On the Singaporean and American classroom environments

I am not entirely happy with the Singaporean education system, for various social, economic and political reasons. Intellectual dissent on the education system in Singapore, I suppose, is like intellectual dissent anywhere -- restricted to discussions in coffeeshops, blogs and online mailing lists, present in environments not unlike this blog. Yet, Americans seem to have the leg up sometimes. For one, Americans have a tradition of organised dissent actually accomplishing something. To Singaporeans, public dissent might evoke a general reaction like, "Ayah, you just sour grapes complaining lah," given our tradition of making public hullaballoos over small things like when a vendor rips us off for two dollars. the "underground" vibe seems more energetic

A "cynical" approach to things taught about National Education

Yet, Singapore's system does have its merits. I am not happy with the American education system either

*****

With all the talk about Singapore Math, tracking/differentiated instruction, group work and classroom rigour, I just thought I'd chip in from the perspective of a student who used to study in the Singaporean education system, before comparing what I perceive to be the American classroom environment, having experienced both the elementary school classroom and the high school classroom in America.

Firstly, a few caveats. My examples of course will be very anecdotal, and there will be things that would be specific to the schools I attended, the socioeconomic background of the student bodies, and hardly least of all, my opinion of my peers, and so forth. I expect this to colour my accounts. But I also think there are biases and hidden variables worth talking about often glossed over by the "adults" when they talk about the educational strategies of both systems. (A small digression: despite being an 18-year-old first-year college student, I still don't regard myself as an adult.) Having also been to other schools and having friends in other schools in each stage of life, etc., and since a few things universal to each system become apparent through popular culture and national gossip, official procedures that everyone goes through, national competitions and the like, I still think it's valid to make some extrapolations.

After all, when reporters, teachers on exchange programmes, educational certification inspectors, researchers, et al. visit schools and classrooms, I think it's safe to say you often don't get an exactly candid picture of what actually goes on. And while we ridicule at the type of learning that occurs in group work, and discuss in haughty academic reports the statistical p-value probability that "effective group work" occurred purely by random, how does one objectively discuss the impacts of things that resist quantification and are hard to detect from test scores, like "school culture", "peer support", "friendship", or "chilling effect"?

Now, I am neither content with Singapore or the United States' education systems

My primary school math curriculum in Singapore also employed group work, etc. I believe with the abolishment of the EM3 system (and I believe the entire EM system as a whole), math tracking doesn't exist anymore in Singapore as it once did. I am happy with this development. Essentially the majority of the pupils at each level will study the same curriculum with more or less the same pace.

Of course, after they graduate primary school, they'll be sorted into the Special / Express streams (differs only by whether you take a more advanced second language or not), Normal (Academic), Normal (Technical) streams, etc. Of course, secondary schools no longer have the GEP either, though they have the new Integrated Programme for those who get into IP schools and fulfill the entry requirements. (IP programmes, including implementations of the International Baccalaureat, often don't work out exactly as was planned on paper. I still have a major problem with the IP programmes' detection/admission of otherwise qualified students, and the fact that a mugging (exam-focussed) culture predominates over any intellectual one.

But of course, back to the primary school classroom first.

Caveat: I went to a fairly comfortable primary school [for P5 and P6; I was brought up in American elementary school in the American equivalent of Singapore K2 to P5). That is, my school fees were basically were 30 SGD (20 USD) every 3 months, while the government subsidised the rest, my classmates were mainly lower middle to mid-upper middle class (at one extreme), etc. I've heard stories happen in the "neighbourhood schools" with regard to work ethic, behaviour and so forth. I'm curious to know if our neighbourhood schools also have successful educational strategies on an international level, just that they enjoy less prestige and dare I say it, performance, than higher-ranked schools. I believe that if you make an analogy between primary school rankings to American college rankings, if Raffles Institution is the equivalent of Harvard, my primary school would have been like Penn State or something. The neighbourhood schools would of course be the local unis and stuff.

BUT anyway, after all these caveats, we didn't really differentiate kids based on academic ability into different classrooms that much, and I would say we enjoyed a fairly rigourous math curriculum. Of course, you always had the discussions over which class was the "best class", often determined by what kind of kids were in them. 6F / 5A

"accessible" math, grouping, & IQ

from a friend:

Education Next has made the Jacob Vigdor article (released online in October 2012) the lead story in the current Winter 2013 issue.

He argues that the achievement gap and generally dwindling math performance of US students has been addressed by making the math curriculum "more accessible" (i.e., it has been dumbed down). He then argues that it need not be dumbed down if the curriculum were differentiated between low and high performing students.

