Dr. Karl Miller just added an excellent article titled “Parenting tips for special needs kids with math disabilities.” Please read it. 

But let me offer a caveat: math instruction in public schools turns almost EVERYONE into a special needs kid.

As Dr. Miller states: “Math is the most poorly taught subject in school, particularly in elementary school. Research has proven that elementary teachers are uncomfortable with math—not only with teaching math, but with using mathematical principles in their own lives. In fact, many elementary teachers suffer from math anxiety themselves. Therefore, most elementary teachers are not good influences on the mathematical learning and attitudes of their students.” Point is, the teachers themselves are in a way special needs people, made so by the math instruction they received just 10 or 15 years before.

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 I’m glad to have this hook, as they say in the newspaper business. Dr. Miller’s views give context and credence for several things I’ve been working on recently.

I like cutting to the bottom line, so let me sum up my conclusions this way: math instruction is a failure, a scandal, and I suspect a con. I had thought that Whole Word (which keeps so many children from reading) was the paradigm for awfulness. But the gimmicks devised by our Education Establishment to teach arithmetic are a close second. 

The more I looked at New Math, which came and went around 1965, the more I felt it was just a pile of nonsense. More to the point now, I realized that it never went away. What the Education Establishment called Reform Math, circa 1990, was just a warmed-over version of New Math, and still just as awful. 

Reform Math, which is actually a dozen separate curricula, was based on the so-called Standards created by the National Council of Teachers of Math. The NCTM constantly badgers the states to make them adopt these Standards. Now the federal government has jumped in with its National Standards and Common Core Standards, which are more of the same. Think Sub-Standards.

Figuring out the bloodlines and distinctions is not that relevant. The main thing to realize is that New Math was based on the idea of teaching little children how to do arithmetic by teaching them about set theory, Boolean algebra, base-8, and  many other things not traditionally learned until high school or college. This is the lethal sophistry that the NCTM has tried-- with depressing success-- to insinuate into every classroom. I believe this sophistry is dangerous and should be stopped immediately.

Children should learn basic arithmetic, using every trick, game, song and digital technology you can throw at the problem. But kids shouldn’t go on to the more advanced stuff until they master the simple stuff.

Two years ago, I wrote “36: The Assault on Math (on Improve-education.org), where I noted an astonishing parallel: the Education Establishment had embraced unworkable methods to teach reading and as well to teach arithmetic. Maybe they weren’t acting in good faith. ( www.improve-education.org/id60.html )

Two months ago I tracked down two of the books written circa 1964 to explain to kids and parents the ins and outs of New Math. Both these books are grotesque to me. I simply can’t believe a sensible, sincere adult would use any of these methods in the first, second and third grades. In the middle grades, you might introduce a few of them. (But remember that 50 years ago, these topics were taught only in high school and college, and standards were much higher then. So our so-called experts have dumbed down the schools and then insisted on the preposterous idea that in a dumbed-down school, you should suddenly start teaching things that are 10 grades ahead of the children.) Anyway, I reviewed both these books on Amazon. Here is a link to the more provocative review. Especially read this one. (http://www.amazon.com/teachers-parents-elementary-school-children/product-reviews/B0007DO4K2/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 ) in

Last week I added another math article to my site “53: Education Establishment Hates Math,” which extends some of these points.

 Almost simultaneously, as a thought experiment, I wrote a piece for hubpages.com called “Price’s Easy Arithmetic For First Graders" (http://hubpages.com/hub/PricesEasyArithmetic ) I suggest you could teach all of first-grade arithmetic using only US coins. This was just to make the point that all the  bewildering complexity is in no way helpful or necessary.

Now I find myself working on a even bigger article which will be published in a week or two. You can see I became quite obsessed with the teaching of arithmetic. In examining this stuff, you are able to look into the heart of darkness. And math is hot now. There are a lot of stories in the daily press about the National Standards, and how the government is throwing money at the states to make them capitulate. Even worse, local newspapers (mine in Norfolk is particularly egregious) push for the wrong side. You can go on the internet (corestandards.org) and read some of the empty prose. Many states are fighting back; I urge you to encourage your governor to resist.

Here is just a single Standard from a single state for the FIRST GRADE. The thing to note is the hostility of the prose; and try to imagine the teachers Dr. Miller talked about explaining to anyone what they themselves are supposedly doing.

"Demonstrates conceptual understanding of rational numbers with respect to: whole numbers from 0 to 100 using place value, by applying the concepts of equivalency in composing or decomposing numbers; and in expanded notation using models, explanations, or other representations; and positive fractional numbers (benchmark fractions: a/2, a/3, or a/4, where a is a whole number greater than 0 and less than or equal to the denominator) as a part to whole relationship in area models where the denominator is equal to the number of parts in the whole using models, explanations, or other representations."

