RI needs math curriculum reform

RI needs math curriculum reform

By Iwan Pranoto

BANDUNG (JP): The concern with which many intellectuals
greeted Indonesia's poor showing in the 1999 international
mathematics and science study was actually a good sign: it showed
that they care about our math and science education.

The US-sponsored study, which was first launched in 1995 and
was called the Third International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS), was followed by the second in 1999 which was called
TIMSS Repeat.

The 1999 study showed that there are only three countries that
have improved significantly and only one country that declined
compared to the 1995 test results.

Now, if Indonesian academicians are disappointed over the poor
showing of their students, it is interesting to note that in fact
several American academicians do not feel the TIMSS tests really
tell us much about the actual quality of math and science
teaching.

W.W. Gibbs, in The False Crisis in Science Education published
in Scientific American, dismisses the results. He says: "American
teenagers score a bit lower than many peers overseas on a battery
of mostly multiple-choice questions emphasizing basic facts and
procedures in math and science. So what?"

The above reaction is understandable, because the performances
of US students in the two TIMSS tests were only average out of
the 42 countries surveyed in 1995 and the 38 countries in 1999.
Most American academicians feel that their scores are too low for
them.

The TIMSS is not perfect, so one still may say that the
results do not really reflect actual performance. However, if we
restrict our discussion to our own math and science teaching,
then no one will disagree with the TIMSS results.

These results show that the performance of our students is
almost at the bottom. Thus, regardless of the TIMSS outcome, the
quality of our math teaching in elementary and high schools is
indeed poor.

The first problem is in the quality of our math teachers
rather than the curriculum. Math teachers here follow the
curriculum rigidly; they view it as a list of necessary materials
that must be taught in class.

Since it is considered necessary, people think it is the
minimum and that additional materials must be added. Therefore,
many math teachers and parents alike equate the quality of math
teaching with how many other materials are being delivered in the
classrooms.

Since most of the teachers were actually educated by a system
when modern math was introduced in 1980s, they are familiar with
both the old and the new versions of math teaching.

Many of them have therefore not been convinced that modern
math is sufficient; they try to squeeze in other materials they
stumble upon when studying the new curriculum.

This is one reason why we still observe many elementary
schools giving both modern math and Jurassic-era math heavy with
routine computation skills and table memorization almost at the
same time.

For example, many second grade students have to master
addition and multiplication skills without actually calculating
with pencil and paper. In our past school system, it was called
mencongak. Now, some more recent techniques can even make our
kids do it faster than a calculator.

It is saddening to see many parents urge their kids to take
courses of this kind under the names arithmetic, abacus, etc.

Thus, when a first or second grade student should actually
learn the basic addition or multiplication concepts
wholeheartedly and experience them, they have to rush it and
memorize the addition and multiplication tables instead.

First, this activity is not a part of doing mathematics.
Second, this activity does not give students the opportunity to
think. It is so sad that we math teachers cannot provide our
students with a sufficient amount of time for them to learn math
correctly.

A math teacher practicing this approach will really torture
the students. They will be unable to learn math correctly,
equating math learning with memorization. Further, this will make
math learning an unpleasant experience for them.

Moreover, adding incompatible materials to a curriculum that
has already been described as "rich" will be counter-productive.

Another problem with the above approach is that the two kinds
of math are totally different by concept. Modern math teaching is
a set of efforts to help every student develop the mathematical
power.

According to the report "Fostering Algebraic and Geometric
Thinking", prepared by the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM), this power consists of mathematical
reasoning, communication, problem solving, and making connections
between concepts.

Thus, we math teachers have to create strategies that help our
students develop their mathematical power. In particular, fast
computation skills, the ability to do routine procedures, and
that dictionary-like formula memorization stressed in the old
system is not central anymore.

We never say that computation is not important, but in modern
mathematics, computation is only a part of the mathematical
power. There are more important things than computation skills in
mathematics. That old math full of routine procedures is not in
the curriculum. So if one school teaches its students the skills,
it must be the policy of the school itself.

One may ask why most of our math teachers approach math
teaching by adding to the materials with a sort of training on
routine procedures and formula memorization. I think it is
because our math teachers do not have the necessary
qualifications.

Most of our math teachers are unable to skip some materials.
Writer Mochtar Buchori wrote recently that our teachers do not
know what not to teach. They mostly only ask what to teach.

We need reform of math teaching. Curriculum reform is in fact
not that crucial. We must encourage teachers to improve their
mastery, which in turn will boost their confidence and enable
them to decide which materials are central.

Teachers should learn how to orchestrate discourses in the
math classroom, giving students the necessary exercises and
developing their mathematical powers. In particular, they will
learn to be critical, active, and independent thinkers.

By using the correct approach, our math teaching will become a
pleasant experience for our students, and they will appreciate
mathematics more.

The writer is a math teacher living in Bandung