In fact, this is pretty much how it was in the 50's and 60's. Students did not need the 3 or 4 years of math in high school to get admitted into colleges. What he leaves out, however, is the quality of math education in the lower grades and how this has affected the number of students who might otherwise be high performing students.
...
There’s no disagreement that some kids are smarter than others. Most people know that you can’t just set a standard (like algebra in 8th grade) and do nothing else. But Vigdor overlooks overlooks that issue and then claims that the failed initiative defines some IQ/algebra correlation. There are many other variables to consider–which he doesn’t.

The “Math Wars” are about curriculum and teaching methods, but this article skips over that analysis. Most schools separate kids starting in 7th grade. In affluent areas, since “enough” students get onto the top math track in high school, (often due to tutors, learning centers, or help from parents), educators will not look for any fundamental issues in K-6. They only assume that it’s a relative problem.

Why not interview parents to see what is done (or not) at home and try to find out how the best students got there? There may see an IQ connection, but it’s not that simple. There are things one can do to separate the variables. But too many authors of the recent spate of articles about math, algebra and its need, either can’t or won’t.

In his report, he pooh poohs the idea of introducing Singapore Math into classrooms, citing the usual cultural differences argument which is specious. (Teachers in Singapore have better math background; students go to school all year round, so there’s no forgetting concepts during the summer; the culture promotes education and hard work, etc). He neglects the fact that Singapore’s texts present the material clearly and succinctly and that there have been successes in schools in the US that have used it.

I remember one day back in middle school, when C. had done well on one of his death-march-to-algebra math tests, we were taking a walk & discussing his triumph. At some point we got to talking about where he would now rank in Singapore terms. We figured probably on par with Singapore kids who have developmental disabilities.

I'm (half) serious.

Remember the Singapore Math pilot project in New Milford, Connecticut?

The SPED kids were ahead of the general ed kids.

The Precision Teaching Book

My copy arrived today!

The Precision Teaching Book by Richard Kubina and Kirsten K. L. Yurich.

From Chapter 0:

Creating a sound educational program, like the Direct Instruction reading program, takes determined effort in the planning, creation, implementation, and subsequent review and revision of the curriculum. In other words, engineering a learning environment expressed by a well balanced, potent curriculum occurs through a reasoned and rational process. Effective learning environments establish desired behavior and require no less than a systematic analysis of human behavior.

You mean...writing an effective curriculum isn't something you can pay teachers a stipend to do for 3 days over the summer?

Even when you hire a Trailblazers consultant from Bedford?

We've had years of strife over Trailblazers here in my district, culminating in the middle school teachers complaining that kids were coming into 6th grade not knowing what they needed to know. In response, the answer was ... not to adopt Singapore Math.

The answer was to "hybridize" Trailblazers during a 3-day curriculum development stint one summer. After hybridization, Trailblazers would no longer be our curriculum; our curriculum would be Irvington Math. Problem solved.

Rejiggering Trailblazers has been an ongoing project. A year or two before we hired the lady from Bedford, I went to a board meeting at which the then-assistant superintendent for curriculum (we've had several), confronting that year's uprising, said impatiently, "People say Trailblazers is our curriculum." She rolled her eyes. "It isn't. We write our own curriculum."

That's been the answer forever: there's no problem with Trailblazers because Trailblazers isn't the curriculum.

In a couple of weeks, I'm off to the precision teaching workshop at Morningside Academy in Seattle...

math in Bedford

Bedford Math

They're going to teach roman numerals even though roman numerals aren't included in Common Core.

Also, they're choosing between Singapore Math (Math in Focus) and Terc.

oy

AND SEE:
Irvington & Bedford

and then there was one

Bedford drops Trailblazers, adopts Singapore Math.

deathless

We point out simply that not only do U.S. students on average perform better internationally than reported in a myriad of policy papers, but as Boe and Shin demonstrate, the majority of U.S. students (white students) actually rank near the very top on international tests.
Into the Eye of the Storm
October 2007
B. Lindsay Lowell Georgetown University
Hal Salzman The Urban Institute

Right.

That's why my high-IQ, culturally-advantaged, non-hyperactive, W-H-I-T-E, rising-5th grade son placed into the second-semester 3rd grade textbook in Singapore Math back when he was age 9. (placement test here).

In the real world, a gap that big by age 9 does not get smaller.

It gets bigger.


non-poor students doing fine in Princeton

Envision or Math in Focus?

query from Peter Meyer

Any thoughts?

