Tom And Poland Chapter 1 Summary

This paper will demonstrate the pre-service teachers’ understanding of mathematical practices as part of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. It will address two specific standards for Mathematical Practices, describing the essence of both and providing a description of how teachers facilitate these practices and how students are engaged in the practices.

"What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success" by Anu Partanen begins by talking about the great success Finland has had with their school system after they reformed. Finland completely changed their outlook on school and how it is perceived. Finland now has the highest test scores among the world without all the standardized test and ample amount of homework. The focus is on engaging children in creative play and providing a healthy, safe environment for children. There are no private schools in Finland and children are provided with free schooling, free meals, easy access to health care and counseling. From pre-K to a Ph.D there are no tuition fees. The three major reforms made to the school system

The author proves how our present school system is based on an old-fashioned model designed for students who would finally work in factories. Provided that simple abilities to young pupils might have been enough by the turn of the 21st century, but it is absolutely not satisfactory in the 21st. The several and cumulative things of a broader base of knowledge and rapidly proceeding technologies need extension of access to education and overhaul of curricula, teaching styles, and learning assessments. Darling-Hammond discovers imaginative changes in Finland, South Korea, Singapore, and other places that have kept up with the rising needs for educating school children. She poignantly shows how California pales in comparison to these places.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was first implemented in 2010, nine years after I graduated from high school. Although I wasn’t personally affected by the new academic standards, it has a direct impact on the current and future generation of leaders, innovators, and world changers including my future children. The initial purpose of the Common Core Standards is to set high-quality learning goals designed to prepare students to be college and career ready. Given the current controversies surrounding CCSS, studies have shown that although the intent was to benefit students in the long-run it may actually be hindering their mathematical and reading skills. To further explore the arguments behind the Common Core initiative, I will

The educational system in the United States was originally developed using concepts from around the world, created using ingenuitive ideas from countries such as China, Japan, and Korea. However, as the United States quickly moved into position as the leading country for state-directed educational standards, America looked less and less to the systems of other nations and more into how we could improve what was locally and currently being applied in education. Consequently, an improved type of education instruction was officially launched in 2010. These new state standards, practically titled Common Core, were declared to focus on developing a child’s skills in reasoning, problem solving, communication, and competition (Conrad, et al. 52). While the standards are professed to be an extremely practical and beneficial method of teaching today, there are issues which have recently surfaced and raised some concerns. The Common Core State Standards are emerging as the subjects of a provocative controversy in society today as they prompt discussion on global economic efficiency, nationwide academic standards, and the ultimate well-being of school-age children.

Disturbingly, “nearly one-fifth of high school students and over 50 percent of middle school students are enrolled in math classes whose teachers neither majored or minored in math” (Drew, 2011, p.9). In 2000, 31 percent of high

In addition, the high standards are constantly checked by tests that can reveal students’ future prospects. Tom is an exchange student from Pennsylvania who studies in Poland. In Tom’s Polish math class, unlike the American math class, no Polish students are allowed to use calculators to do math. Polish students are trained to be good at calculating just like it is mentioned in the book: “Tom could tell the kids were doing a lot of the math in their minds… their brains were freed up to do the harder work. It was the difference between being fluent in a language and not”(Page 92). After every test, teachers publically announce students’ grades from a 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Tom expected to see someone getting a 5 for a year but no one ever did. “ ‘Success,’ as Winston Churchill once said, ‘is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.’ ”(Page 92) Kids in Poland have gotten used to failing, but instead of giving up; Polish kids give themselves a boost in academic performance. In 2000, “Polish fifteen-year-olds ranked twenty-first in reading and twentieth in math, below the United States and below average for the developed world.” But after some reforms that included raising the educational standards, Poland “ranked thirteenth in reading and eighteenth in math, just above the United States in both subjects. In the space of three years, Poland had caught up with the developed world”(Page 165).

No under 30 of the 56 different nations that took an interest in the Program for Worldwide Understudy Appraisal (PISA) math test had a bigger level of understudies who scored at what might as well be called the propelled level on our National Evaluation of Instructive Advance (NAEP) tests. While 6 percent of U.S. public and private school understudies evaluated as cutting edge in eighth grade arithmetic, 28 percent of Taiwanese understudies did (Hanushek, 2010). This is revealing to me that different nations are using something we are not that is enabling their understudies to exceed expectations pass the U. S. No less than 20 percent of understudies in Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland were exceptionally expert, and 12 different nations had no less than double the level of very proficient understudies as the U.S. also, different nations (Hanushek,2010). This proof demonstrates that only 8 years prior U.S. understudies were failing to meet expectations in math and

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

The “Common Core” is a proposed set of newly design methods in academic standards in today’s subjects like Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and English / Language Arts courses. In about forty-eight states, this new academic implementation has replaced the old teaching methods to show a gain in the ability for students to be on the same path in every state. The primary focus for Common Core is to measure a fair and accurate way for student achievement for graduation regardless of the child’s state they live in. Well, at first the adopted Common Core standards demonstrated little to no problems once established however, today it has become widely controversial. This research paper will demonstrate this issue

This chapter explores the underperforming United States education system that does not prepare students to be creative, think critically, work collaboratively, or communicate effectively to be ready to participate in society (Ferguson, 2011, p. 7). In addition to overall underwhelming performance in academics, the failure to incorporate real world everyday experiences in mathematics prevents students from developing critical thinking and logic skills so that they will be responsible and active citizens of society and have access to jobs in the fields science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM).

The researcher’s main concern was to investigate differences in math perception between those students scoring highly versus those students scoring poorly on national exams. The researcher thought that the solution would be due to cross-cultural differences in achievement.

As a result of this, the system is constantly receiving criticism concerning the quality of the American system. (U.S.D.E. The Educational System in the U.S…) In fact, a recent study done by the National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment, states that in fourth grade math, Japan ranks third out of twenty-six countries while the U.S. ranks only twelfth, and that in eighth grade math, Japan keeps the ranking of third out of forty-one, while the U.S. drops to twenty-eighth. As result of these criticisms, sets of voluntary guidelines and standard achievement tests have recently been introduced as an effort to “catch up” to the other

A Year in the Life of an Elementary School: One School's Experiences in Meeting New Mathematics Standards

Current nationwide examination outcomes offer continuing paperwork of the should enhance the concentrate on enhancing student accomplishment in mathematics. The National Evaluation of Educational Development (NAEP) just recently launched the 2005 mathematics ratings which mirrored student accomplishment in the locations of dimension, geometry, information analysis, likelihood and algebra. Country wide, just 30 % of 8th graders were considered competent. Although mirroring a boost from previous evaluations, just 69 % of the 8th graders country wide showed a standard abilities level on the NAEP evaluation (Olson, 2005).