Is Math Possible?

Education is the key to society. The way we educate the future generation will impact the direction that the United States future economy goes. A story about a boy named Ted will illustrate some of the problems with the current education system and how it can be improved. Although the story about Ted is a fake story, it has a lot of factual experiences that are experienced on a yearly basis by young students in the United States.

Ted's life began in a small town named Draper, Utah to his parents Ron and Joyce Smith. He was blessed with very good parents who treated him like he was the smartest kid in the world. They constantly told him how smart he was, and how he could accomplish anything that he set his mind too. He started school just like any other kid, he enjoyed learning and loved recess. He always told his parent's friends that he loved going to school. They would always say things like "I wish my high school kid felt the same way," or "How did you help him enjoy school Joyce." 

By the time Ted was 13 years old, while still enjoying school, he was a little nervous for the upcoming 8th grade. He had heard some horror stories from his older brothers about algebra and how hard it was. With that perspective he was determined to fight to get a good grade in his algebra class while preparing for his grades to actually start counting. The first unit of algebra class seemed to go pretty well, he understood the material well. However, the fifth unit was when his enjoyment all started to change. Although he still worked hard in the class, he had a harder time understanding the material, and only got a 85% on the unit test. The class continued to move onto to the next unit, while Ted was still struggling to understand unit 5. This continued for the rest of the units, Ted continued to struggle to understand the material and ended up with an average of 85% on the rest of his unit tests. 

When Ted saw he needed to take algebra during his tenth grade class, his heart filled with dread. Although, his parents still treated him like he could accomplish anything that he set his mind to, he was starting to doubt his ability in algebra. The year seemed to go exactly as he was expecting, he did well in all of his classes except algebra. He ended up getting a C on his first test, confirming to him that he was going to struggle all year. Throughout the year his drive to succeed in algebra decreased little by little, till his only goal was to survive the class with a C. 

Ted got accepted to the Utah Valley University and decided to go into Music Education. He did his best to keep a high GPA to keep the half year scholarship that he had been awarded. He intentionally chose to delay his algebra classes until his senior year in order to make sure he kept his scholarship. When the dreaded time came that he had to take algebra, he entered the class with one goal----pass the class. He struggled to understand the concepts that had to do with the same stuff that was a more complicated version of unit five which he learned in 8th grade. Ted thoroughly hated math by this time, and was super happy that all he had to do was to survive two semesters of it. After these two semesters he would be done forever! He truly believed that his brain could not figure out math. 

The story of Ted can teach us a couple of things about how we can improve the education system. The problem with Ted was not his work ethic, his teachers, parents, or his brain's ability to figure out math. These things may have been contributing factors to his ultimate hatred of algebra, but not the ultimate reason. The problem with the education system is that kids are left with gaps in their knowledge, because the teacher moves on to the next unit. These gaps continue to build on each other until the student thinks that they are the problem. Imagine if we found a way to implement a way to have mastery based learning in our schools. Mastery takes practice and effort, but the subject is not passed until your achieve the objectives of the course. This enables students to focus more on practice and learning the material instead of grades. Students will be more likely to experiment and find ways to learn the material instead of being afraid of failure. Lastly, students like Ted will continue to think that they can accomplish anything that they set their mind too. If we want to help students like Ted truly love learning we need to change the way the we teach education.