$5 M Fuzzy Math Concepts for the Math Phobic?

You do the math for this one!

The Wall Street Journal reported The Department of Education awarded Erickson Institute $5 million to "offer early mathematics training to 111 teachers from preschool to third grade at eight more Chicago schools and to study the program's effectiveness." The Early Mathematics Education Project at Erikson Institute focuses on how to teach mathematical thinking to young children, rather than basic math procedures. The Erikson researchers intend to train Chicago early childhood teachers to help them teach young children to connect what numbers mean to their everyday world.

After reading the example in the article about "syncopated clapping patterns", this old time early childhood educator could not help but think of the Math Their Way program that was in widely used in the progressive private schools back in the 80's and 90's. Mary Baratta-Lorton wrote this book that uses an activity-centered approach to teach basic math skills for these same grade levels. The goal of her activities is to allow children to explore and develop understanding and insight of math concepts through the use of concrete materials.

The Early Mathematics Education Project goals and techniques and philosophy described in the article sound very similar to those used in the Math Their Way w-a-a-a-a-y back when. Seems to this early childhood educator that the newest thing was the price tag:

$5,000,000 Early Mathematics Education Project divided by 111 teachers (includes 1 week summer training + 6 training sessions during the year) = $45,045 per teacher

Math their Way: An Activity-Centered Mathematics Program for Early Childhood Education,
by Mary Baratta-Lorton, Lorton Baratta = $44.36 ($30.59 for paperback)

Oh...and Math Their Way Summer Workshops are available for $350 per person and if there isn't one in your area, you can set one up at no charge! http://www.center.edu/WORKSHOPS/wslist.php

For the same 5 million dollars, the Dept of Education could have:

-- given each of these 111 teachers a full scholarship toward a Master's degree

-- hired a full time master teaching partner for each class

-- hired 111 more teachers and cut class size in half

$45,000 is an average salary of a Kindergarten teacher earns in a year, it is 30% more than the average preschool teacher earns in a year.

Seems like early childhood educators are not the ones who need to brush up on basic math skills....

See: New Calculation: Math in Preschool, by Stephanie Banchero - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203764804577056551856059254.html