Barry's open letter to Deborah Ball

at Out in Left Field

Barry G on the Times story

The New York Times ran a story on September 30 about Singapore Math being used in some schools in the New York City area.  Like many newspaper stories about Singapore Math, this one was no different.  It described a program that strangely sounded like the math programs being promoted by reformers of math education, relying on the cherished staples of reform: manipulatives, open-ended problems, and classroom discussion of problems.  The only thing the article didn’t mention was that the students worked in small groups.

[snip]

The mistaken idea that gets repeated in many such articles is that Singapore Math differs from other programs by requiring or imparting a “deep understanding” and that such understanding comes about through a) manipulatives, b) pictures, and c) open-ended discussions.  In fact, what the articles represent is what the schools are telling the reporters. What newspapers frequently do not realize when reporting on Singapore Math, is that when a school takes on such a program, it means going against what many teachers believe math education to be about; it is definitely not how they are trained in ed schools.  The success of Singapore’s programs relies in many ways on more traditional approaches to math education, such as explicit instruction and giving students many problems to solve, in some ways its very success represented a slap in the face to American math reformers, many of whom have worked hard to eliminate such techniques being used.

[snip]

Singapore’s strength is the logical consistency of the development of mathematical concepts. And much to the chagrin of educators who may have learned differently, mastery of number facts and arithmetic procedures is part and parcel to conceptual understanding.  Starting with conceptual understanding and using procedures to underscore it is an invitation to disaster—such approach is making profits for  outfits like Sylvan, Huntington and Kumon.

[snip]

Fortunately, the logical structure and word problems in Singapore’s books are so good it will work in spite of the disciples of reform.  My friend is right.  If the education community wants to think that Singapore Math is student-centered and inquiry-based and the realization of US reforms, let them think it.  For those of us who know better, it will remain our dirty little secret.
Singapore Math Is “Our Dirty Little Secret”

in Borders today

We picked Andrew up at camp today and learned that he had a fantastic week --- he was the best camper in the place, his counselor said.

Then he added, gesturing to his chums sitting under the canopy, "They would all say the same."

Wow!

He did pretty well in the car until we stopped at Office Max to pick up poster board for the Big Calendar that's going to change everyone's life around here.

Big tantrum at Office Max & then in the car 'cause he'd spotted a Borders and wanted to go there. But since he'd managed to pull himself out of it by the time I'd made my purchases, we decided to go to Borders after all.

And guess what I found in the school section?

A Frank Schaffer Singapore Math 6B Math Practice workbook.

Plus a lot of terrific Kumon workbooks (those are the two next to Singapore Math Practice.)

The cover of the Singapore math book says, "Activities based on the leading math program in the world--Singapore Math!"



introduction to Singapore Math - Level 3 (pdf file)
Andrew comes home from camp - July 2008

Math in Focus

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Math in Focus is the new "American" version of Singapore Math.

Any thoughts?

lgm on where to start in Singapore Math

Start at the beginning. A big key is practicing number bonds until you know them so well that the possibilities just pop up automatically when you see a number. The mental math practice is worthwhile too.

the nativity gap, part 2

from Erin Johnson:

The 2007 TIMSS does break out the US results by race. In 4th grade the US Asian subgroup performs only slightly less than the top Asian countries but by 8th grade the US Asian subgroup performs significantly lower.

4th grade US Asians: 582
4th grade Singapore: 593

8th grade US Asians: 549
8th grade Singapore: 599

Highlights from TIMSS (pdf file)

Note that the math scores of Singapore stay the same from 4th to 8th grade, but the US Asian subpopulation (as well as the entire student population) declines.

If math performance was purely an IQ phenom, we would expect that those 4th and 8th grade levels would be comparable, but this is not the case.

Also, there is evidence from Whitehurst that math curricula does matter. So it is not inconceivable that differences between math in Asia vs the US might account for performance differences.

Anecdotally, having used Singapore math it is easy for me to see why Asian math programs would be significantly better at enabling kids to learn math.

Mars

Alexander Givental writes:

Admitting publicly your love for math is likely to produce the same effect as announcing yourself a Martian.

Alas, mathematics is cherished by us, Martians for being a spectacular combination of beautiful art and deep science. Often challenging, yet enjoyable and most transparent of all subjects in school, it is a prominent and enlightening companion in life.

Well, if your eyebrows are up, look up what math means in Martian:

“The central idea of all of mathematics is to discover how it is that knowing some few things will, via reasoning, permit us to know much else — without having to commit the new information to memory as separate facts, — writes Madge Goldman, the president of Rosenbaum Foundation, in her preface to teacher’s guide to “Primary Mathematics,” the core elementary school math curriculum from Singapore, whose US edition was arranged for by the Foundation. — Mathematics is economy of information, not its unnecessary proliferation. Basic mathematics properly presented conveys this lesson. It is the connections, the reasoned, logical connections, that make mathematics manageable. Understanding the structure of mathematics is the key to success. Everyone can be 'good at mathematics,' and this textbook series, as has been proved in Singapore, shows how.”

