Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow.
HS math teacher here. A lot of these problems existed prior to the pandemic. Parents making excuses for kids. Teachers making excuses for kids to keep parents and admin off their backs. Kids too reliant on calculators to develop “number-sense”. Parents perpetuating the myth of the “math gene” they don’t have because they failed at the "new math " of the 1970s, etc. The list goes on and on. The whole thing where ELA/Social Studies/History/etc. teachers are struggling with AI like ChatGPT? We went through that when Photomath and the like were released. The shortcuts you take in math WILL catch up with you.
That being said, maturity plays a HUGE part. A dedicated math student will struggle, but won’t take shortcuts. They are better for it. The only thing that has changed is that shortcuts are much easier to take and are much more readily available. I cannot count how many shortcuts I took as a teenager, only to realize later that I F$#@! up long-term with my learning journey. Just look at any community college. Students that were “bad at math” suddenly have the realization that if they put in the effort, then the intellectual and/or GPA dividends will pay off in spades.
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I’m a firm believer that a not insignificant portion of people had one or two really shit math teachers at some point, decided that they’re bad at math because of it, and then proceeded to just give up. Very often it was specifically related to fractions.
The math professors at my uni were fantastic, and I saw many friends who always thought they were bad at math have lightbulb moments where something finally clicks.
So, like personally, all of my math teachers taught math as a goal in itself. Which is incredibly un-interesting. It’s taught like a chore.
Which is an incredible disservice.
I can completely understand that perspective. However, some students are just not mature enough to handle every type of math thrown at them when it is. One “bad” teacher can ruin any subject. Some students just aren’t “ready” when the curriculum (or other powers that be) decides that they should be.
Most subjects also don’t build off of the last class anywhere near to the same degree as math. You have a shitty teacher in geography, that’s not really going to be putting you at anywhere near as much of a disadvantage when you take world history.
The maybe rheu shouldn’t advance and be failed? Like to me if you’re bad at a subject, you should be required to take it until you pass it, not push along to the next harder version of it. Kids don’t get left back or failed now. That is the problem. If you’re not ready fine, but you can’t take algebra until you pass pre-algebra.
I’m speaking as someone who didn’t learn to read until 3 grade and still graduated on time and went to a good college. Failing classes is fine as long as you can also catch up if you rapidly learn the material as well.
This is a huge reason why I’ve never been able to help my daughter with her math homework. I learned to do things a totally different way from the way they teach now.
I recognize the way they do math now as very similar to how I do it in my head. I still couldn’t help my niece. The rules were so fucky to me.
I struggled with any math basically beyond fifth grade. It was incredibly hard for me. Math continued to build on the previous year until I worked my ass off to get C’s. Every year after that I got C’s all while spending hours and hours studying the homework and equations and doing problem after problem. I was in remedial math at community college. The only reason I passed college algebra was because the homework was online and I was able to do every problem over and over again until I got it right. That was 14% of my grade and got me up to a C.
Some people don’t get the support they need. In a subject like math that is detrimental.
Fractions and decimals. There it is. You never learned how to read .125 as 1/8 and vice versa. This is the most common thing in the US, maybe elsewhere. If you don’t really understand that, then Algebra and Calculus may as well be Greek to you.
I still continue to cheat/take shortcuts because I need to ensure I pass because if I don’t, I wasted thousands of dollars. If I had the luxury of actually learning rather than performing well on tests, I could have been a better student.
Long-term, shortcuts will still hamper learning. However, there is still a lot to be said about the over-reliance on testing in education in general. It, unfortunately, is a system that even educators must operate in without any real input. You likely will be surprised what you can do with a little guidance in a self-paced situation. What was that Mark Twain quote here - “Don’t let your schooling interfere with your education.”
That’s not really your fault but i hope you’ve planned what the long term means for you. We live in a society that expects higher education for any meaningful kind of occupation but simultaneously gate keeps it and pressures kids into lifetimes work of debt to keep forcing them through the system.
You can say “fuck” here, it’s ok.