Word problems, by their very nature, involve decoding language. Prior knowlege is a determining factor in understanding, if a child never heard the terms subway or red line she would be at a disadvantage when answering related questions on a test.

You are right, if a child does not know what a train is by the time we are doing word problems, we have a problem.
Part of going to school and education is learning about other cultures, ways of life and living... at least IMO.

But they are not testing cultural knowledge, they are testing math. In this example, the test would be on two subjects (math and cultural knowledge) for one group of students, but only one subject for a different group. That isn't a standarized test, in reality.

Right, as long as the numbers in the word problem are present, then they can work the problem.

If a test asks if so many pounds of Gruyère are taken away from the block then some is added back, do I have to know cheese to work the problem?
It's a silly notion.

Easy, right? I mean, a quarter is clearly 1/4 of something. But what if the coins are pennies, dimes? Or shillings or quids or loonies or toonies? Sure, no cultural knowledge there? If you know how many toonies it talkes to pay a $7.60 fare and what change you'll get, you do so because you wtf a toonie is.
Any cultural knowledge required here? I think so.

Math problems are hard enough, making good problems is harder, and expressing good math problems well in English (don't get me started on ESL) is harder still. It's not a slam dunk.

4th grade? That's 8-10 right? Unless you can present the problem to them in real world terms they will be able to relate to then you should present the problem in purely numeric terms.

A 9 year old living in a rural area may well never have experienced travelling by train. Alternatively they may have travelled on a train with an adult who would likely have taken care of details like reading the timetable and purchasing tickets.

In terms of it totally changing the maths: the mathematical question may remain the same, but the child's understanding of it may be hampered if an example designed to enhance their ability to relate to the problem instead adds confusion. If it was just a question of maths then they should have presented it as such. Burying the question in a real world situation is all very well, but if the child has no way to relate to that situation then they are being asked to abstract out the maths from a situation they don't understand.

Just as an aside, my sister used to work for Houghton Mifflin, which is a school textbook company. She was tasked with writing some of the word problems for one of the algebra books they were doing. She wrote our mother into one of the problems involving an airplane, since my mom was a pilot back in the day.

Seems to me that kids should know what a train is or what a plane is, and they should be able to figure out problems involving basic attributes of those vehicles. BigV's example of finding the area of a baseball field is completely different though. That does require more advance knowledge about what baseball is all about.

glatt, I'm pretty sure people know what a train is... I think the question was regarding train schedules. What are they? How do they work? I don't even know, I've never riden a train, or a subway. I've seen them in movies, so I know what they look like, but that doesn't really help.

Is something wrong with me, that I don't know about train schedules or subway stops? Maybe, but that shouldn't influence my score on a math test, should it? The math test is supposed to test math, not knowledge of trains. It's a math test.

I'm not saying I couldn't figure out the question, maybe piece together what they were talking about, through context, but I will say this: it will take me extra time, cause me extra frustration, and make the test harder for me than someone who rides the subway to school every day. A standardized test isn't supposed to do that.

I agree that a train schedule question is probably going to be harder than a train question.

I remember lots of questions in algebra I class about trains traveling at different speeds leaving at different times going to the same destination, and for those questions you don't have to know anything other than "trains are a mode of transportation." I had never been on a train then either.

BigV's baseball question is a very good example, because it's easy if you know how a baseball field is laid out, but it's impossible if you don't.

Yes, but learning just math is pointless, it is the application of math that is needed. For standardized tests, word problems should go or they at least be presented in a way that can be understood by everyone but when it comes down to it, students need to learn how to apply math to real life and that is where word problems come in. Not only does it work on application, it works on a student's ability to problem solve, which is needed beyond math class and the application of math in real life.

That brings us, or at least me, up to a problem. Standardized tests should be objective as possible and that would mean the exclusion of word problems but the learning of just math won't help a student much. The only thing I can think of if we decide to keep standardized tests is to have a separate section for math application.

Then there is also the problem that a lot of math does not have direct application but is just a base for more advanced math that does have direct application.

:headshake

oh no. Basic arithmetic is about understanding numbers. About understanding how they relate to real life concepts. Learning sums and procedures by rote fucks kids up. really. I spent this morning teaching subtraction to 5th graders. Yes, subtraction. yes 5th graders. 10-year-olds. Are they stupid ? No. Has "the system" let them down? yes.

Ours is and "alternative" (public) school. We concentrate on teaching the kids how to learn. How to work out stuff for themselves. We often end up being the last resort for kids who are floundering in "the system" for no discernable, diagnosable reason. These kids had (mostly) transferred to us this year from other public schools in the district.

