THE LEARNING CONNECTIONS

Dr. Barbara Oakley is a member of the Engineering Faculty at Oakland University outside Detroit. She was not a child prodigy, at least not where the so-called STEM subjects are concerned. As she told James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal, "I flunked my way through elementary, middle and high school math and science." To say the least, she is more comfortable with those subjects now, and her journey is a fascinating one. 

 
We first learned of it from Mr. Taranto's wonderful article on Barbara Oakley in the May 12 edition of the Journal. You will want to read the whole thing. The only parts we are going to steal are some of the things she said about the teaching of mathematics. For example: 

"Because math is so sequential, if you fall off anywhere along the way, it's hard to get back on." 

 
Today's featured quote was taken from this passage, Dr. Oakley: 

In learning math and science through K-12, it's long been held that practice and repetition will kill your creativity. ... One mistake we make in the school system is we emphasize understanding. But if you don't build those neural circuits with practice, it'll all slip away. You can understand out the wazoo, but it'll just disappear if you're not practicing it. 

We'll finish with this paragraph from Mr. Taranto's article:

Ms. Oakley notes that "many if not most" of her colleagues "are from countries that have educational systems completely antithetical to the education system in the United States." In places like China and India, "practice and repetition and rote memorization are really important parts of education. She sees value in both methods: "There are real benefits for Western approaches-that it really does help with creativity. And there are also real benefits to Asian approaches-that it builds a solid foundation in the most difficult disciplines, math and science. The best education would actually be a combination of both approaches."

We plead guilty. We advertised this TTALK entry as one that would deal with something other than trade policy. In a superficial sense, we were clearly telling the truth. In a more fundamental one, we lied. Education and learning have everything to do with trade. 

 
Both Ann Wilson of the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association and Yuri Unno of Toyota brought up the issue in the question-and-answer session that concluded last month's GBD panel on NAFTA and auto production.

From Ann Wilson of MEMA we heard: 

From Yuri Unno of Toyota we heard: 

I just want to add, [at Toyota] we're always hiring. We can't fill all the position because of the skill gap. And

we have partnerships at the local community colleges at every single plant we have in the U.S. to continue to educate and help the community colleges tailor the programs so they educate and train the students in a way we could use right away when they graduate. 

Also ... we're not decreasing our investment in the U.S. because of NAFTA; we're actually increasing [it]. We just announced an additional $10 billion in investment over 5 years in the United States. And a big part of that is because NAFTA is helping us, [allowing] us to stay competitive for the world market.

Filling the Skills Gaps.  And then of course there is the issue of U.S. companies feeling the need to rely on foreign talent, whether through H1 B visas or by doing more technical work abroad. Those are complex issues, but there does seem to be some irony in U.S. employers relying so heavily on those taught by methods the U.S. has largely rejected. 

On the Front Line. Like trade, education is an issue that is as emotionally charged as it can be complicated. We recently had a note from a woman who had read and liked Mr. Taranto's article on Barbara Oakley.  A fine mathematician in her own right, our correspondent has two young sons in public school and thinks a lot about the teaching of mathematics and how the kids respond. We'll call her boys Doug and Tom.

The Mathematical Mother wrote: 

 
I do think a problem with recent curriculum changes is that our schools are shifting even farther away from practice in math and towards a purely conceptual focus. It works pretty well for someone like Doug, who not only understands the concepts but then also enjoys playing with them in his mind and exploring how numbers work.

For Tom, though, it's been a disaster. ... [A high school teacher I know] said he'd discovered as a teacher that math is really the study of patterns. What I've realized through watching Tom struggle is that by focusing so much on concepts and ... word problems, he misses the chance to discover the more basic patterns and really understand them. 

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We are not discouraged by any of the above. Every quote deals with people working through problems. And that is life at its best. Still, for a change of pace and to show that we are not without sympathy for the non-mathematical, we'll leave you with this ...

Lines Composed in a Math Class

RKM        1961