I was a victim of the new math. Although, I suspect that if my teachers had been more understanding (of their subject) that it wouldn't have been so painful. I failed second grade. When I took math in third grade, they would take me out of class and walk me to he other end of the school to take it with the first graders. I just couldn't understand the point of the whole thing. In particular, I didn't quite 'believe' multiplication. And I couldn't understand inequalities at all. Of course those are trivial things to me now, and it's difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. I think my brain just wasn't ready to receive those concepts yet. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that if I had had teachers who were actually thinking about what was going on instead of just spewing back what they thought they knew that things might have turned out differently.


One of my brothers failed second grade twice. He was entering fourth grade before someone finally realized he couldn't read. Not a word. Part of this was the fact that we moved to so many different schools. My mom says we went to 8 different schools that year, but I swear I only remember 3. Part of it was the fact that my parents weren't involved in school at all. And a big part, I think, was that the teachers just weren't paying attention. They have this script that they go through and if you ask questions in the wrong way it's like you're ad-libbing and they loose track of where they are.


I agree that too often teachers (and parents and everyone else) are out for the next silver bullet. That doesn't mean they're all fool's silver. But the main thing is having a teacher who really understands the subject and who is enthusiastic, who wants to help the student to understand things in whatever way the student is ready to accept it.


k