Comparing Curriculum

Marie and I have been spending a lot of time at schools observing lessons, talking to teachers, and looking at math textbooks and curriculum. Yesterday, we shipped a big heavy box back to the US full of math books. The book stores themselves demonstrate the big emphasis on education in Singapore. Some of the big book stores have an entire section or floor devoted to educational materials for parents to purchase to help their kids. There is an aisle for 6th grade textbooks, an aisle for 6th grade supplementary material, and another section for curriculum and syllabus guides. With all of the other grades and all of the subjects, it adds up to a lot of books. We spent time looking at the math syllabus for Singapore schools, but the textbooks give a more in-depth view of the students actually do in math class.

In general, the students in Singapore are learning the same objectives as our kids. The Singapore syllabus is based on the same NCTM-standards that we use in the US. In some areas, they are a little ahead, but these are basically the same objectives for math. When we look at the textbooks, however, we see a big gap between what students do in Singapore and ours in the US. The math problems are much more difficult and expect kids to work at a much higher level. All of the problems are multi-step and take quite a bit of time and effort to solve. When introducing a new concept the books offer a few easy questions to practice the new skill, but they quickly move ahead to tougher problems. The books are more challenging even that what our gifted and talented students use. Take a look at the picture for a sample problem and the student's solution.

A good example of the higher level and rigor of Singapore math is 6th grade and circles. Our 6th grade students in Texas are expected to find the circumference of circle using radius or diameter. We make it easier for our kids on TAKS and give them the formula as well. Students in Singapore have to find circumference and area of a circle. Not a big difference there. If you can do circumference, then area shouldn't be that much tougher. A good 6th grade teacher in Texas might introduce area of circle at the same time as circumference. Once you take a look at the textbooks, however, the difference becomes obvious. Students in Singapore are finding the circumference of circles, then quickly moving to more irregular shapes like an S or a Pac-man shape. They have to truly understand circumference beyond the basic formula and use other knowledge about parallelograms or isosceles triangles. It's the same story with area of circles. Students are given a Yin-Yang shape and asked to find the area of the shaded portion. Our 6th graders often struggle through basic circumference problems and would be lucky to get to area of circles.

There is a great gap between Singapore math and what we do in Texas. Their students are not smarter than ours, but we need to expect more from our students and more from our curriculum. It's true that Singapore parents do a lot to help their kids succeed, but there is a big difference in the schools. We hope to share more of those differences in this blog and motivate some of us in the US to address our weakness in math.

-Morgan