kitchen table math, the sequel: against Saxon

Monday, April 2, 2007

against Saxon

Linda Seebach's column on Ron Aharoni, with a swipe at Saxon Math (not from Linda, but from mathematician Alexander Givental).

I will say that I've thought for awhile that if I were starting a homeschool program, I'd probably choose Primary Mathematics for grades K-6, then switch to Saxon.

Don't know exactly why I think that & can't justify it logically.

But that's where I seem to have ended up.

I would write more, but I have to pack and catch a plane for Evanston. However, you can find several posts about Aharoni's terrific work over at the old ktm (link to "Posts Search" on the sidebar); Linda's column tells you where to purchase Aharoni's book.

Aharoni's wonderful article in American Educator is here,

Back in a week!


(I'm taking Saxon Algebra 2 with me....)
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Want to hear another swipe at Saxon? This one from a research mathematician that churns out high school students that become math majors...

"please disregard the suggestion to use any book by saxon. forgive me atomgoboom, but saxon's books have a very limited objective: just to give you enoiugh techincal manipulative skill to pass trivial standardized tests. they offer no insight and no motivation. over my objections, my son's fine private school used them for years until they finally deduced from experience that "students who studied from saxon didn't understand anything", and dropped them, but only after ruining the mathematics preparation of hundreds of their excellent (and average) students.

the only good thing about them is their emphasis on drill and repetition. unfortunately what is being repeated is unimportant. there is no use of the imagination, no insight into discovery, reasoning, or meaning. no one ever wants to become a mathematician after using them, as math is portrayed as ugly and boring.

these books exploited a weakness in the whole concept of standardized testing. indeed it seems true that they increased scores, which was merely a testament to the fact that standardized tests are trivial, useless, wastes of time in measuring understanding of a subject.

never learn math from someone who basically dislikes math. If you saw the Karate Kid, learning math from saxon is like learning karate at the "Y" instead of from Mr. Miyagi, assuming you don't want to get your head handed to you in college."

For the context in which this quote was taken see:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=56429

I think they are valid criticisms in the context in which they are given, but when you are chin deep in the Fuzzies with large groups of public school students, you don't have room to complain that your life raft isn't a yacht.

If you personally are interested in remediating the deficiencies to which these guys refer there are ways of supplementing. I have a long quote by the same guy about AP Calculus at my blog right now. The problem is whenever this topic comes up the response is usually, "we don't care about producing math majors, we just want our students to pass freshman calculus." "Engineers don't need to know all that math" etc. It's hard to find people interested in discussing this aspect of K-12 math education, there are bigger things to worry about.

April 2, 2007 at 12:34 PM
Instructivist said...

Saxon is great if you can proceed at a steady pace. The micro steps are no so good if you need to target topics.

April 4, 2007 at 9:33 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

saxon's books have a very limited objective: just to give you enoiugh techincal manipulative skill to pass trivial standardized tests

That is simply not true.

Regardless of whether the books are or are not good, Saxon's goal isn't remotely to produce students who can pass trivial standardized tests.

Not by a long shot.

April 9, 2007 at 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...

That is simply not true.

I'm glad you think that, Catherine

It's not my experience either. And I've gone cover to cover through 4 years of it. You've probably covered more ground than me.

I can certainly see a potential problem with a bright kid who needs to be accelerated and enriched with math, but most teachers don't do any curriculum to the letter anyway. It's only some of these newer curriculums like EM and Trailblazers that specifically say not to supplement or add to the curriculum in any way.

April 9, 2007 at 2:03 PM
Anonymous said...

Whatever their goals, Saxon's level of awfulness is very hard to beat. A child who actually understood EM and had plenty of external drill of facts would understand and be able to handle, in the real world, mathematics far better than the same student going through Saxon. The problem with EM is A) that it's a spiral method that few children can keep up with, B) that it has a lack of teaching to mastery, C) that it relies on mathematically ignorant teachers, and D) it has a naive de-emphasis on facts. Basically, the creators heavily overestimated the abilities of students and teachers and underestimated the importance of facts.

Saxon is great for getting kids to solve problems. Many, many problems. Understanding what they're doing, though--not a chance. This isn't a life boat. This is Sinbad's island. You don't realize until the land's going out from under you that it's not an island at all.

My mother is ABD for a PhD in Ed Psych (dissertation will be finished in Aug.) with an MS in Mathematics Education (with more than 20 years classroom experience--where her students did EXTREMELY well--and now about 10 in higher ed and ed research), and her INSTANTANEOUS comment when I said I was planning to homeschool was to threaten to disown me if I used Saxon.

THAT is how bad it is.

April 13, 2007 at 3:02 AM

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