Reaching Struggling Learners
Reaching Struggling Learners
# 79: From Basic Math to Algebra: Mastering Foundational Skills
I still remember the day when algebra went from being my nemesis to my ally, a transformation that wouldn't have been possible without a firm grasp of basic math. Now, I want to help you navigate the same challenges, as we explore the impact of foundational skills on mastering algebra. In the heart of our discussion, I take you back to my high school special education teaching days, sharing firsthand insights into how students' struggles with fundamental math operations can create barriers to grasping more complex mathematical concepts. Together, we'll confront the sobering reality facing today's students and the educational system, emphasizing the urgent need to prioritize these critical skills for academic success.
As the episode winds down, I can't help but look forward to the upcoming break, and I'm sure you're feeling the same. Sending out a wave of tranquility to all of you hard workers out there, I hope this episode leaves you feeling prepared to tackle the challenges ahead and then unwind in the peace of your well-deserved time off. Keep that coffee strong and your spirits higher. Wishing you all a restful pause from the daily grind, we'll reunite on the other side, refreshed and ready to satisfy our shared curiosity once more. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, and remember to cherish the calm that comes with a break well earned.
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Did you like algebra? I was thinking about it the other day and algebra is. It is such a milestone, isn't it? It really is. It's thought of as the you know, multi-very difficult math, right? I mean it's. You know, why are you making me do algebra? That's one of the things we think about. It's very much seen as this very, very difficult math, but also it is a rite of passage, right? It's?
Speaker 1:You do algebra in high school and everybody takes algebra in high school. That's just kind of one of the, the givens, right. When you're talking to you know parents, when you're talking to your friends, it's yeah, well, I had to take algebra and algebra was so hard or algebra was so easy, whatever it was, algebra, algebra, algebra, and it very much is a rite of passage, right, if you don't take algebra in junior high, you're going to take it in high school. And but the fact is, whereas it used to be seen as a very, it was a difficult topic, it was a, it was a difficult concept. But algebra is not easy. It really takes some thought and work and practice.
Speaker 1:But now kids are really, really struggling with it and they're not passing. They're not even close to passing. Now, some people may not know, I didn't know. It absolutely shocked me to know and to find out that in some states, to pass the like end of course, eoc, you know, for algebra, the kids only had to have, they only had to earn a 25% so they could get 75% wrong and so pass the state test. And yet the number of students that had to retake the algebra and, of course, exam the state test was a lot. It was way too many, way, way, way too many, knowing that the kids only had to get a fourth of the problems Right. And so, yeah, I think we're going to talk about some algebra today.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling Learners. I'm a boy mom and a veteran teacher. You're listening to the Reaching Struggling Learners podcast, where we talk all about helping students succeed academically, socially and behaviorally. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1:So going back in time, you know, to the before times, the dark ages, I'm really not that old, but I feel that old right now. I'm talking about high school and sitting in my Algebra I class. In high school I personally did not find Algebra that difficult compared to a lot of my peers. Now I had a pretty good Algebra teacher. But more importantly, I now recognize that I had a really solid foundation in the basic skills for math. So going into Algebra I didn't have to spend as much time figuring out why the problem worked and how it worked and all that stuff. I could move on to being able to use the formulas and all that stuff to apply it to the problems and all that. So because I had those foundational skills that were just by that time, because I was so used to it, it almost felt innate that you know, I knew my addition facts, my multiplication facts. I knew it and it didn't intimidate me when I saw them within the Algebra problem because I already had it. That was, that was done. That was the easy part. It was the application that was difficult, whereas a lot of my friends had to really think through the process a little bit more because they didn't it. Just they didn't have as much practice with the skills and it wasn't. It didn't come as easily to them because they didn't have the opportunity to practice those skills earlier on, in elementary school and middle school. And so, looking back on that now and applying it to where we are today with education and and the struggles that a lot of our students are having in math specifically, it is so important for us to make sure that the foundational skills for our students are truly mastered before we move on. I saw that as a high school student. I didn't realize it at the time, obviously, because I didn't have, you know, I didn't have a prefrontal cortex yet, I was still a child. But now, as an adult and, more importantly, as a teacher, I can see and I'll share some examples in a moment, but I can really see how vital that was to my own success in a fairly difficult subject. I saw, like I said, I saw it again when I worked for two years as a high school special education teacher.
