to think this is a crappy way to teach?

[swishyinhersatinandtat]

Just had DS9 come down from bed in floods of tears.

Turns out at school - he's in year 4 - there's a 'times tables challenge' - kids are tested on rapid recall of tables over a 3 minutes. According to how many get right they move up levels - bronze, silver, gold etc. This is on a board at the front of the class for all to see. He and two other kids are at the bottom.

It surprises me a bit as - please don't think I'm boasting - he's always been academically very strong at maths - lots of extension work in lower years, shining reports blah blah. That's not what concerns me though. What I don't like is displaying names like this - surely some kids are going to struggle more than others? Why display their names? Aptitude at certain things is so different to moving names up and down a behaviour chart. Also this seems to go against the whole school ethos of 'don't learn things in parrot fashion' etc.

I get that this isn't a major issue, but DS was very upset. DH thinks I'm being ridiculous and this is a normal way to teach. Opinions?

Learning tables when you don't understand the concepts is a terrible idea.

Not learning your tables because you don’t understand the concept is an even worse idea. Understanding the concept can come later (and often does in maths...things take time to percolate).

I have a doctorate in mathematics, having never learned multiplication tables in this way. Did not hold me back.
Chanting in the car, seriously?

silver It is arithmetic, very different from maths. And it is something I use nearly every day.

silver - yeah my DH is the same...never learned them, has a PhD in theoretical physics.

Arithmetic though is very different from maths. You can be good at one and bad at the other. And someone who is very good at maths should understand the difference.
Arithmetic helps you in every day life. I can split a bill between 5 people in my head while someone is still trying to open the calculator app on their phone.

It is arithmetic, very different from maths
Not really, no. Ideas that are first introduced through times tables are later evolving and consolidating naturally into very interesting concepts in abstract algebra. I think rote learning for speed and result is far from ideal.
I earn my bread and butter from using relatively advanced mathematics (in financial modelling, to be more precise), but will definitely reach for a calculator if you ask me for, say, 8*7.

I agree with silver. You can turn somebody entirely off maths with rote learning and a much larger number of people don't ever get underneath the rote learning and so cannot apply the concepts in a new or abstract way. Worse they may not even realise there is anything to 'understand' at all.

If you are doing stuff at work, that is different.
The difference with arithmetic is it is used in every day life outside of work. When shopping, in restaurants, wen paying bills. How do you know if someone has given you the right change if you can't do basic arithmetic? How do you know if you have enough money to pay for your shopping if you can't do basic arithmetic. Yes you can use your phone. But it is much easier and quicker to do it in your head.
Although this is something that mainly older people can do as we were taught this thoroughly.
So I was at a hotel last weekend. When given the bill for extra expenditure it took me about 10-15 seconds to check it and check it added up correctly.
At a pub this evening, it took me a few seconds to know if what I was asked to pay was probably correct and my change was correct.
Cashiers and staff do give the wrong change. They do key in the wrong items and it comes to the wrong amount. If you can't do arithmetic correctly in your head you will be overcharged and short changed throughout your life.

There is no "other method" to learn times tables to instant recall that avoids rote learning.

Well some people find learning by rote incredibly difficult. Therefore they do use other methods. It may be slower but when that works for them, that's what they do. Everyone's different.

You can turn somebody entirely off maths with rote learning

You can really turn kids off maths by asking them to do stuff that they can’t do very easily because they don’t know their tables while the rest of the class whizz ahead.

You don't need high academic ability to learn times tables by rote. It is just practice. Just like as a kid we used to have to learn various poems by heart. It was those who practised who learned them. In fact it is a task where those less academically able kids can excel in.

It is simple repetition and it is the best way to learn times tables.

Very stupid. No one needs to rote learn times tables. My brother is an assistant professor in Maths at LSE and didn't rote learn them. I'd love to know how it held him back.

I am going to stop posting on this thread. But I will say it again.
Not knowing your times tables will not stop you being excellent at maths. Knowing your times tables will help you in everyday life. It is not so much a work skill as a life skill.

Just to add, its like saying - never learning to spell did not hold my brother back who is a best selling author. Totally irrelevant as an argument against teaching kids how to spell.

No, it's not totally irrelevant.

It's ignorant and ill-informed to think that learning spellings by rote, or times tables by rote, is a good idea.

Learning to use a dictionary is great. Learning how numbers work is great.

