One Point of View: Basic Mathematical Skills or School Survival Skills?Author(s): Eugene A. MaierSource: The Arithmetic Teacher, Vol. 35, No. 1 (September 1987), p. 2Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41193195 .

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Basic Mathematical Skills or

School Survival Skills? By Eugene A. Maier

Some lists of "basic mathematical skills" lead me to wonder why certain topics are included. To me the desig- nation of a mathematical skill as "ba- sic" implies the need for that skill in life beyond school. But I see topics on such lists that have nothing to do with preparing students to function mathe- matically in the nonschool world. For example, consider paper-and-pencil procedures for computing problems like 136.7 x 56.8 or 7584 -s- 354. In a half-century of doing mathematics - as a schoolboy, as a college and grad- uate student, in any number of odd jobs that paid my way through col- lege, as an industrial mathematician, as a university teacher and re- searcher, in everyday life, and just for fun - nothing I have done, apart from schoolwork, requires such procedures today.

The ready availability of calculators provides an efficient and economical way of finding products and quotients, so I don't need paper-and-pencil pro- cedures for computational purposes. Also, knowing them does not give me any conceptual knowledge or mathe- matical insight of any consequence.

At times I find these skills useful, although I can't remember the last time I performed long division for other than school purposes. I enjoyed learning these procedures and got sat-

isfaction from being known as some- one who did them well. I meet people of my age who prefer these methods of computing. But even if these pro- cedures are occasionally useful, satis- fying to learn, or preferred by some, it does not follow that they are basic mathematical skills. In my mathemat- ical life, I can get along without them. Most adults do.

However, some educators maintain that students need to know these pro- cedures. They are correct; students do need to know them, though not because of their mathematical import but because they help students be successful in school. Simply put, these procedures are school survival skills,

Teaching school survival skills under the guise of basic mathematical skills is wasteful and deceptive.

The student who can't perform pa- per-and-pencil long division or multidigit multiplications is consid- ered a failure at school. He or she is refused mathematical advancement and is often banished to the basic mathematics classroom, not because the student lacks skills necessary to be a successful learner and user of mathematics but because that's the way the school's mathematics pro- gram is structured.

It makes no sense to me, either educationally or economically, to use

our educational resources teaching skills that only serve to perpetuate themselves. When that happens, it is time for a change. I hope you agree.

Where does one begin? Review the list of "basic mathematical skills" you are required to teach to determine if any are school survival skills. If you are unsure how to make this determi- nation for a particular skill, do the following: Survey your adult acquain- tances who are not connected with teaching school. Ask them if they have needed the skill (i.e., they have used the skill and no alternatives would do) at any time during the past year. If no one has, consider the skill a school survival skill, that is, a skill your students must master simply be- cause your district's mathematics pro- gram requires it. Don't avoid teaching it, since it is important that your stu- dents survive in school. But be honest with your students - don't tell them they are learning a basic mathematical skill. Their experience outside of school denies this notion. If they want to know what type of skill it is, tell them it's a school survival skill.

Above all, tell your school adminis- trators, fellow teachers, parents of your students, and anyone else in- volved in curriculum decisions what you have discovered. You are being required to spend time and energy teaching school survival skills under the guise of basic mathematical skills. This is wasteful and deceptive. They may not be aware of what is taking place - and awareness is the first step toward change, m

Maier is president of the Math Learning Center and professor of mathematical sciences at Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207. He has had extensive experience in the in- service and preservice education of elementary and secondary school mathematics teachers.

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