Speaker 1:My students, they, they struggled with ELA and they struggled with math, specifically algebra. That algebra, you know, like I said, that is a milestone it is. You got to get through algebra and that was. That was the toughest subject for them. It just hands down ELA, reading and math were the toughest subjects for them and because of that I I did a lot of conferences with the ELA and the math teachers and of course I'm focusing right now on math, obviously. So we'll talk about my, my conferences, my conferences with those math teachers.
Speaker 1:They really just revealed that the students not being able to know they're, they're just basic math facts, and I'm talking. Addition, I'm not talking, I'm not even going into multiplication. These students were struggling so much they would get caught up in problems like seven plus eight and because that wasn't, they didn't have the automaticity with it, they would get caught on that part of the problem and then the rest of it they would forget the other steps that they had to take. And so, not having that confidence, not having that skill, really it took so much brain power for them to do the, the simple parts, that the more complex, the larger problem just got lost completely in translation and the teachers would would just, they were just banging their heads against the wall because algebra teacher, geometry teacher, algebra teacher, algebra, two teachers, all these, all these teachers, college math teachers, were sitting there telling me how, asking, asking how am I supposed to help them be able to do this multiple step problem with this formula and help them to understand how to do these things when they're struggling with seven plus eight? And that's a legitimate question. I, that is a legitimate question. And you know what, now that I think about it, there were multiple meetings that I've had with fifth grade teachers that they're banging their heads against the wall because how in the world am I supposed to teach these kids, you know, all these more advanced concepts when they're struggling, when they're spending so much time doing the basic stuff, the basics, the very basics of addition, subtraction.
Speaker 1:And the fact is we have accepted, as as a teaching community, we have accepted this wisdom in math, the drill and kill right, that we should not be doing fact fluency, we should not be doing these things, that this is bad, that it it kills kids motivation and their confidence in math and all these things. And I'm going to say the thing that we showed it, that I shouldn't say we need to nip them the bud. That needs to stop right now. No, we don't have to put the star chart up on the wall to show who's the best math fact person because you know, okay, it hurts some of the students feelings. I understand that and in a lot of ways I support. You know, maybe it should be a personal work. You know, maybe the students could, you know, track that personally.
Speaker 1:But we still need to teach the kids the facts. They still need to learn the fact fluency, because I'll tell you right now it's not working. What we're doing right now is not working. When they get to algebra, that's not working. When they get into pre algebra, it's not working. When they get to geometry, those teachers, those poor algebra and geometry teachers, they are ripping their house if they have any hair left. After all of the shenanigans has been put on the last few years for teachers, if those poor teachers have any hair left, it's gray and it's being ripped out because there's no way there really is, there is no way to teach those advanced math concepts when the kids are still working on seven plus eight. And so we have got to nip this in the bud. This whole drilling, kill shenanigans.
Speaker 1:We can find. We are teachers, we are teachers. We can find ways to make it inclusive. We can find ways to build up kids confidence. And the fact is, what better way to build a kids confidence than to have them practice a skill and master it. What better way than for them to keep their own little chart that shows, week by week, how many more math facts they're able to do in a minute? That's, that is confidence. Right there, that is the mastery of a skill. That is a child looking at that themselves and going I did that.
Speaker 1:And that's what the kids need. They don't need to keep trying to figure out the math facts on the fingers. They need to know that seven plus eight is 15. They need to know it. And yeah, I'm passionate about this because the fact is, it's, it's. We're hurting our own kids. We are so and if I lose people, if I lose you over this, I'm sorry. No, I'm not. No, I'm not, because the fact is, sometimes we got to say what we got to say and here we are. It is 2023, almost 2024.
