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The "D'Amore Test"
Feb. 3rd, 2007 02:14 pmA teacher showed me this website and I thought I'd pass it on. I've often said there has been a dumbing down in math education and I've stongly resisted some changes to the point of ignoring stuff that is supposed to be mandatory because they make the situation worse. Myself and the other teacher plan to give this test to our students to see what happens. Results will be posted once we find out how they do. No calculators are allowed so we'll see what happens. I also encourage you guys to try it without calculators. Pencil and paper is fine. For the record, we both got perfect as well as pretty much all teachers who tried it but that may be because we grew up learning math and not how to use a calculator. Anyway, the article:
Are you concerned about the way our children are being taught math?
In 1992 Lou D'Amore, a high-school science and chemistry teacher in Etobicoke, gave a 1932 Grade III math test to his Grade IX class. Only 25 percent answered all ten questions correctly. The following year, 2,436 Canadian students ranging from Grades V to XII tried the "D'Amore test" -- with similar results. Only 27 percent of those in Grades X to XII managed a perfect score.
D'Amore's disturbing findings are confirmed by a host of other studies. A 1994 Statistics Canada report on literacy and math skills found that 48 percent of Canadians lacked the necessary abilities to function adequately at home or at work. In Winnipeg, in 24 out of 56 schools, the average student scored less than 50 percent on the 1997 provincial math exam. And last year, when Grade III students in Ontario were tested, 46 percent ranked below a level deemed acceptable by the provincial education ministry.
The "D'Amore Test"
1. Subtract these numbers: 9,864 - 5,947
2. Multiply: 92 x 34
3. Add the following: $126.30 + $265.12 + $196.40
4. An airplane travels 360 kilometres in three hours. How far does it go in one hour?
5. If a pie is cut into sixths, how many pieces would there be?
6. William bought six oranges at 5 cents each and had 15 cents left over. How much had he at first?
7. Jane had $2.75. Mary had 95 cents more than Jane. How much did Jane and Mary have together?
8. A boy bought a bicycle for $21.50. He sold it for $23.75. Did he gain or lose and by how much?
9. Mary's mother bought a hat for $2.85. What was her change from $5?
10. There are 36 children in one room and 33 in the other room in Tom's school. How much will it cost to buy a crayon at 7 cents each for each child?
- W. E. HUME, The Opportunity Plan (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1932)
( Answers here )
Kids without strong math skills will be shortchanged in today's job market, says Cheryl Gorman, who works with the Conference Board of Canada, an Ottawa-based organization representing more than 600 businesses and institutions. More and more, jobs are being created in industries where science, technology and math skills are needed, and being lost in those where they aren't.
The 1994 Statistics Canada report further underlines the importance of math in our economy. About 30 percent of the unemployed and more than half of adult Canadians who reported no income were at the lowest level of numerical literacy. "Unfortunately, in Canada it's socially acceptable to be poor at math," says Malgorzata Dubiel, a math lecturer at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University. "People say 'I'm no good at math' almost with pride."
Who's to blame? The most obvious cause of this situation is the glaring shortage of specialist math teachers in Canada. There is evidence that many kindergarten to Grade VIII teachers have studied no math at all since leaving junior high school, let alone university-level math. Says Thomas Schweitzer, formerly senior economist at the Economic Council of Canada and author of a 1995 paper called "The State of Education in Canada": "It astonishes me that it's taken for granted that any teacher can teach any subject."
Another problem is the popular "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards of School Mathematics" championed since 1989 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in the United States. The NCTM approach favours learning by the use of physical materials: interlocking cubes, elastic bands on peg-boards, coloured plastic discs. Calculators are permitted from kindergarten to Grade IV.
Lou D'Amore believes another problem is the "spiral curriculum": If you keep reintroducing the same subject, kids will pick it up when they're ready. "The theory goes that if they don't learn multiplication in Grade III, it's okay because they'll take it again in Grades IV, V, VI and VII. That just isn't the case. The kids who know it are bored; those who don't are never given the attention they need to learn it once and for all."
"It's important to challenge students," says Cary Chien, a B.C. math teacher and recipient of the Prime Minister's Master Teacher Award. "If you don't, you will never find out what they're capable of. And they are often capable of much more than you would expect."
