SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

The End of Ignorance

SQE has an extensive collection of education books available for borrowing, one of which is The End of Ignorance: Multiplying our human potential by John Mighton. The author, an award-winning playwright, mathematician and the founder of JUMP Math, diplomatically but convincingly demolishes the myth of ability - the belief that leads educators “to neglect the majority of children by educating them in schools in which only a small minority are expected to naturally love or excel at learning”. Dr. Mighton holds that all children can be good at math - given the proper teaching. The excerpt (pp. 54-55) looks at one of progressive educators’ mistaken assumptions - namely, they forget that there is a “vast difference between the things people do to become experts and the things they do when they are experts”.

“Some educators assume that students who don’t know their times tables or operations can still learn mathematics, as long as they can find the information they need on a calculator or computer. In many schools teachers now spend much more time teaching general concepts and methods for finding mathematical information with calculators and computers than they spend teaching specific facts or procedures. A person who doesn’t know how to locate the notes on an instrument can’t play music, let alone compose symphonies. People rarely make the mistake of thinking that basic knowledge and skills aren’t important in music, probably because the only thing an untrained musician can produce from an instrument is noise. Mathematics, writing and reading, however, are so much part of our daily lives that kids usually pick up some basic skills at home or in public, so they can usually produce something that looks like reading, writing or arithmetic even if they were never taught any basic skills at school. This state of affairs has kept us from seeing the need for rigorous training in these subjects. The basic skills kids happen to pick up outside of school are, unfortunately, not usually sufficient to guarantee success at school.

“It is a serious mistake to think that students who don’t know number facts can get by in mathematics by using a calculator or other aids. students can certainly perform operations and produce numbers on a calculator, but if they don’t have a sense of numbers, they will not be able to tell if their answers are correct, nor can they develop a talent for solving mathematical problems. To solve problems, students must be able to see patterns in numbers and make estimates and predictions about numbers. A calculator cannot provide these abilities. Trying to do mathematics without knowing basic number facts is like trying to play the piano without knowing where the notes are.”