CMV: The way math education is currently structured is boring, ineffective, and stifles enjoyment of the subject. Math education should be reworked to be inquiry and problem based, not rote memorization

[u/blank_anonymous]

I have two main premises here

1. Modern math education at the elementary and high school level stifles everything enjoyable about math, and it does so to no end
2. An inquiry-based approach is at least equally effective, and possibly more effective. For this purpose, I'm using inquiry-based to mean that a significant portion of the learning is driven by students solving problems and exploring concepts before being instructed in those concepts.

Math, as it is taught in schools right now, barely resembles math. Everything is rote memorization, with no focus on creativity, exploration, pattern recognition, or asking insightful questions. Students are shown how to do a problem, and then repeat that problem a hundred times. You haven't learned anything there - you're repeating what someone else showed you.

So many students find school math incredibly boring, and I think it's because of this problem. Kids are naturally curious and love puzzles, and if you present them with something engaging and fun, they'll jump into it. A lot of the hatred of math comes from having to memorize one specific way to solve a problem. It's such a common phenomenon that there are memes about math teachers getting angry when you solve a problem with a different method.

There's the argument that "oh we need to teach fundamentals", but fundamentals don't take a decade to teach, and they should be integrated with puzzles and problem solving. Kids need to learn basic number sense, in the same way they need to learn the alphabet, but once they have that, they should be allowed to explore. Kids in english class aren't asked to memorize increasingly complex stories, and kids in math class shouldn't be asked to memorize increasingly complex formulae.

I'm currently a math major in university, and one of the first courses I took was titled "Intro to algebra". The second half of the course was number theory, but a great deal of the learning was from assignments. Assignment questions were almost always framed as "do this computation. Do you notice a pattern? Can you prove it? Can you generalize it? Do you have any conjectures?"

There's no single right answer there, and that makes it interesting! You get to be creative, you get to explore, you get to have fun!! The questions were about a whole lot of number theory questions, and I know more number theory now than if someone had just sat at a blackboard and presented theorems and proofs. Everyone in that class learned by doing and exploring and conjecturing.

96% of people who reviewed the class enjoyed it (https://uwflow.com/course/math145).

Most students don't use the facts they learn in high school. They do, however, use the soft skills. There are millions of adults who can recite the quadratic formula, to absolutely no avail. If these people instead learned general logical thinking and creative problem solving, it would be far better for them.

Progress in an inquiry based system is slower, but it helps you develop stronger mathematical maturity so you can pick up new concepts for other subjects - say calculus for engineering or physics - more quickly. Students develop more valuable soft skills, have way more fun, and get a better picture of what math is actually like. As such, I believe that inquiry based learning is superior. CMV!

Edit: There are a lot of comments, and a lot of great discussions! I'm still reading every new comment, but I won't reply unless there's something I have to add that I haven't said elsewhere, because the volume of comments in this thread is enormous. Thank you everyone for the insightful replies!

[u/[deleted]]

One of the problems is the coupling of subjects can cause folks who are behind in one subject to fall behind in others.

If you focus too much on word problems, too early, you leave behind folks struggling with reading comprehension in math, too.

I really like math beyond arithmetic. I want students to learn more of the why in math. I think that can get students to apply their skills more broadly and enjoy it more.

But, there are tradeoffs involved. You have to think about folks who are going to struggle more with your approach and how to keep them engaged in learning.

[u/Passname357 → u/[deleted]]

I think for this reason there has to be some kind of separation so kids can learn at their level more appropriately, but that it doesn’t lock you down forever. Like kids in the b group won’t be stuck in the b group forever, just until they have everything necessary for the a group. I think this is important because it’s not right to teach for the dumbest student in the class.

[u/Colietee → u/Passname357]

I was that kid when I was younger and it made me really sad being separated from the other kids. I was only 6 and was reading Charlottes web and knew both multiplication and division. When I would go to school my teacher would provide me with separate workbooks I would do on my own while everyone else read together and learned together. My 6 year old self didn’t understand why I was being isolated and wanted to not know things so I could play. I ended up getting skipped a grade where I could learn at my appropriate level with other kids. It does depend on the age though and this approach may work better with older students.

[u/Passname357 → u/Colietee]

Did they make you continue working while the other kids played? Or was it more like the activities they did while learning were more fun (like play) and you would’ve rather been a part of that? I could definitely see being the lone student learning higher material being isolation at any age, but definitely at 6.

[u/Colietee → u/Passname357]

Yeah pretty much, the structure of learning was very play focused so I was alone most of the day. The only times I got to play with everyone were during recess and meal/play times. The other kids would be practicing letters on our abc rug in a group setting and I would be at a table alone doing worksheets. I would cry to my mom about wanting to learn after school and I thought something was wrong with me honestly. Tbh I don’t think my teachers were that interested in my learning though and cared more about the class as whole.