Says Eric Newell, vice chairman of the Conference Board of Canada, and cochairman and CEO of Syncrude, Canada's second-largest supplier of crude oil, "The United Nations consistently rates Canada as the No. 1 country to live in. We've got a vested interest in attaining high skill levels in math so we can continue to enjoy the standard of living that we've got."
This is a fascinating article and really scary to read. It helps to show what I've seen for some time. The kids are being trained how to use a calculator, not how to do simple math.
Are you concerned about the way our children are being taught math?
In 1992 Lou D'Amore, a high-school science and chemistry teacher in Etobicoke, gave a 1932 Grade III math test to his Grade IX class. Only 25 percent answered all ten questions correctly. The following year, 2,436 Canadian students ranging from Grades V to XII tried the "D'Amore test" -- with similar results. Only 27 percent of those in Grades X to XII managed a perfect score.
D'Amore's disturbing findings are confirmed by a host of other studies. A 1994 Statistics Canada report on literacy and math skills found that 48 percent of Canadians lacked the necessary abilities to function adequately at home or at work. In Winnipeg, in 24 out of 56 schools, the average student scored less than 50 percent on the 1997 provincial math exam. And last year, when Grade III students in Ontario were tested, 46 percent ranked below a level deemed acceptable by the provincial education ministry.
The "D'Amore Test"
1. Subtract these numbers: 9,864 - 5,947
2. Multiply: 92 x 34
3. Add the following: $126.30 + $265.12 + $196.40
4. An airplane travels 360 kilometres in three hours. How far does it go in one hour?
5. If a pie is cut into sixths, how many pieces would there be?
6. William bought six oranges at 5 cents each and had 15 cents left over. How much had he at first?
7. Jane had $2.75. Mary had 95 cents more than Jane. How much did Jane and Mary have together?
8. A boy bought a bicycle for $21.50. He sold it for $23.75. Did he gain or lose and by how much?
9. Mary's mother bought a hat for $2.85. What was her change from $5?
10. There are 36 children in one room and 33 in the other room in Tom's school. How much will it cost to buy a crayon at 7 cents each for each child?
- W. E. HUME, The Opportunity Plan (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1932)
( Answers here )
Kids without strong math skills will be shortchanged in today's job market, says Cheryl Gorman, who works with the Conference Board of Canada, an Ottawa-based organization representing more than 600 businesses and institutions. More and more, jobs are being created in industries where science, technology and math skills are needed, and being lost in those where they aren't.
The 1994 Statistics Canada report further underlines the importance of math in our economy. About 30 percent of the unemployed and more than half of adult Canadians who reported no income were at the lowest level of numerical literacy. "Unfortunately, in Canada it's socially acceptable to be poor at math," says Malgorzata Dubiel, a math lecturer at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University. "People say 'I'm no good at math' almost with pride."
Who's to blame? The most obvious cause of this situation is the glaring shortage of specialist math teachers in Canada. There is evidence that many kindergarten to Grade VIII teachers have studied no math at all since leaving junior high school, let alone university-level math. Says Thomas Schweitzer, formerly senior economist at the Economic Council of Canada and author of a 1995 paper called "The State of Education in Canada": "It astonishes me that it's taken for granted that any teacher can teach any subject."
Another problem is the popular "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards of School Mathematics" championed since 1989 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in the United States. The NCTM approach favours learning by the use of physical materials: interlocking cubes, elastic bands on peg-boards, coloured plastic discs. Calculators are permitted from kindergarten to Grade IV.
Lou D'Amore believes another problem is the "spiral curriculum": If you keep reintroducing the same subject, kids will pick it up when they're ready. "The theory goes that if they don't learn multiplication in Grade III, it's okay because they'll take it again in Grades IV, V, VI and VII. That just isn't the case. The kids who know it are bored; those who don't are never given the attention they need to learn it once and for all."
"It's important to challenge students," says Cary Chien, a B.C. math teacher and recipient of the Prime Minister's Master Teacher Award. "If you don't, you will never find out what they're capable of. And they are often capable of much more than you would expect."
Says Eric Newell, vice chairman of the Conference Board of Canada, and cochairman and CEO of Syncrude, Canada's second-largest supplier of crude oil, "The United Nations consistently rates Canada as the No. 1 country to live in. We've got a vested interest in attaining high skill levels in math so we can continue to enjoy the standard of living that we've got."
This is a fascinating article and really scary to read. It helps to show what I've seen for some time. The kids are being trained how to use a calculator, not how to do simple math.