Cold. Very cold.

How do people know you are paying attention?  What do you look like when paying attention?  How do you feel when you pay attention?  All too often, students with ADD and ADHD can’t answer these questions.

In order to really get control of their ability to devote the right amount of attention to a task at the right time, students must understand how their body looks and feels when they pay attention.
The following role playing activity can encourage students’ insights by drawing their attention to the body language that illustrates strong listening.

Have your child play the role of the speaker, reading two or three paragraphs from a book or article.  The parent will take the role of the listener.  As you listen to what your child is reading, talk about the behaviors that show you are listening (see below for a list), and use a digital recorder to record your observations.

Play the recorder for your child and model each behavior again as it is mentioned on the recording.  Draw your child’s attention to each aspect of your behavior that illustrates you are paying attention.
Now it’s time to change roles.  You are the speaker and your child is the listener.  Play the recorder and ask your child to demonstrate the behaviors he hears on the recording.  Practice until your child shows he understands and can model the correct behaviors.

Make a list of attentive behaviors and post in your child’s room to refer to during homework and put a copy in the front of every notebook or binder.

How does attentive behavior look to others?

The following signs of good attention are easy to demonstrate and observe:

• Eyes focused on the speaker and/or the visual material (such as textbook, board, etc.)
• Sitting upright, feet on floor, hands on desk or in lap
• Head level or tilted slightly to one side
• Response or reaction is “on topic” and appropriate to the context (e.g., taking notes during note taking sessions)
• Physical activity (hands or body) assists understanding (many students with ADHD use note-taking or doodling to increase attentiveness rather than keeping their hands and body completely still)

How often has your child said, “I don’t like math!” “I just don’t get math!” I can’t learn math!”

Compared to reading, parents are more tolerant of problems in math. But math is very important in children’s lives and future careers. Many of the fastest growing occupations require math through algebra and even calculus.

Math is the most cumulative subject in school. Therefore, if your special needs child falls behind, he is particularly prone to developing “gaps” in knowledge that will haunt him in future years.

Elementary teachers do a poor job of teaching math

Math is the most poorly taught subject in school, particularly in elementary school. Research has proven that elementary teachers are uncomfortable with math—not only with teaching math, but with using mathematical principles in their own lives. In fact, many elementary teachers suffer from math anxiety themselves. Therefore, most elementary teachers are not good influences on the mathematical learning and attitudes of their students.

The combination of a teacher’s poor understanding of mathematical concepts, inadequate knowledge of teaching methods in mathematics, and limited knowledge about modifying teaching approaches to reach learners with atypical learning profiles can create dismal results for special needs children. 

Tip #1

Stress to your children the importance of mathematics in their lives and careers.

Jobs in science and technology require a strong knowledge of math, and play a vital role in the advancements that give us our standard of living. Students who understand mathematics have dramatically more career opportunities than students whose math abilities are weak.

The level of math sophistication is much greater for today’s students

Because the nature of math education has morphed dramatically since most parents went to school, often parents find themselves beginning to struggle with math concepts when their child reaches middle school.

If a special needs child has struggles with math, parents need to face the harsh truth that they may not stand in the ideal position to help their child themselves, particularly when math becomes conceptually difficult. Due to the history in the US of poor math teaching, parents may have limited knowledge of mathematics and may not appreciate the central role math plays in the lives of today’s citizens.

Tip #2

If you are finding that you do not completely understand the work your child is bringing home, you should bow out of the “direct teaching” role. Direct teaching involves explaining concepts and procedures to your child, much as a teacher or tutor would. If you don’t fully understand the math you are teaching your child, you and your child run the risk of ingraining inaccurate beliefs and inefficient habits that can take months to undo.

Math anxiety is rampant in the U.S.

Did you know that at least 66% of adults have strong negative feelings about math! This is largely due to poor teaching adults received in school. These negative feelings are easy to communicate to your child. When children feel negative about a school subject, they unconsciously engage in self-sabotaging behaviors such as tuning out in class, not doing their homework, not asking questions when they don’t understand, and not practicing the concepts and skills enough to make them automatic.

This starts a vicious cycle of failure…as the student “back away” from learning math, he or she begins to fall behind in learning, and this creates even more dislike and avoidance. Eventually, what’s called learned helplessness sets in.

This enemy robs a child of their power. This beast whispers in a child’s ear phrases such as “you’re stupid” “you’ll never learn this stuff” “who are you kidding, you don’t need this” and the ever-present “this is boring”

These self-destructive messages tear at a child’s resolve, limit what he or she can learn, and reduce future educational and career options.

