A few days ago, Phil Gonsalves, Mathematics instructor at the
California State University, East Bay and instructor for the San
Benito County Math Initiative (SBCMI), addressed the audience at
the San Benito High School District governing board meeting.
By Stan Rose
A few days ago, Phil Gonsalves, Mathematics instructor at the California State University, East Bay and instructor for the San Benito County Math Initiative (SBCMI), addressed the audience at the San Benito High School District governing board meeting. He stated that although people hate to admit it when they can’t read, it seems to be perfectly acceptable to say to our children, “I just can’t do math.” Phil Gonsalves passionately exhorted the audience that we have to change that culture. “It gives our children permission to not try to do math, and that is simply unacceptable.” He said children who can’t do math simply haven’t been asked to think mathematically. Rather, they have been asked to learn rules about solving problems, without understanding the math behind them.
Mr. Gonsalves went on to tell a story. “Stay with me,” he said. “There is a point to this story!”
There’s an old story about a young girl helping her mom cook dinner. The mother is making a roast, and before she puts the roast in the pan, she cuts off the end of the roast. The young girl asks, “Why do you cut off the end of the roast?” The mother, always honest, says, “I don’t really know. I do it because your grandmother always did it.” The daughter suggests that they call the grandmother, which they do. “Why do you cut off the end of the roast, grandma?” the young girl asks. The grandmother says, “I don’t really know. I do it because your great grandmother always did it.” Amazingly, the great grandmother is still alive and well (from eating lots of pot roast, perhaps). The young girl asks her great grandmother the same question, but this time gets a different answer. The great grandmother tells her, “I cut the end of the roast because the roast was too big for my roasting pan.” Mystery solved, but lots of wasted roast.
Mr. Gonsalves concluded, “This is what we do to our kids in math. Unfortunately, students often learn mathematics in a similar way-they mimic what they’ve been taught without really understanding the underlying concepts, patterns, and reasoning. Think about all the “rules” you learned: carry the one, bring down the zero, cross multiply, multiply by the reciprocal and on and on. Why do you do these things? If you’re like most people, you don’t really know, you are just doing what you have always done.”
SBCMI seeks to change that paradigm. Using multiple methods to solve problems, students in the SBCMI project are not only being taught how to solve the problem, they are being taught how to think mathematically. And that thinking is essential if we are to be competitive in the global economy in which we now all live and compete.
After the first year of program implementation, it might appear as though results on the state’s standardized test in math have been mixed, until one digs a little deeper into the data. One should remember that the state holds that students should have successfully completed Algebra I by the time they complete 8th grade. Working off that standard, if one compares 10th graders who have completed Algebra II in spring 2011 to 10th graders in the same subject from spring 2010, the percentage of those 10th graders considered proficient or advanced in Algebra II increased over 2010. Not only were scores higher than the previous year-and ahead of the state averages for Algebra II-San Benito High School enrolled a higher percentage of 10th graders into Algebra II! In doing so, one might expect those scores to go down, but they went up. Ninth graders taking Geometry experienced a similar result in similar circumstances.
These gains also exposed an exasperating problem. Grade 9 Algebra I students’ results decreased in 2011, compared to the previous year. Although this may be anticipated, given that more students are being advanced into Geometry or Algebra II, thereby leaving those who struggle more in math to take Algebra I, this is not an acceptable outcome. The San Benito High School Math Department teachers have taken some bold steps to resolve this problem. Within Algebra I course expectations and syllabi this year, teachers are including a letter to parents, informing them that, if their students are struggling and in danger of not passing Algebra I, parents will receive a letter early on in the course, informing them of the problem and inviting them to send their students to participate in a math boot camp on two succeeding Saturdays. At those boot camps, students will receive specialized teaching from excellent teachers, supported by SBCMI coaches, Dr. Gonsalves, and trained student tutors who excel in math. Affected students can improve their grades in math class by demonstrating at the end of the boot camps that they know the material.
Department Chair Dan Quinn, SBCMI coaches Andrea Harrington and Kathy Picchi, Department Liaison Debbie Fisher, Principal Krystal Lomanto, and the entire administration, are all supporting this effort.
In the meantime, what can parents of math students do at home? The first and most important thing is never tell your child that you, their parent, can’t do math, even if it is true that you struggle in the subject. We cannot give our children permission to fail. We all have to assume that we can do math. If you spend a little time with Phil Gonsalves, as the SBCMI community has, he can convince just about anybody that understanding math is not only doable, it’s easy!
So let it be for all our children. Let’s all say we can do math, and then, let’s prove it by supporting their efforts.
Dr. Stan Rose, Superintendent, San Benito School District
