About two months ago, I asked the question “Are Asians Better At Math?” The answer would appear to be yes (though some disagree). The book I was reading suggested that while young Asian students do perform better at math than students in Western schools (once you account for differences in socio-economic status and yada yada), the reasons were nothing whatsoever to do with ethnicity.
Instead, as I outlined in the earlier blog post,
- Teacher training in many Asian countries continues throughout the teacher’s career.
- American teachers spend more time in front of students, hence less time in preparation, training, self-analysis or self-improvement.
- Good teaching techniques are more widely adopted in East Asia than in the USA.
- Students from an East Asian background work harder, whether they are still in East Asia or growing up in the West.
So the truth of the matter is this –
- Students whose teachers enjoy lifelong training, perform better at math.
This seems perfectly reasonable. Currently it happens that teachers in many Asian countries (by no means all!) enjoy lifelong teacher training. In the future, there’s no reason why a school disctrict or education department can make teacher training a higher priority than before (whether they have lots of cash or not), and so, eventually, improve the quality of their students.
Secondly,
- Students whose teachers spend more time preparing, analysing their own performance and improving, perform better at math. Teachers in American schools have less time for preparation, self-analysis and self-improvement than teachers in some Asian countries.
I’ve seen for myself the tug-of-war between giving teachers more time in front of students versus more time for other activities. More time in front of students means fewer teachers are needed to “cover the hours”. It becomes cheaper to run a school, college or university that way. It becomes cheaper to “educate” kids, if “education” means “cover a standard curriculum”. However, the quality of education goes down. That is, you get what you pay for. The best place I ever taught at, in terms of student outcomes, also had the teachers in front of students for the lowest amount of time, and charged the highest tuition fees. Teachers and others concerned for student welfare should fight any move to overburden educators. We should insist that teachers be given proper opportunities to become better teachers – on an ongoing basis. This will, of course, mean more teachers are needed, and teacher salaries will rise, but that’s not why we’re arguing this case 😉
Next, we have
- Students who are taught using good teaching techniques, do better at math. Currently, some Asian countries are adopting more modern, better techniques faster than some Western countries.
There’s been a lot of research done in the past few decades on the psychology of learning and on educational methodology. Researchers know what works. This research takes time to filter down to curriculum development committees and eventually into the schools. An innovative decision-maker who wants the best for his or her students ought to make the effort to discover what this research is saying. It may take time to sift through the apparent contradictions and blatant (or subtle) marketing, but there’s a core of good practice hiding under all the waffle and fads. Find it! Implement it!
Finally,
- Students who work harder perform better at math.
At last, something the student can actually do for themselves – apparently.
Hard work, for a child or an adult, is about encouragement and motivation. Encouragement and motivation in a child depends hugely on their environment (in the home, school and playground). And at least three quarters of this depends on the adults in the child’s life.
I made this website of math games as a set of tools for parents and teachers who want to motivate their kids through “fun”. However, that should only be one arrow in a teacher’s quiver – “fun” is only one of a bunch of possible motivations. Why not make yourself a list of all the others you can think of?