It turned out the problem went back as far as addition. They knew about carrying the 1 when adding 23 and 48 together. But they had no idea why they were doing it, and so couldn't extrapolate to larger numbers or to sums with more than two numbers. And had even less idea what it represented in the real world when they did it in reverse for subtraction. But they gotmany of the answers right on paper, although they couldn't explain why they did what they did, and couldn't find their own mistakes in the ones they got wrong.

We got out the unit and 10 and 100 blocks and had them physically add numbers together and "trade up" 10 smaller ones for a bigger unit. Then we worked it in reverse. We could see the lightbulbs going on as they gradually got it. it was a great teaching experience, but frightening that these kids would have gone on to get OK test scores without getting a good grip on what they are actually supposed to be learning.

Oh, and the school disctict they are in is supposed to be a very good one. It's desirability triples house prices compared to neighboring cities. And it's test scores are awesome. but I'm telling you, those kids knew bugger all about basic arithmetic.

but you are able to equate "train" with "redline" and "subway". it would be unreasonable to expect a child in a rural area with no public transportation to do so. To them a train is a long thing that passes through with 6 engines and goes toot toot tut toot at crossings. Not something that takes three minutes to travel between stations, stops for 30 seconds at each station and there are 6 stations between points A and b how long does it take to go A to B?

This is a big issue round here at the moment. Our teachers are very well paid.

http://blog.mlive.com/ann_arbor_news_extra/teacher_pay/

and here's the quote from our principal:

exactly. Just what we are demonstrating with the 5th-grders needing subtraction tuition. A better class test score would probably be attained by continuing to teach them enough by rote to scrape through rather than taking the time to make sure they actually understand.... and then more time could be devoted to moving the rest up an extra bit of a notch. Fortunately, our school relies on parental support, so the "we" this morning was me and another mom who is an elementray teacher with a math speciality, so the class teachers could also work on cranking the whole class up another notch, and even had time to provide some extra challenges for the children who exceed the required standard.

I'm reading this thead backwards so I'm assuming this is what got us onto standardized tests?

We covered "from each according to his" to footballers pay scales to mistaken generalizations about teachers salaries to standardized testing... you know the usual cellar thing

A good read about morality.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/


“Morality” is an unusual word. It is not used very much, at least not without some qualification. People do sometimes talk about “Christian morality,” “Nazi morality,” or about “the morality of the Greeks,” but they seldom talk simply about morality all by itself. Anthropologists used to claim that morality, like law, applied only within a society. They claimed that “morality” referred to that code of conduct that is put forward by a society. This account seems to fit best those societies that have no written language, where often no distinctions are made among morality, etiquette, law, and religion. But even for anthropologists “morality” does not often mean simply “code of conduct put forward by a society.” Often, morality is distinguished from etiquette, law, and religion, all of which provide codes of conduct put forward by a society.


On all of the accounts of morality as a universal guide that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents, it is concerned with promoting people living together in peace and harmony, not causing harm to others, and helping them. For most philosophers, the prohibitions against causing harm, directly or indirectly, are not taken as absolute. However, unlike most kinds of actions, a justification is needed for violating the prohibitions in order to avoid acting immorally. Some philosophers who hold a strict deontology, such as Kant, hold that it is never justified to do some of these kinds of actions. Those who hold that the principle of utility provides the foundation of morality, such as Mill, hold that it is justified to violate moral rules only when the overall direct and indirect consequences would be better. However, all those who use morality in its normative sense agree that the kinds of actions that directly or indirectly harm other people are the kinds of action with which morality is concerned.

To me, "morality" is defined as the best possible balance between altruism, loyalty and self-interest. All three of those are necessary at times, and which is most important can only be judged by the individual situation.

I believe that morality is subjective, if only to a certain extent. Some things are pretty much always wrong, and vice versa, but even within one religious denomination people will argue about the morality of things like stem cell research, the death penalty, or dog fighting. The answers to those questions are inevitably based on the individual priorities of the person answering them.

Personally, I'm sure a lot of people think I'm an immoral person. I have engaged in a lot of practices that the majority in my country think are wrong, although they don't hurt anyone. Since I'm not a believer in the literal text of the Bible, I don't see any reason not to behave in a way that makes me and those close to me happy. I don't mind if other people disagree as long as they don't get in my face about it too much.

I would agree with that. I think you could probably make a case for that underpinning much of what we consider 'civilised'.