Tip #3

If you have negative feelings about math, make a conscious effort to change these feelings, and encourage your children to feel positively about math. Praise your child’s efforts, especially when the going is tough.

Math has to “make sense” in order for your child to want to learn it

Students respond to a program that puts understanding and enjoyment into math. They benefit from meaningful learning experiences that overcome frustration with “math that just doesn’t make sense.” They learn concepts and computation more quickly from real life situations.

Tip #4

Show children how math is used in their lives.

At stores, have them develop mental arithmetic skills by adding up the cost of a few items, by estimating sales tax, or by figuring out the cost of one can of soda from the price of a six-pack.

Put some fun into math by playing games while riding in the car or standing in line. For “Guess My Secret Identity,” give your child clues such as, “When divided by three, I’m equal to your age,” or “If you add 22 to me, I’m the length of a football field.” Be playful and creative and have your child make up riddles for you to solve.

“Summing in all up”

Special needs kids want to succeed in life and their parents want to do everything possible to help them succeed. If you are among the majority of parents who have negative attitudes toward math, feel your math skills are inadequate, and express your feelings opening to your child, I urge you to make every effort to eliminate these tendencies from your parenting repertoire!

Even if you have, up until now, suffered from the power-robbing demon of math self-doubt, your children can learn math skills and can appreciate the wonderful role math plays in their lives. But they can’t do it without your support and encouragement!

Many ESL students study social studies it’s a vital subject because it teaches them to appreciate the increasingly complex world around them as they grow up. But ESL social studies at times often takes second place to that of science, biology and other subjects. This is because social offers fewer opportunities for practical work apart from looking  around a globe looking for their own country and places they would like to visit.

Social studies offers more subjects that are of an abstract nature and if the lessons are content based then this involves students having to participate in discussions, writing, grammar syntax and other activities which creates and develops their critical thinking. Students in southern Thailand studying colonialism, may have no previous knowledge of why there is such a British influence on certain African and other countries. But if one puts their mind to it there are some things you can do to enhance the lesson to make it more interesting.  

To help them study better ask them to read up about the subject in their own language first. This schema idea makes it far more easier for them to understand it in English when its your turn to teach it. By having an understanding of the subject they get the general idea and when you are teaching it, they can develop a sense of anticipation that you can exploit by asking them to answer your questions from what they have read and this breeds excitement and gives the teacher an opportunity to praise them for making the effort to speak.     

Recently I was teaching a 9th grade class about the scramble for Africa and why it has been so poor and underdeveloped. In-particular I was making references to the exploitation of its natural resources. I printed out a map of Africa and stapled candies around the edge of the map. I gave each candy a name. One was diamonds, one was gold, one was natural resources, one was slavery, one was wood and a few more just for effect. The students were grouped with each group representing a European country. With the map on a table in the centre of the room and the word ‘’GO’’ they had to scramble to the table and take as much of the natural resources as they wanted, of course the scramble was quite effective. It was a good way to teach them the word scramble and exploitation at the same time.

The ultimate goal of parenting is to raise your child to live a successful and healthy love filled life. Our parents are here to protect us from the harm of others and the harm of ourselves. However, protecting our children too much can have a very negative impact on our lives especially when it comes to drug abuse. A lot of parents are against drug education because they want to believe that drugs will never be an issue in their child’s life.  If we don’t expose our children to the unfavorable consequences of drug abuse, the more naïve our society becomes. 

    Have you ever been affected by someone who was addicted to drugs?  Maybe you have even found yourself to be addicted at one time, or maybe you are addicted right at this moment to a substance that you just can’t kick. Sometimes the world puts us between a rock and a hard spot and leaves us feeling hopeless with no one to turn to. The effects of drug abuse should be brought to the attention of teenagers on a regular basis. Do you remember in grade school the little drug abuse resistance and education spill we got from a local law enforcement official? This is not enough education to guide us all the way through high school. Roger Tompson, in the periodical Teen Drug Addiction, conveys that teenage drug addictions run in long chains, so the teenage years are the best time to either break or stop the chain from happening. The only way for America to fight off drug addiction is to make it mandatory for all high school students to continually take drug abuse classes each year.

James discusses exactly what to do when your children get in trouble for fighting at school or at home—and the right kinds of consequences to give them so they learn to use appropriate behavior instead of lashing out when they feel like hitting someone the next time. Read on to find out the steps you can take toward resolving the problem of fighting at school, plus get advice on how to handle fights that break out between siblings at home!

