Math Language

When I taught my lesson on Introducing Area (Envisions 16.5), one of the things that my PSMT kept telling the kids as she helped them later is: You know this, it's like an array....array....array. So I probably raised my eyebrows, but brought it up yesterday and asked about it and happened to mention that it's not really a standard vocabulary word. She responded something like oh but it is! (For them). They had learned mulltiplication by studying arrays.

What is an array? When I think of "an array", I think of an array of abilities or an array of numbers or a satellite array, so things which are linked and connected. A satellite or computer array is a series of connected computers that work together. In video games your character has an array of attributes that decide how well you shoot or jump. When I asked Debbie what an array is, she couldn't tell me. I'm certain she could do the multiplication that an array suggests to my 3rd grade classroom.

On the Daily Spiral Review my students will do today for my unit on volume, there is a question about lines of symmetry, prompting me to ask my teacher if her kids would know that. She said they'd been studying it since first grade. Other questions will ask about congruence or vertices, irregular vs. regular polygons.

Two or three years ago the Review-Journal published an article about failing math scores and included some of the test questions being given to our students. They had a similar sort of vocabulary. My mother's then-boyfriend and she, both college graduates, couldn't understand what the problems were asking. His degree was in physics and he helped to design the early programming of ICBMs during the Cold War for Boeing.

So.... our kids must be learning a lot, right? I don't think so. Maybe the NCTM would be thrilled by kids learning (or not really learning) what math terms mean, but it creates a disconnect for other generations trying to help students with problems they could actually help them with.