New math? What was wrong with the old math?

[Intrepid]

A couple months ago I was astounded to discover the massive degradation that has occurred within the public school system. Now that I'm home schooling, I'm astounded to discover the "new" teaching methods being utilized to help students understand math.

Math is intimidating to most people. I get this. In fact, I spent much of my own life, up until my college years, feeling quite intimidated by math. (Eventually I minored in the subject. Go figure!) But the one thing I have always appreciated about math is that fact that it deals exclusively in absolutes. There are no grey areas. When you calculate an equation repeatedly you will continue to get the same answer every time. It's the one aspect of life that is truly predictable and consistent... until now.

Last year, as my son spent his 3rd grade in the local public school, I became rather irritated by some of the math homework he was bringing home from school. Front-end estimation? What the heck is that? I had never heard of it before, and what he explained of it seemed a little too simplistic to be accurate, but without an instruction sheet to further explain the concept I had to go with what he'd said. I remember speaking with his 3rd grade teacher about his math, and she concurred that they were being forced to introduce and teach some "new concepts" that she felt did more to confuse the kids than help them. Hmm....

Fast forward to this year - My son's home school materials are quite different from the ones being used by the public school, yet amazingly this "new concepts" are still being introduced.... and they're still doing little more than confusing my son. In many cases they do little more than add an extra step to the process, thus requiring more time to complete each problem, and have left my son asking me, "Why do I have to do this instead of just solve this problem?" Good question! Why indeed? Where is the benefit of not just solving the problem, but also rounding to estimate, and then also using front end estimation to create yet another estimate?

I understand that estimating results can be useful in a practical, every day sense on occasion, but I also understand that relying on estimates instead of calculating answers can prove disastrous and it just seems to me that an awful lot of time is being devoted to instructing students to estimate their way through life at the risk of ignoring the importance of determining the actual results. Imagine estimating how much money you have to pay your bills and shop with only to discover that you've overdrawn your account. Imagine estimating the measurements in a building or remodeling project only to find at the end that nothing is square and nothing fits.

I asked my son's new teacher about all this estimating in math as I certainly don't recall devoting this much time to it when I was in school, and I was a pretty good math student my whole life. As with my son's previous teacher I have been told that "the experts" decided that it would be easier for kids to learn math if they first learned multiple methods of estimating the answers. Really? The experts think this is easier? How amazing... especially given that math scores have been declining steadily since the introduction of "new math". This is one area in which I think sticking to the traditional lessons... and the absolutes... would be far more beneficial. But hey, what do I know? I'm not an "expert", but just a mom and learning coach who actually listens to and observes kids when they struggle through this stuff. I couldn't possibly know more than the "experts"... right?