When your children use fighting or other negative physical behavior as their main coping skills, you’ll find that it usually doesn’t stop at home—they will use it at school, in the neighborhood, on the ball field or at the mall. If your son uses physical fighting, for example, or your daughter uses verbal abuse in place of the problem-solving skills they need to learn in order to function successfully as adults—skills like communication, negotiation and compromise—make no mistake, you need to address this problem immediately. If you don’t, understand that it’s as if your children will be entering the world with a couple of hammers to handle their problems, when what they really need is a wide range of sophisticated tools in order to be successful.

How to Handle Fighting at School and at Home: 7 Tools You Can Use Today

When your child is disciplined at school for getting into a fight, I think the absolute best thing you can do is first find out from the school exactly what happened. That way, you’ll have a framework for your eventual discussion with your child.

Your Spanish students will always need to practice the differences between “Ser” and “Estar”.  The following activity involves your class describing famous people using both of these all so important verbs.

 Before Staring the Activity:

 Before going right into this, review the differences between “Ser” and “Estar”.  Give examples on the board of how “Ser” would be used in describing people.  Do the same with “Estar”.  Make sure everyone is clear on this and that examples are written for everyone to see.  Break your class up into groups of twos or threes.  These groups will then decide on three or four famous people from history, or from modern day pop culture, that they want to talk about.  Give the class about five minutes to decide on their famous people to describe.  Let each group know that the rest of the class should not know who they have chosen.  Other students will be guessing the identity of the mystery person described by listening to the clues read out loud.  From my experience, most students don’t have a problem with this.  For some reason they like keeping secrets from the rest of the class!

 Incorporating the Verbs Ser and Estar in the Descriptions:

 Once each group is happy with their selection of famous characters tell them to write out four sentences describing these people using the verb “Ser”.  From the examples you wrote on the board, students will see that these sentences will involve stating where the person is from, what his physical characteristics are, their nationality and what his job is.  To get everyone involved you can have one student draw the person being described, another person writing the sentences and yet another student looking up words in the book. 

 Now that the descriptive sentences are completed with the verb “Ser”, tell the class to do the same thing with the verb “Estar”.  Again, from the examples you gave on the board students will see that for each character they will be providing information on the emotional state this person may be in now, where he is right now and what he may be doing at this exact moment (present progressive).  For each character there are now eight or so sentences.  Four include the verb “Ser” and four include the verb “Estar”.

 Presentation/Getting Everyone Involved:

 Select a group to present one of their characters.  Have a student read a descriptive sentence with “Ser” and one with “Estar”.  If nobody in the room has guessed who is being described have another student read the next two sentences.  Make a rule that each group member has to read at least one sentence.  If the class is really stumped have one student present the picture created during the sentence making time.  If nothing else, this will get everyone’s attention!  Each group will go through this process until all of the characters have been described.

 Post Activity Strategies:

 Let your students have fun with this.  The class will get loud because people get excited when talking about famous characters and pop stars.  As long as the entire class is listening intently to the  Spanish sentences being read, they are getting great practice.  In most cases this happens without them even knowing it!  Use some of the sentences created by students in your warm up the next day.  By completing this exercise you will find out who the students are interested in.  Each day have the class describe these people using the target verbs.  Good luck and have fun!

“Music, dance, drama, and story are the oldest ways human beings learned to pass on information, traditions, customs, and beliefs…. In the vocabulary of some Native American and African languages, there is no word for art, because art is part of everything the people do. Children are natural connectors. Similarly, they see the performing arts as part of everything they do” (Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld; article: Derry Koralek Young Children, March 2010, p. 10).

As we continue our series on Fine Arts, let’s examine how creative and dramatic play is beneficial to children’s learning. Do you remember playing dress-up or performing for your friends and parents? Take a walk down memory lane with us while we talk about some products that will be great in your preschool or daycare center’s outdoor classroom.

I am making a passionate plea to parents and teachers who believe that schooling is the alpha and omega of a child’s life.  Often, schools have convinced students and parents that a child’s focus must exclusively be centered on academic concerns during every waking hour.

This is not a question of whether a quality academic program plays an integral role in the life of our children.  However, do parents and teachers understand the necessity of creating a climate so that children are able to find balance in their lives?  Schooling, as important as it is, should not be the only focus of a child’s daily lifestyle.  There should be more to a child’s life than teaching, learning, and the reaction of parents to a child’s academic performance.

Have you gotten "the call" from your child's school? Janet Lehman, MSW talks frankly about how she and her husband James dealt with it when their son had trouble at school.

In September of our son’s third grade year, we got the phone call from his teacher. She said she was really concerned about our child’s chances of passing that year. I was shocked, angry and anxious—and terribly embarrassed, both as a mother and a social worker who “should have known” what was going on. I immediately took the stance of viewing myself as the victim in the situation. In fact, very quickly it became all about me.