Speaker 1:And we all acknowledge that. What is happening? That the kids getting into high school? They're not prepared. We know that. We know that we're not kidding ourselves anymore. We got teachers on TikTok saying that the students can't spell the word because when they're in eighth grade it's not working. It's time that we take the gloves off and we start saying the hard things. The hard thing is we were wrong. It wasn't teachers, it was people on high. I know that, but we're the ones in the classroom. We're the ones who are looking at our students. It's time to nip that whole drill and kill idea in the bud and start doing some drilling. We need to start working on some fact fluency.
Speaker 1:The fact is, kids can't do basic facts. If they can't do the basic facts, they're having trouble. They can't do problems with multiple steps. There's only so much brain power that anyone has you and I, as intelligent as we are sitting here, as adults who are able to drive cars and, hopefully, who has really honestly balanced a checkbook in a while but you know what I mean. We're able to do that. You know what? We figure out how much we can spend in a grocery, and that's kind of difficult these days. We're intelligent adults. We would have a hard time trying to figure out a multiple step problem if every single one of those steps was something that was real difficult for us to do, was something that we didn't know how to do. We have to move on to that. Okay.
Speaker 1:Everybody says, well, they have calculators, they have calculators? They do. They do have calculators and they still get it wrong because they're putting in the wrong information. And they don't understand why it's wrong. Because they're spending so much of their time putting that, trying to figure out the small stuff to put it into the calculator, and their answer is always well, it's what the calculator said. It has to be right. Because they don't understand the process, because they don't have the basic foundational skills. You got to have the basic foundational skills, pemdals. They have to understand all that stuff. It has to be something that they can work through to do it right, to put in the calculator the right way so that they can get the right answer. I kind of just said it, but like.
Speaker 1:An example of this is the order of operations. You have several steps. You got to know the right order of things. If you punch in the calculator, you got to be wrong. If you just punch it in exactly as it is, you're going to be wrong. When you're teaching kids order of operations, their brain is trying to figure out which one of these steps do I do first, but if in the middle of that they're trying to figure out what seven plus eight is, I'll go back to seven plus eight, because it's one of my favorites. But if they're trying to figure that out they get lost. They get lost in that part of it and then the order of operations goes right out of their brain because it's too much. The brain can only handle so much at a time, so much processing, and so for their sake we have to start working on that fluency stuff. And that's the reality.
Speaker 1:One of the key problems with algebra, with those scores and the lack of success in algebra, is a lack of fact fluency. It results in a lack of confidence and comfort in math. If you're not confident in basic math facts. If a kid is sitting there my own son is an example of that Nine years old we had to go back and we had to work more on math fact fluency, on addition fluency, because his confidence in that wasn't good enough and when he was trying to do more difficult problems he was struggling, he was second guessing himself because he wasn't confident in his answers. He it wasn't mastered. And if that skill, the prerequisite skill, isn't mastered, moving on is so much more difficult. But we're moving kids on, and on, and on, and on and on before they've mastered those basic skills. We've got to go back. We have to do it, guys.
Speaker 1:So I want to encourage you to think about ways, no matter what level you're at. Think about ways that you can start hitting those basic foundational skills for your students in math. And no, we don't want to break their confidence. No, we don't want to say, hey, guys, because you can't do addition facts, you can't do word problems, you can't do order of operations, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're not going to do that. We're teachers, we know better. We're not going to put the star charts up to make Bobby feel bad, because you know Jeremiah is able to do all his facts and Bobby can't. We're not. We're absolutely not going to do that. We're not going to beat our students down. The world does that enough for us. We do not want to do that more, but we can find ways. Especially when we work together, we can find ways to build our students up while building up their basic foundational skills. I mean, we're teachers, we can do anything.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, I hope, beyond all hope, that you have an absolutely wonderful break. I hope that your break has started. If it hasn't, ooh, I am sorry. That's just wrong, but I hope that it has. And until next time. May your coffee be strong, your students calm and your break started immediately. Bye your break, until next time, thanks you.