If it is anything like German math education back when I was in school a lot of the early things are simplified to an insane extreme and either have to be revisited later or are completely replaced with a better approach. I think we went through half a dozen ways on how to multiply and divide numbers when only one mattered in the end. If you learned the basics from your parents you could even expect to be penalized since you had to use the useless methods described in the curriculum for the first few years and could get penalized for correctly identifying an equation with a negative result.
> Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math
Or it may be related to a really bad curriculum that tries to be "age appropriate" by teaching mostly useless crap.
If you spent the math classes on getting the basics right, the rest could be formalized and then deepened in college. The saved time could be used to go to college earlier.
(Additional references at the end of the article.)
Good to see someone trying it.
The result was that, despite lacking 6 years of formal math education, the students in that district were only one year behind the other students when they went to junior high. That is, they were able to recover all six years of missed elementary school math education in one year of junior high. And in the superintendent’s opinion, those students were better at critical thinking and were able to solve some problems their better-educated counterparts were not. I can find the link if anyone is interested.
Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math. I know I could learn math concepts now that would have taken me much longer in highschool. I kind of wish we would just let kids be kids for more of their lives