” He is my son’s math guru!” a new parent once said to me of our math specialist. Changing the relationship new students have towards math is a common outcome. Often they are anxious and have already given up on math when they arrive but within a few months they feel at ease and open to the possibility that they can understand math. At Waldorf Academy we work closely following the Jamie York approach, Making Math Meaningful. Andrew Starzynsky is the math specialist at Waldorf Academy and he has co-written books with Jamie York. As the admissions manager, I was often surprised to learn from parents on tours that their children were not required to memorize the timetables and could use calculators at a very young age in the public school. 90% of our new admissions come with a math phobia and often it developed as early as grade 2!
“The Making Math Meaningful® curriculum focuses on what is essential to develop mathematical capacity.
There are no fancy graphics and contrived ways of making math fun in his books. His philosophy is that a love of learning comes through the teacher, and so he is committed to supporting teachers to develop their teaching skills and to create a love of math in their students.
Teachers are often tormented by the “list” of materials they are told they need to get through in the teaching of math. A standard mainstream textbook for 7th grade is 1450 pages long. That’s insane! Jamie has boiled that list down in order to focus on essentials. And his students are still able to tackle the math they encounter beyond their grade school careers. Jamie York believes in depth over superficiality. His own students develop a life-long love of math and approach the subject with a depth that others around them often lack.” https://www.jamieyorkpress.com/making-math-meaningful/
Globe and Mail link to the article. “Results released Wednesday from Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) showed that the proportion of Grade 6 students who met provincial standards in math has fallen from 58 per cent to 50 per cent over five years. The proportion of Grade 3 students who met provincial standards on the math test in 2015-16 has also dropped, from 68 to 63 per cent.”