Given the immense dedication of Tehiyah families to learning, there is little doubt that our remarkable, talented, inquisitive, intelligent kids, literally all of them, deserve and have the potential to, not just be good at math, but become true “Martians.” In this article, we highlight the necessary prerequisite for such promise to come true: the strength of our math program in Elementary School.

The math books from Singapore currently enjoy high acclaim and this year are even being put up for adoption by the California public school system. It is good to know therefore that our school began using them (namely Primary Math intended for grades 1–6, and Earlybird Math for the grade K) in Fall’04, i.e. way before they came into such fashion, and hence for reasons more sound than acclaim. What could the reasons be?

Mathematicians familiar with the present curriculum landscape attest that, unfortunately, there is not much choice. Strange as it sounds, Singapore math programs are virtually the only available elementary math curricula that don’t make a Martian cringe in embarrassment over every other page. Relying on most other programs seems just as wise as inviting Russian emigres to teach your kids English.

There is a good news too: Thanks to decades of stability in the country’s education system, Singapore math programs have evolved into materials nearly perfect pedagogically.

Is there Math on Mars? (pdf file)
By Alexander Givental

the things money can't buy, part 2

From the Everyday Math response (pdf file) to the new CCSI standards:

It may be that some on the Mathematics Working Group, perhaps over-generalizing from their personal experience in school, underestimate the cost of bringing all children to mastery on, say, decimal long division with the traditional algorithm.

I have an idea.

How about the schools economize on curriculum materials by purchasing Primary Mathematics instead of Everyday Math, so we have enough money to teach everybody long division?

the things money can't buy

Currently, Irvington students are at about the state average with 40 per cent of eight-graders enrolled in algebra.
District opts to stick with Trailblazers math program

I have been underestimating per pupil spending here. According to the budget, it was $28,300 this school year. However, audited financials show $30K per pupil last school year. We're probably at $32K this year.

please explain

You really have to see it to believe it.

What happened to "Show your work"?


source: Math Problem of the Week

A Singaporean perspective on Singapore Math

I recently came across an online article by a Singaporean named Justin Lee, the founder of two education businesses in Singapore. In reaction to many articles "fussing about Singapore Math on the Internet," Lee writes:

While many authors bemoaned or even whined about the difficulty American kids had with Math, it made me at times sympathetic or even amused. You see, Math in Singapore was highly enjoyable in my time and we dreaded other subjects like English and Science instead. Why is this so?

One reason, Lee points out, is that, for about 50% of the Singaporean population, English is not the native language. As a result:

Math in primary school (for 7-12 year olds) was one of the easiest subjects to ace. It did not involve language application as extensively as Science. Although the word problems in Math papers still involved the English language, it required us only to write one-liners as conclusions. Many friends of my age then scored above 80 marks out of a 100 in Math on a regular basis. Being able to score so highly in Math (as opposed to barely passing English or Science) easily made Math our favourite subject in school!

This, of course, makes me think of all the language impaired math buffs who suffer under Reform Math's much more language-intensive "story problems" and verbal explanations requirements.

Lee goes on to lament a development in Singapore that is taking math standards in Singapore in the opposite direction as that which American math standards have followed. Apparently, "there has been a rising trend of schools setting impossible-to-pass Math tests and examinations in the late 2000s." Instead of parents being upset that standards are too low, Singapore parents are upset that standards, which have long been higher than ours, have now risen too high.

Lee proceeds to describe how he and his classmates found Singapore math to be easy and enjoyable, with plenty of time left over for fun:

It is true that the Mathematical concepts are built year upon year and concepts that have been taught are not taught again, but merely revisited briefly. This is as opposed to the slightly incoherent system in the US, where kids can sometimes wonder why they are doing the same things again. While this arrangement may appear to be harder on Singapore students, I actually felt it was very easy on us. In fact, we felt that it was a gift from heaven to be able to do fractions at primary 6 again, right after we learnt something similar the year before.

It might appear as though a Singapore student would have had to spend many hours poring their beady eyes other Math textbooks and Math problems to acquire such ‘astounding’ proficiency in the subject. The truth is, the pace of learning was rather fine. I could do quite well in school without having to attend extra lessons (tuitions), and school only lasted from 730am to 1pm, Monday to Friday. There was still ample time for monkey business after 1pm.

To sum up, I am positive that Math in primary school was enjoyable for most students in the 1990s. This may not be so after internal Math examination standards were revised upwards in the late 2000s, but we shall address this issue in another article.

