Why the U.S. Can’t Get Over it’s Math Problem

It has more to do with attitude than adding

It’s no secret that we have a math problem in this country. Placing 39th out of 70 nations who participated does not put us near the top. In case you are one of the many citizens of our country suffering from a lack of understanding numbers I will translate. We are in the bottom half of the nations who took the test (for math, we score slightly higher in other subjects). Sure, there may be prettier ways to state the truth, but sometimes the truth needs to sting a little. To wake us up. To get us moving towards change.

We Have the Power to Change This Number

The good news I want to share is this, parents and teachers both have tremendous power to change these numbers. I am going to tell you why I believe this is true, and what it will take from us, ‘the common man’, to effect drastic change.

The other good news is that it does not take generations for a country to dramatically change their scores. The graph of change is quite volatile with countries making both giant leaps and disturbing slides in the span of as little as 10 years. (I would share the graphic, but believe that would infringe on copyright…you can view it in the book The Smartest Kids in the World on page 3.)

PISA is Not an Irrelevant Test

Yes, the PISA test matters. Some like to argue tests do not accurately reflect the creative and thinking skills and this makes up for a lack of high math scores. They do this only because they do not understand the PISA test, this test was specifically created to be a test different than all others. A test that was not just a gage of how many formulas kids had memorized but whether or not they could think. Yes, there are reading and science and math sections, but in all these subjects the test is ultimately about whether or not the student can think. This turns out to be a great predictor of future success. It is a more accurate predictor than report cards of which students will go on to attend college and who will drop out of high school.

Thinking Skills Matter

Why should we care? Because PISA is a test of the ability to do something useful with facts, to interpret data, to make a decision and then defend it rationally. I don’t know about you, but I want kids who can do all these things, and I don’t want them to be aliens in a society of robots who are just going through the motions of life doing whatever they are told. I want them surrounded with peers who can also think, look at facts, make a decision, and defend it. This ability to think is a crucial base to be able to hold meaningful conversations about a variety of problems people face on both personal and societal scales.

Economics, Another Reason it Matters

As much as our country wants a high GDP, nothing will increase it as fast as changing our student’s PISA score. I know, it sounds trite and overly simplified, but in fact;

“Economists found an almosts one-to-one match between PISA scores and a nation’s long-term economic growth. Many other things influenced economic growth, of course, but the ability of the workforce to learn, think, and adapt was the ultimate stimulus package. If the United States had Finland’s PISA scores, GDP would be increasing at the rate of one to two trillion dollars per year.” -Amanda Ripley — The Smartest Kids in the World (Emphasis added.)

I have written before about how changing our attitude toward math could change the world. But after reading The Smartest Kids in the World I feel it was too broad of a title. The book has shed light on the fact that many other countries in the world do not have our out-dated prejudice against math. They view it differently and their countries are changing because of it. Places like South Korea have risen out of poverty because of their attitude towards education.

There is No Magical Math Brain

The problem starts, with the idea that math is something you are either born with or without. Of course, this is simply not true. Math is a language. Perhaps more difficult for some students to master than others, but every student is capable of mastery. This is the difference in societal thinking that keeps some nations scoring low. Countries that score exceptionally hight, no matter what kind of system they use to get there, (Finland, Korea, Poland) all view math as simply a language to be learned. They all push their students to work hard in math. They all believe that all kids can learn to speak math and insist that they do.

Other Countries Insist Their Kids Work Hard at Learning

Here is another magic key. Work hard. It’s not something we are overly fond of here in the United States. We want it to come easy, and when it doesn’t we fall back on genetic or talent excuses. “My daughter just wasn’t born with the math gene.” “My son just isn’t good with numbers.”

I know, I know, you may be thinking, but I have a kid who just naturally understands numbers and one who doesn’t. You know what? It doesn’t matter that much. Not if they both spend 10,000 hours doing math by the time they graduate high school, they will both understand numbers. One may have a deeper understanding, but they will both be fluent. Just because some kids have the potential to become math experts does not mean we should let all the other kids off the hook. Any child can and should become math fluent.

Amand Ripley (author of The Smartest Kids in the World) followed the personal journeys of foreign exchange students from the U.S. going to countries on the top of the education charts. What she found is so simple it is beautiful. The thriving countries had different ways of getting there, different ways of operating their public schools, different details. Different administrative policies.

Education = Treasure…When did We Forget THIS?

But the psychology of the nations in regards to learning and education was the same no matter where her students traveled. Learning and education mattered. They mattered so much that rigor was demanded of every child. High standards were set and every child was expected to rise to those standards, and they did. Education was seen as a treasure.

But here in the U.S., we are becoming less and less fond of rigor. We want learning to be a fun, happy, easy, experience. While I believe learning should be done in a relaxing and rich environment, and that learning happens naturally and more easily in such a place. I do not, for one minute, claim that learning is always easy. Thinking is hard. Teaching kids to think is hard. Boring education is harmful to kids, but what is the opposite of boring? I wouldn’t say easy and fun is much better than boring because to stretch the mind you need a challenge, we are bored both by work that is too easy and work that is too hard.

We Expect Mediocrity

We are throwing out rigor in the name of fun. We are not demanding more of our kids. We are feeling sorry for them because they have to struggle and so we let them quit trying. We are giving them A’s for work that in other countries would merit a D. We are creating praise addicts who have never pushed through to see what they can do if they really try. We are going slow and easy, so we don’t leave anyone behind. We are teaching our kids that we don’t believe they are smart if we need we would ask more of them.

Cheerleaders Are Not What Drives a Team to Win

Parents and teachers in countries that excel on the PISA test demand more of their students. Not because they are mean, but because they believe their children can do it. They are both warm, loving, nurturing, and strict. Ripley compared the attitudes like this, parents from these other countries had a coaching relationship with their kids while parents from the United States tended to act as cheerleaders.

The Government Can’t Fix This

So while we could list all the problems we see with our school systems and talk about funding (PISA scores do not get higher when more money is spent on education.) all the policy change in the world can not make up for our fatalistic and lazy attitude towards education.

There is something we can do right now, in our own homes and schools to change the future of our children and our nation.

We can lovingly demand excellence of our kids. We can believe they can understand. We can require that they put in the effort and work needed to learn how to think.

We can know that both public and private schools, from both rich and poor neighborhoods in our country, all come in low on PISA tests. This means A’s don’t mean much. Go deeper with your kids, get extra education on the side, by finding and exploring treasures. There is so much out there, even in such easy forms as watching a video or listening to audio books. Don’t let the school door be the beginning and end of education, make education a lifestyle.