A daily dose of mental arithmetic has been placed on the curriculum for primary and even nursery schools in France, under a government scheme to sharpen young minds dulled by television.
Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, has ordered children to carry out between 15 and 20 minutes of calcul mental every day from the age of 5, when they are in the final year of nursery school, as part of a back-to-basics programme.
He also wants five-year-olds to resume the study of multiplication and division, as well as addition and subtraction, for the first time since the 1970s.
Pierre Léna, education delegate at the academy, pinned responsibility for the decline on pupils rather than teachers. “With children watching more than three hours of television a day there is a real problem of attention span and the mobilisation of memories,” he said. “Their memories are more cluttered up than they were 50 years ago.”
Only part of the problem, perhaps; but, probably a useful approach to teaching children how to think — once again. So, what would happen if we tried to do something this “radical” in the U.S.?
While I think this is a *brilliant* idea, it’s not meant to teach young children ‘how to think’, arithmetic – using your brain as a low-capacity calculator or computer – is not the same as critical thinking.
However this has some very serious and positive end-results. People exercising their brains have a much lower probability, later in life, of developing dementia-like diseases like Alzheimer’s.
And they won’t be easily fooled at the supermarket counter.
Way to go, France 🙂
This should help with:
1. Counting the number of french military victories
2. Determining the right time to surrender
3. Counting the number of angry muslim immigrants
4. Counting the french unemployment numbers
Interesting spread of comments:
1. Interested in education
2. Ego-smitten dolt. American?
#3 – Yeah… We had a bumber crop of idiots a few years back, but post #1 is based on an earlier and more intelligent strain of American.
OP Only part of the problem, perhaps; but, probably a useful approach to teaching children how to think — once again. So, what would happen if we tried to do something this “radical” in the U.S.?
While #1 correctly points out that math education isn’t quite the same as developing critical thinking skills… I think as long as we allow the current brand of political thinking to rule over us, teaching Americans to be smarter would go against the long term goals of the current powers that be.
If critical thinking (and citizenship for that matter) are to be important again, it’s gonna have to be a subversive effort. Dumbing us down is what works now.
(England – pay attention – your government is watching and you are next)
Revolution Now!
I’m not saying that the French idea is bad, but– another approach is to teach the kids chess and let them play half an hour a day. It’s a problem-solving activity with a built-in self-evaluation scheme: win or lose?
In Canada, the Province of Quebec has had chess as part of its Defi Mathematique in grades 4-6 for over a decade, and on national tests their kids have gone from bottom of Canada in Math to near the top.
Of course, whether France would be too proud to copy an intellectual innovation from Quebec is another question.
When is Web2.0 going to improve home schooling? You would think the internet would be geared for self learning.
Home schooling and private schools are probably the only way to get education done right in this country (USA).
#4, sorry to blow the bubble, but I’m Portuguese… Not with great pride, I must say, but nevertheless…
A college prof once told me that the most valuable math skill anyone can ever learn as a child is estimation, and I agree 100% I think it’s good to teach how to use the mind (thinking is only a part of that idea) and encourage any use of it while they’re young. Any mental exercise is a good thing. Memorizing is fine, but manipulating numbers and sorting facts is good too. Especially, being skeptical about what you hear from media, the web and even your friends about things no one actually witnessed.
Miguel, there is no innate reason to not be happy to be Portugese 🙂 At least Portugal didn’t give the whole world cause to ridicule and despise what passes for the out of control US guber-mint
#9 No, but that’s only because we’re too small and poor… Otherwise you’d find our ‘guber-mint’ even worse, more corrupt and incompetent! Since most Portuguese are too lazy and/or stupid to complain or do anything about it, I’m not proud of my company…
Miguel, it wasnt until i realised you were foreign, that english is not your first language. And when i first read your first post i thought, “Oh no.” But after reading your coments and understanding you are a nice guy. I assume you agree that getting kids to think about math will help there brain in a specific and overal way that can affect their thoughts.