I look forward to more! In our self-absorbed, American-exceptionalist country, the Singaporean perspective, which should be a key element in the debate over math reform, is all too often overlooked (le radical galoisien?).

insider baseball

from Steve H:

At one underperforming high school in our state, the administration got to the point where they fired all of the high school teachers. (They wanted more money.) It recently made national news and even Obama commented on it. Only 7% of the 11th graders met minimal proficiency on the state math test. (Just today, it appears that this leverage has worked and they will come to some sort of agreement with the union.) Ironically, the superintendent of this school system was the one in charge of bringing MathLand to our schools (a different town) years ago. She left to go to this job when my son was in first grade. My son left for a private school after that year and the school started the process of switching to Everyday Math.

I feel that many of us parents are over on the sidelines with our hands raised and asking "Can we say something here?"

At a recent board meeting, when the topic of whether our teachers could 'handle' Singapore Math came up, I raised my hand and asked whether I could say something.

The Interim Director for Curriculum and Instruction said, "No!" Teachers and building principals sitting in the audience were invited to speak; parents had to follow the rules and wait until the end of the very long presentation to make 3-minute comments.

The Interim Director also told us she is recommending that we soldier on with Trailblazers because "there is no perfect curriculum." She said that several times over the course of the evening, with an air of gravitas: There is no perfect curriculum.

Also, we need a math coach, to complement the ELA "teaching learning facilitator" we have now. Plus we need to hire back the teaching-learning facilitator whose position was eliminated last year during the budget fracas.


coming soon to a school district near you

To those of you living in affluent suburban towns: this is the future. Public schools are committed to hiring tenured teachers to teach tenured teachers, and tenured curriculum specialists to "develop" curriculum. Absent tax revolts, there is no conceivable limit to the number of instructional coaches and curriculum specialists affluent schools will attempt to hire in the coming years, because there is no conceivable limit to the amount of "in-house professional development" classroom teachers require and no conceivable limit to the amount of "curriculum development" imperfect curricula require. A whole new tier of administration has been invented and is now in the process of being hired.

This story about Seattle administration tells you where we're headed. Here's Meg Diaz' report. (pdf file)

Do our policy elites have any idea this is going on? Do our newspapers and media outlets?

RightStart

anonymous says:

RightStart is, indeed, an Asian mental abacus program--but it's actually more. I can say, hands down, that RightStart is superior in every way to Singapore in the first grade level. And that's saying a LOT because Singapore is amazing!

Want to get the worst kid in the class adding two-digit numbers with regrouping in first grade? And adding four-digit numbers on paper with PERFECT understanding? RightStart does it. RightStart takes the very best of Asian mathematics programs and distills it down into it essence. It uses a very few select manipulatives extremely well--as conceptual connectors, not crutches--which echoes the author's original background in Montessori education.

AND it's scripted, so it helps teach the educator even as it teaches the student, even it the educator isn't a naturally mathy person.

If you want your child to score in the 90th percentile, I will guarantee that RightStart can do it with any kid of AVERAGE intelligence. The most that it requires from the instructor is to pay attention to any stumbling place and to further break down and clarify any points of confusion that might arise rather than doing sheer repetition--solve the problem rather than waiting for it to resolve itself by using the approach that YOU'VE learnt from RightStart and apply it to the lesson at hand to chop it into smaller bits.

My son had intuitive mathematical power, but with his language processing problems, communicating anything he couldn't instantly intuit was very, very hard--until I found RightStart. It was amazing. We did the entire series because he needed to make stronger connections between language and concept, and I've never been so impressed with a math program. Ever.

Now, Singapore does have one powerful tool that RS lacks--it has the model method of problem solving, and the word problems are more sophisticated and also much more frequent. RS also weirdly peters out before really giving much work on multiplying and dividing fractions using the standard algorithm, having covered it EXCELLENTLY conceptually but not having practiced it as it does other things.

Anyhow, my very mathy kid is using the sequence RightStart/Singapore Primary to NEM 1-3/Additional Mathematics/IMACS Elements of Mathematics. His personality is such that getting him to do any practice not on the Flashmaster is WWIII, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (which has already added some 6 months to his journey, though daily battles and sheer cussedness...)

My next door neighbor is very, very UN-mathy (failed algebra II), and her kid would be thrilled to step through algorithms without understanding a thing, if he can. After Calvert failed him (letting him get away with zero comprehension), she's now doing RightStart with great results. His sequence will likely be Right Start to Life of Fred/VideoText to either community college or ChalkDust or EPGY for calc.

In short, it works great for very different kids.