Math Education are we instructing the right part of the brain?

Some Interesting Websites
 Forvo is the largest pronunciation guide in the world. Ever wondered how a word is pronounced?  Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you. You can also record your own pronunciations.
 VPike will fascinate kids and adults alike.  When you enter an address you will see a picture of that place. 
10 Cool Math Sites contains ten math sites for students of all ages, as well as teachers.  There are websites for everything from basic flash cards to game theory. 

Articles on Math Education
 A A-Maze-ing Approach to Math by Barry Garelick in Education Next
'Algebra-for-all' Approach Fount to Yield Poor Results by Debra Viadero Education Week
 West Brain, East Brain by Sharon Begley in Newsweek
Number Wars: School Battles heat Up Again in the Traditional versus Reform-Math Debate  by Linda Baker in Scientific American

Thoughts From Yrisarri
I recently read an article that asks whether or not a math teacher should have a degree in mathematics.  That depends a great deal upon what level is being taught and the amount of math study the teacher has completed.  It is probably a good requirement for a high school teacher with classes in upper level math because of the need for depth of knowledge needed to transmit not only the information but a love of the subject.  I have encountered many math teachers with minimum exposure to math who have been assigned to teach teach math at the middle or high school level.  Needless to say, these teachers are frequently ineffective because they don't know math. There are also many people who know about math but don't necessarily understand how to work with children.  It seems that this problem of math aptitude for the teacher has some real solutions.  The problem however, is deeper than who has a degree and who does not have a degree in math.

The most important skill of any teacher, including the math teacher, is to motivate the students, provide the student with the proper challenge, and explain what they do not understand.  Unfortunately we seem to have a culture in which many people admit they do not understand math or just do not see why it is important to their life.  Elementary teachers reflect the society they represent and many do not understand the relationship between math and problem solving and are unable to motivate their students to want to learn math.  These teachers end up teaching math as a language by having their students solve and memorize equations.  Even if the student is motivated to learn math that is only a small part of learning mathematics .

An interesting study of east vs. west mathematical thinking demonstrates the difference in the ways each culture is taught math.  Using brain scans to determine what part of the brain an individual uses when confronted with a math problem the researchers found differences between eastern and western use of the brain.  Asian brains generally used the spatial/visual portions of the brain while their western counterparts depended upon the language area of their brain.

I spent a number of years in Asian cultures and my experience leads me to believe that a difference between how we learn math may contribute to the difference in how our brains treat math problems.  In the U.S.  we jump immediately to abstract concepts when teaching math.  The use of graphical representations runs counter to a child’s intuitive knowledge about math.  All kids know that three cookies on the plate are preferable to one cookie.  But, when we put the number 3 and the number 1 in writing and begin talking about what they mean, we have moved beyond the concrete operations the child needs to fully conceptualize what we are talking about.

The Japanese use the abacus to learn math.  I vividly remember young children doing math operations on the abacus much faster and more accurately than I could with pencil and paper.  When their students begin solving equations in all four areas of math using a concrete model, our students are memorizing math tables of graphical representations.  I believe this helps to explain why Asians use visual/spatial areas of their brain and we tend to think in terms of language.  I also recall that most Japanese students knew their "math facts" because of repetition on the abacus.

The aversion to math in our culture is often echoed by middle school children and their chants of “boring” and “I’ll never use this”.  This is not something they thought of on their own.  Frequently you hear their parents say exactly the same thing when you discuss their child's problem with math.  We need math teachers who can counter this national aversion to math by demonstrating and relating the subject to daily life and who understand that math is a way of thinking more than a specific operation.  They also need to motivate children by their teaching to want to learn math.     

Teachers do not necessarily need math degrees but they do need to understand and value math at various levels based upon the level they teach.  However, nothing will change unless there is a paradigm shift in our country.  As long as we do more of the same thing in our math instruction, our children will not want to learn math because it seems boring and useless to them.  It is going to require a commitment from the teachers to learn a different way of thinking about the purpose of math and giving our students positive messages about their ability to think in mathematical ways.