Posted by What is Education?
There are two types of education: formal and informal. Formal education is the education you receive at school. Formal education 
is all aspects of academia. Meaning math, reading, writing, comprehension, science, social studies, and much more. Informal education is the education you learn outside of school. Informal education can consist of learning directions to a store, a relatives house, or it can mean speaking correctly to others, acting a certain way – socially acceptable, knowing right from wrong.
Math curriculum
As a teacher, I can not believe the curriculum that is used to teach, especially math. We use Engage NY curriculum. It is a joke if you ask me. How any student can learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide is beyond me. The students have what is called a math journal to use to perform arithmetic, however, they only do maybe 10 problems a day. Sometimes more than 10. How does anyone learn to add and subtract this way. Not only is it a lack of exercises for them to do, but they have to do it using the so called new math. Let me explain. If the problem to solve is 233 + 479 =, students are taught to break each number down to the nearest 10, 100, or 1,000 and then add them up. Another way is to use a place value chart. Yet another way is to make 10 such as 8 + 6 = 2 =, so now you rearrange the numbers to make 10 first, * = 2 = 10 and then 10 + 6 = 16. Instead of teaching students to actually add numbers, lets make it more difficult and time consuming to perform math operations.
When I was a student learning math, we taught by rote memory. Do I still remember how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide? You bet I do. They, the State Board of Education and School Boards of Education want us to believe that this new math which is researched based has been proven to be a better way to do math. I laugh at this. Students are confused by the different ways they are taught to perform math operations. Most do not know how to perform simple addition and subtraction problems. I can guarantee if I was allowed to teach by rote memory, students would learn to add and subtract. Not only do students not learn this way, it takes more time on the teachers part to create lesson plans and teach them. I say put one number on top of the other and learn how to carry. Simple, easy, and fast to do.
Everything curriculum is researched based now. Not only math, but ELA – English Language Arts, science, and social studies. It is funny how it is researched based. Why? Because every few years, a new researched based system comes out that is supposedly better than what is currently being used. How are students supposed to learn when they switch on them how to learn every few years. Let’s look at how students learn to read.
Reading
Once upon a time, students were taught to read by learning the sounds of the letters, the sound certain letters make together for instance, th, ch, sh, st, str, gh, wh, etc.. Students had weekly spelling lists, learned new vocabulary words and definitions, learning syllables of words, and reading every day. Now they have books called syllabication and morphology to complete every day. They don’t read everyday, they might read a book a week. By the time I was in the fourth grade I was reading my dad’s Louis L’Amour western novels. None of the students I have taught or seen in other classrooms come close to being able to read a novel like that even 5th graders. Books they check out are very simple easy reading.
LETRS
Now there is a new way to teach students to read. A system called LETRS. Not sure how many volumes we as teachers have to learn ourselves to be able to teach students how to read or how many units are in each volume. This system has been researched for years and is now ready to be unleashed on students. At least until the next new big thing comes out and LETRS is discarded. Why are we fixing what has worked in the past. Schools wonder why graduation has fallen year after year. It’s because this researched based curriculum is obviously not working. To learn more about LETRS click here