"Rote" learning

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When I went to public schools, the worst thing for me was so-called "rote learning". Especially in maths. In third grade we were being "taught" multiplication and division of fractions, but the teacher learned by rote, so we were presented with the same. I couldn't get it. My grades were all over the place in the PS.

Learning by rote means the teacher is not teaching from knowledge; I've always found it easy to learn something if the teacher actually understands what she's teaching. From my standpoint, then, "rote learning" is learning from ignorance, and I've never been able to learn from ignorance. Seems to me our wiring is set for knowledge-based learning, at least it strongly feels that way to me.

By the time I got to HS, I was not able to follow algebra; in fact, the teacher didn't even know what algebra was for! One of my classmates asked suddenly one day "Why do we have to learn this stuff? What's it for?". The teacher hemmed and hawed, then said "Well, it's good training for your mind."

OY! How lame that sounded to us; the teacher as good as said "I don't know, I learned how to do this stuff by rote".

How can human forms of knowledge be expected to bow down to ignorance?

I'd like someone to tell me the situation has radically improved in the PS, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, I never really learned multiplication and division of fractions, or algebra, until I went to a trade school in my thirties, where I had a real math professor who definitely knew what algebra was for! And he taught from knowledge, not from rote. I was straight A+ in that class!

Regards, Johnpipe

Sounds like an excuse to me.

Like it or not, basic math is very mechanical and doesn't require some of the theoretical underpinnings to teach to 8-year-olds (who wouldn't understand it anyway).

i agree with johnpipe108

Is calculus "advanced" enough to say it's not trivial anymore?

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I have to say that rote learning of anything more than addition tables is not a workable method for me... as far as math goes.

I am one of those that needs to understand the 'why' even at a basic algebra level.
It has never done me any good to try and remember that given a problem in a certain configuration, you would use formula 'X'.
I've tried and I'm 48 y.o. and I've been through more traditional teaching methods back in Texas in the 60's.

What works for me is to understand 'why' that formula 'X' works with a certain problem configuration.
I need to 'see' the workings of the formula while it is dealing with the math problem.

I don't think it's a 'one size fits all' sort of world and so there are a number of children who do get written off as being lazy, stupid, rebellious, etc., when they are not any of those.
I wasn't, but I sure felt like that's what others thought of me.

Oh.. and johnpipe... looked at your website.. nice pipes!
And you know John Peterson? That's cool.
I was just down in Oakland and was planning on dropping my Amazing Grace to see what he had in the way of a good old open-back banjo for clawhammer playing.

Unfortunately most Arithmetic is about learning computational algorithms by rote, they tried mixing "higher level" math concepts in to the curricula a few decades ago, but the "New Math" didn't work out too well.

Yep, a total disaster that was. It's also the first and last time mathmaticians designed math curricula.

There is something I need to say here.

I'm a grandpa, with a 4-year old granddaughter who is already in pre-school, and a 1-year old grandson. The system euphemistically called "American Public Education" left "a bitter taste in my mouth", and I am just becoming aware since discovering 7 months ago that I came "under the spectrum", and the recent communication by the mother of mychildren that she suspects she is also "aspergian" (although she has been bi-polar which masked the possibility of that understanding), of that reason for my growing concern. I am feeing very concerned as to what's going to happen to my grand-kids, and others their age, when faced with the vagaries of American education.

I have read posts here from young spectrum people who are struggling with the tortuous experience of American education right now; I've been there, and know what it's like.

I was born in a very dark period of modern history, WWII. Folks of my generation are, therefore, covered over in "cruft" of Ignorance; in regard to which. the wise yogi Chiranjiva once said to us during the 1970's "Neither you, nor your children, but your children's children, will get the clarity of understanding that you seek."

That has been my experience, so I have to be clear in my feeling, that anything I post or my responses here are going to be colored, both by my higher feelings, and my human ignorance. My posts are generally going to be a mix of "good 'ol common sense, and plain 'ol common ignorance." Being "Aspergian" and having difficulty characterizing emotions naturally adds to the difficulty.

It may, or may not, surprise some people to learn that there are a growing number of professional educators, with far more impressive credentials than any that I may lay claim to, that not ony agree with my views on rote, but go even farther; they have begun to express a conviction that rote learning and homework are both counter-productive, and ill-suited to the intellectual needs of growing young minds.

During the seventies, when a friend was dying of cancer, her sister came out to be with her; she was an English teacher in the Chicago Public School system. She declared that "the schools exist to teach boredom, to prepare children for boring office jobs." Not exactly a glowing endorsement for the state of public education.

Rote and homework are both "B-O-R-I-N-G", and I'd be willing to bet that this is the number one reason why so many kids really hate school. I feel that an education that challenges young minds is a far more fun experience than the alternative.

Getting there, in practical terms, is the difficulty.