elementary school math-fact challenges
Feb. 7th, 2013 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Here's what I don't get: I've been told that the MCAS is un-timed. (Is this true?)
If this is so, why is there so much emphasis on doing the math-fact sheets as fast as possible? Timing them and so forth? For some kids, rising to the challenge will work. But there are some kids (such as Sophia, and at least one other kid you know...) for whom the timer causes so much activation of the sympathetic nervous system that it impairs both performance and learning. In a big way.
Mathematicians are not judged on speed. So why is math treated like a track event in 2nd grade?
If this is so, why is there so much emphasis on doing the math-fact sheets as fast as possible? Timing them and so forth? For some kids, rising to the challenge will work. But there are some kids (such as Sophia, and at least one other kid you know...) for whom the timer causes so much activation of the sympathetic nervous system that it impairs both performance and learning. In a big way.
Mathematicians are not judged on speed. So why is math treated like a track event in 2nd grade?
no subject
Date: 2013-02-12 09:59 pm (UTC)I figure I'm just weird. I certainly never tried to explain this to an adult.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-12 10:11 pm (UTC)I pretty much flunked timed worksheets.
My dad is a mathematician, and I felt much better when he told me that not only does he stink at arithmetic but that most of the "real" mathematicians he knows stink at arithmetic, and that I was going to be really good at the conceptual stuff later. And lo, I was.