But rote learning, whether it is spellings or times tables, is not a very efficient use of anyone's time, and for many children it is actively unhelpful.

And no, knowing your times tables will not help you in everyday life.

It might help you - if you've been failed in other ways.

There is an important difference.

If you have been so badly taught that you cannot do simple arithmetic, then having rote learned your tables is better than nothing. But that is an appalling and lazy argument in favour of rote learning.

Much better to teach simple arithmetic properly.

At my kids’ school (not in the U.K.) the students who show maths ability are offered various enrichment groups, including a small pull out class of a few kids who are working several years ahead. You test into these groups and for a mathy kid - like the OP’s son - they are pretty awesome. The children are given the option of entering external maths competitions but the teachers seem to be really encouraging to all that enter, focusing on the process etc.

Rightly or wrongly, a child with ability who was slow at the basics would be as risk of not getting chosen and the initial entry point is to be above a certain mark in the initial exam. Children who are good at maths who are exposed early to maths concepts, taught well, get better at it.

My 10 year old DD has this question in her workbook, which I think is one of the Year 5 ICAS exam questions. There are 40 questions in the paper and no calculators are allowed.

“Ten minutes before the concert was due to start, the hall was 1/3 full.

The warning bell rang and 140 people entered the hall and sat down.

The hall was then 4/5 full.

How many seats were in the hall?”

Obviously it’s a question for 10 year olds, so it’s not that hard but it would be if you had to faff around multiplying 3 X 5 and then couldn’t quickly divide 140 by 7 to get 1/15 etc.

I agree completely that a mathy kid should be able to push through if they can’t get the times tables but assuming he can learn them why don’t just help him learn them? It’s a useful tool.

Learning tables won’t hold anyone back but not learning them will. And those of you with maths professor relatives who don’t know their times tables? I totally believe you...

assuming he can learn them why don’t just help him learn them? It’s a useful tool.

Because for some children (some, not all), it's one of the ways of dissociating them from what maths is really about. They start to see it as a system of rules and memory exercises, and not a structure with meaning, which can be adapted. Learning times tables does not have to be like that, of course, but learning by rote, and learning by rote at speed, does tend to cut out the elements of understanding and thinking and reflecting. And that in turn produces children who do not readily think beyond the rules later on.

No one is saying that you just learn times tables by rote and boom, that's your maths learning done. But if you know your times tables, it makes division, fractions, decimals etc so much easier. Why wouldn't you encourage learning them by rote?

Some very odd attitudes on this thread.

Learning times tables does not have to be like that, of course, but learning by rote, and learning by rote at speed, does tend to cut out the elements of understanding and thinking and reflecting.

Absolutely not. Its perfectly possible to do both and is what I have always encouraged as a teacher.

Lots of people on this thread know fuck-all, with confidence.

@SarahAndQuack There are some people who can cope with a high cognitive load that don't "need" to learn them because their brain can retain new information while processing the times table working out.

However most people can't. Therefore having them rote learned and stored in your long term memory frees up your working memory to deal with the actual new Maths.

It is not actively unhelpful. Research shows it is very helpful to have facts like times tables stored to be retrieved rather than having to be worked out every time.

Well if you want to be a military pilot or warfare officer you need to be pretty quick at speed/distance/time calculation. Knowing your tables certainly helps.
If you want to be able to do drug calculations quickly as a junior doctor or nurse then times tables certainly help.
I imagine the same with vets.
If you want to understand percentages and statistics easily to interpret data then times tables help.

I can’t think of any situation where not knowing your tables is an advantage.

Recently, on facebook, a friend of mine asked how to help her son with his homework question: what is 2/7 divided by 5?

I replied by pointing out that the slash sign in a fraction is just an instruction to divide, so you are dividing twice, once by 7 and once by 5.

No one on that FB thread understood a word of what I was saying. And several mentioned having maths GCSE.

I think a lot of people in my generation learned all the 'rules' and got through exams, but their understanding of the actual concepts was so shaky that, by now (we're in our 30s), they don't even have the very basic things. And I really do think a lot of this has to do with how maths is taught, with a lot of rote learning.

Btw, vaseline, this is my brother. Nothing on here about his rote learning, I know, but I promise you he isn't a big fan of it. He taught me a lot of my GCSE maths and he was always keen to make me understand, not just recite. www.lse.ac.uk/Mathematics/people/Peter-Allen