Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Savvy, practical insights on where our Education Establishment went wrong and how most schools can be improved.LET'S FIX EDUCATION explains the many dysfunctional theories and methods operating within our schools. This podcast is intended for parents, teachers, and community leaders who want education reform.
Each week, LET'S FIX EDUCATION examines another problem in our public schools, such as: Constructivism. Learning styles. Sight-words. No memorization. Cooperative learning. Prior knowledge. Reform math. The dilution of knowledge. Common Core. Project-based learning. Student-centered, etc. In fact, there are DOZENS of counterproductive learning and teaching theories, all made worse by ideological motives.
Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, and education reformer. He has analyzed the problems in education for more than 30 years. Price is the author of "Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?" (190 pages) His main education site is Improve-Education.org. For more information about book and author, visit Lit4u.com. Newest novels are "Frankie" (about a harmless robot) and "The Boy Who Saves The World" (about a boy who saves the world).
"Bruce Price’s SAVING K-12 is a MUST read! It is precise, concise and powerful. Action is required…for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and the future of the American Republic!” Robert W. Sweet, Jr., long-time President of The National Right to Read Foundation
Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 171: Why Kids Need Multiplication Tables (Wed., October 9, 2024)
Episode 171: Why Kids Need Multiplication Tables (Wed., October 9, 2024)
What is the one method that every student knows is essential for middle and upper level math. It's a list of shortcuts that we call the multiplication tables.
What is 6 by 4? If you don't know, you have to start over again on every question. You have to put little dots on the page, or count on your fingers and toes. Remember how the schools made fun of that. Now it's required.
So, should kids memorize times tables? “Stanford University’s Jo Boaler says teachers and parents should stop drilling kids in addition and multiplication.…But wait — doesn’t everyone have to learn times tables?” No, says Boaler, evidently a dangerous brit.
CODA: Here’s what I've noticed. Every array of ceiling tiles, or linoleum tiles on the floor, contain the multiplication tables. Students can see for themselves that 3 by 4 is the same as 4 x 3. Yeah, it's 12 squares either way. So there is a prompt in plain sight for millions of students. Instead of finding easier ways to do things, the Education Establishment emphasizes difficulty so they will have excuses for reducing content.
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Bruce Deitrick Price
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Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, poet, and education reformer.
(For a list of his literary titles, visit Lit4u.com.
Like a good mystery?? "Frankie" is a unique WHODUNIT
Or visit "Frankie" article on X:
https://x.com/educatt/status/1842384658253672518
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Let's Fix Education explains to Americans why their schools are so bad. The people in charge prefer mediocrity because they are socialists of one kind or another. If people work together to promote real education, we'll have it.
LET'S FIX EDUCATION by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 171 Wed., October 9, 2024)
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Episode 171: Why Kids Need the Multiplication Tables
After decades of study, I realized there were no good ideas left in the public schools. Productive ideas known to work were discarded, to be replaced by counterproductive gimmicks. For example, the experts abandoned phonics. Literacy rates dropped ever since and now we have 50 million functional illiterates.
So our experts were massively accident-prone? Or did they engage in deliberate sabotage? I think the flaws and failures were so extensive, over so many years, we have to conclude the situation was an enemy’s covert op all along. That's a serious charge. Just try to refute it.
I tried to think of the best example of something idiotic in our schools that proves the malevolence of the system. Our schools used to insist that students in the early grades learn the multiplication tables. This is very handy knowledge, and without it you basically can't go beyond middle level math without a lot of extra difficulty.
So what would you predict? Would our professors try to eliminate multiplication tables? Of course.
Everyone please, in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, ask yourself what legit motivation could the schools and education experts have for eliminating the traditional approach? My guess is they want to lower our educational standards?
Everyone knows about the Cold War Throughout mid-20th century, Americans and Russians skirmished, maneuvered, and plotted in every way imaginable, stopping just short of bombs and bullets. The Russians, that is to say the Communists, undermined everything they could get close to. If they could make children ignorant, illiterate, disorganized, or lacking in motivation, those are considered worthy goals. Ergo, it's a safe bet that the attack on multiplication tables was just another facet of Moscow’s War on America.
You might say this is a conspiracy theory and you don't want to hear such stuff. However, if on the street in front of you, somebody knocks down an old lady and takes her pocketbook, that's not a conspiracy theory, that's reality. That's a fact. The continuous, repetitive pattern of educational decline throughout the United States is like this old lady being mugged.
The Hechinger Report says, “Jo Boaler, an education professor and researcher, has spent a career trying to prove why it is the best way for kids to learn. Drilling without understanding is harmful,” Boaler said in an interview. “I’m not saying that math facts aren’t important. I’m saying that math facts are best learned when we understand them and use them in different situations.”
This is the brain-dead sophistry you hear so much. What's to understand about 8×4 = 32?. It is what it is; and everybody gets it.
OK, so who's to blame for all this nonsense? The kids don't know what's being done to them. The parents put up with it, but only out of ignorance. Media and universities know what's going on, but they can’t take sides because some of their best friends are our enemies. But if you go to the schools of education, you will probably find professors making the country dumber, and making good money doing so.
Finally, you have to wonder, What kind of people try to dumb down children? The word evil comes to my mind.
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Good complementary article: K-12: The Math You Need Is Not the Math You Get
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/11/k12_the_math_you_need_is_emnotem_the_math_you_get.html