Teaching Math to U.S. Students

Re “Why Can’t Johnny Do Math?” editorial, Jan. 13:

I am a former high school math teacher and a current substitute math (and other subjects) teacher. How about looking at the kids and the kids’ parents and the parents’ parents before them? There is little encouragement from home, and enough students in each class that I teach who disrupt the class constantly. This is from first grade to 12th grade.

Many of the disrupters have been passed along year after year with failing grades. They don’t want to learn and they keep others from learning. Sixth graders that can’t add, subtract, multiply or divide affect whatever results one looks for. Learning is just not a priority in the lives of many kids. For any teacher, regardless of skill level, teaching in this environment, where discipline and threats to punish reign, is more than challenging, it is ludicrous.

We would be farther ahead if education was not compulsory. That way those who yearned for an education would at least have a chance to learn math and/or other subjects without the constant interruptions that now exist in most classrooms.

RICHARD COLE

Long Beach

Excellent and timely editorial. Phil Daro is quoted, “Our teachers go three pages a day. Japanese teachers spend three days on a page.” Of course. Our approved texts have several times more pages and are filled with irrelevant colored pictures of students, calculators in hand, enthralled with their discovery of mathematics.

There is an easy solution that should please both Phil and myself: adopt the Japanese texts. They are available in English from the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.

WAYNE BISHOP

Dept. of Mathematics

and Computer Science

Cal State Los Angeles