show the work, and get the answer correct and get fewer points. This example may seem simple for the purpose of brevity, but it may well explain the reason girls—in instances—are surpassing boys in math, even as boys and girls are showing downward trends in math in many districts.

https://gibm.substack.com/p/the-new-math

When my sons were in middle school and younger, Common Core math was being implemented all across the country, partly in response to closing math gaps between boys and girls. The purpose was to help advance girls in math and open up STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) opportunities for them. And the intentions were well meaning but—like so many educational movements—tend to focus more on girls than boys under the pretext of Title IX, which was never meant to discriminate between boys and girls but to ensure equal opportunities.

Implementing different approaches that help girls thrive is important, but not more important than helping boys thrive. The “new math” moved from math as a symbolic language to a language built on tasks and verbal skills in many instances that required greater communication between both hemispheres of the brain and other skills, where girls—in the aggregate—perform better than boys.

When one of my sons was in elementary school, I started to notice some challenges in his math tests and started looking at his assignments more closely. I sat down with him, and we reviewed the problems he was tasked to solve and the methodology. I realized that my son was not having a problem with math; he was having a problem with an approach that would not serve his boy brain well. Once I introduced a new approach, he was able to solve every problem or nearly every problem correctly. When he did make a mistake, it was a simple computational error where he immediately recognized his own mistake. The method I taught him is the one most of us probably learned as children and not teaching it at all seemed peculiar to me. And in many instances, it removed millions of parents from being able to help their children.

Using Common Core involved implementing so many more steps that the problems took significantly more time and increased the chances of a computational error or the possibility of an increased writing error—not because of a lack of knowledge—but because of other factors that have less to do with math and more to do with sustained attention to tasks and other skills where boys are less likely to shine. The same could certainly happen with girls, but the challenges seem to happen to boys who are prone to moving and distractions.

When I told my son to use the method I learned as a child, he said, “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble.” There was a palpable fear of disappointing his teacher—of getting in trouble and being penalized for not solving a problem a specific way. Pleasing the teacher—to him—became more important than solving the problem.

At that moment, I asked my son to walk across the room and pick up a shoe he left by the sofa and return it to me. I then set a few chairs in his way and made him walk circuitously to get the other shoe and bring it back to me. I then asked him which way was the better way to get the shoe and why? His response: “The first way because it is more direct.” I asked, do you think some people would like to go the other way? He said, “I guess, but why?”

The “new math” is like retrieving shoes, but students are not being given the choice to pick the direct or circuitous routes across the room. For the most part, students are being given directives that disproportionately impacts boys. I found this peculiar because our educational institutions are always talking about differentiated instruction for children, the pedagogical approach that looks at employing strategies that helps each child thrive. That’s hard to do when classes are large and the tasks are using processes that may be less geared to boys.

A multiplication problem using a Common Core approach might look like the two examples below in blue and red. One can see the circuitous routes that might trip a student up as many more steps are required. Because boys’ brains tend to operate in independent hemispheres and girls’ brains involve more cross-communication from one hemisphere to the next and back, these long sustained math approaches will favor them more so than boys.

The typical approach, at least the one I learned and display below, worked well for my son and required far fewer steps and allowed him to exercise his knowledge of multiplication more efficiently, at least for him. The examples above have some purpose as well when it comes to thinking about math in different ways that require varying degrees of reasoning. But when it comes to solving a problem, students need more than a one size fits all approach. When we restrict different tactics, the system imposes limitations on solutions in a world where there are many ways to solve problems and in a world where we need many people who can solve problems in different ways.

I once worked at a high school that used a program called the Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP). After years of use and declining math scores, the program was scrapped. Too often, students are the subjects of programs designed for the few but applied to the many.

Many of the other parents I spoke with were noticing the same challenges with Common Core. The Common Core approach engaged a host of other skills beyond math, like being able to write out problems horizontally down an entire page in layers and layers. And if one looks at handwriting in schools, one will also notice a difference between boys and girls in the aggregate. In the Common Core examples above, I solved them vertically and horizontally. In some instances, however, teachers wanted these problems solved vertically. A math problem that would take up 1/9 of a page would suddenly become a problem that would take up at least 1/3 of a page. Suddenly students were cramming their numbers onto the page.

Things like memorizing multiplication tables were a thing of the past. And as one father (who uses math for a living) shared with me, his daughter was not required to memorize her multiplication tables and certain math facts and—as a result— she has been uncomfortable with math ever since. Memorizing multiplication tables, one could argue, is like having sticky notes in your brain that aid students on their math journey.

The goal is not to introduce practices that favor some at the expense of others, but to introduce approaches that allow boys and girls to succeed and find a real love of learning while acquiring skills. Even if a student does not love math, giving students different ways to attack a problem allows for creativity and problem solving in more than one way and—at the least—a way to solve problems that helps them achieve goals and moves students toward a mental oriented model. By engaging learners with different approaches, teachers and parents can help students use the techniques that work best in crunch time.

he graphs below follow the math progress of students who started in third grade in 2014-15 and will graduate in 2024. The data includes two school districts with different demographics as well as the state of California. (I would encourage parents in their districts to use this same approach or reach out to seank@gibm.us to analyze your district data).

Livermore Joint Unified School District: Data includes the progress of approximately 1,000 students who started in third-grade in 2014-15 and will graduate from high school in 2024.

Oakland Unified School District: Data includes the progress of approximately 2,200 students who started in third-grade in 2014-15 and will graduate in 2024.

California Schools: Data includes the progress of approximately 440,000 students who started in third-grade in 2014-15 and will graduate in 2024.

Here are a few suggestions for teachers and math.

Whenever possible, offer students more than one way to solve a problem.

If a student shows his work and gets the answer correct, do not penalize the student. Penalizing a student who gets a problem correct and shows his work demoralizes the student, stifles creativity, and further alienates him from the world of education, creativity, and problem solving.

If a student uses a particular method, award the student extra-credit for doing so or allow a student to redo the problems after the test when the pressure of getting answers correct is off the table and the student can focus on the method.

Track what methods boys and girls are using in your classes and see if you notice patterns. This is something you can actually do with your students.

Consider introducing a boys and girls learn differently approach into your classroom and your district.