The following is a personal experience which will be relayed in order to explain what triggered the idea that education in elementary schools requires heavy adjustment to its standards.
Recently, while spending time with a high school mathematics teacher, I was informed of an experience she had with an elementary school teacher. The woman shared with her that she has a genuine aversion for mathematics, asking the high school teacher to help her prepare for an upcoming lesson.
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While well aware that many people hold a strong dislike for mathematics, this still came across as surprising to me, and after this experience, I considered that in which most elementary school teachers specialize. Generally, their degrees are in education, language or social sciences.
This realization strongly impacted me. Children are often taught mathematics by someone who does not understand and does not enjoy math, which in turn creates a mass of humans who despise math and question the validity of the study and how it applies to real life because they have a poor foundation for mathematical reason. What I believe deserves discussion is: how can this be changed? What are the real life implications and applications of the study of mathematics?
In both junior and senior high school, classes are generally divided by subject and assigned to teachers who specialize in said subject area. However, at the elementary school level, one teacher is generally asked to instruct his or her students in the core subjects: math, reading, language arts, history, and science. Without undermining the validity of the study of history, language and other subjects in school, it should be called into attention that, at the elementary school level, the material comprising these subjects can easily be read, related to children and thus taught. However, the teaching of mathematics requires a strong logical base, even in its most basic form. This, in my opinion, seems to indicate that while someone who specializes in math could relatively easily teach math and the other elementary subjects, someone who specializes in another subject may be able to teach the most material to elementary school students, yet this same teacher may struggle to teach mathematics. This issue immediately triggers a myriad of solutions in my mind.
The two ideas that stick out to me are as follows. The first idea is as simple as keeping teachers in their current positions, but fabricating a mandatory math period in which students are brought to a teacher who specializes in math and its teaching. An alternative idea is adjusting the requirements for elementary school teachers so that a minor area of concentration in math, economics, statistics or another math-heavy subject is required to attain a career in elementary school teaching, or the individual must attend a rigorous training for teaching math to young people.
Now, why is the focus on mathematics in elementary school so significant? It is becoming evident, in my opinion, that a weak foundation in mathematics leads to a strong aversion to the subject in later years due to lack of understanding. However, a population of students pursuing higher education with a strong mathematical foundation could create a multitude of engineering positions, increase the presence of women in STEM majors and careers and help the population as a whole in managing economics, businesses, personal taxes and in the grand scheme, logically based endeavors.
Mathematics is the foundation for a massive quantity of careers in engineering, banking, architecture and infinitely many more fields which rely on measurements of either money, material or exchange. It is my strong belief that a populace with a passion for mathematics will be more apt to handle the economic aspects of being a part of a functional society, and that with the ability to utilize reason with a deep and strong foundation, the people of the country will grow more able to produce medicine, engineer, negotiate, educate, initiate change and attain higher levels of self-actualization and relative happiness.
