Many struggling math students hate word problems. The well-written ones require you to demonstrate an understanding of what you’re doing instead of simply carrying out the procedure that you’re clinging onto for dear life. The struggling math students don’t believe that they have this understanding, so they shut down.

To trick them into discovering their competence, we substitute easier numbers.

Maybe my student can’t figure out how many jelly beans are left if Chen gave Chamari 2/3 of her 645 jelly beans and then gave Chester 1/5 of the rest. He claims that he doesn’t even know where to begin.

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Like everyone, I see things on the Internet that I wish I hadn’t.

From red carpet gowns that look like trash bags to Instagram humblebrags that forgot the humble part, there is a cost to the never-ending quest for the new, interesting, and relevant.

Recently, I came across a statement from a high school math teacher who said that the ultimate goal of middle school math instruction in a given concept is to get students proficient with the standard algorithm.

Several other teachers agreed. I did not.

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A friend’s daughter, a first-grader, was invited to do math with the second graders at the start of the school year.

My friend was conflicted about it. She, herself, skipped fourth grade math and still remembers the feeling of being lost and confused in fifth grade math and resented for the privilege. She was worried that her daughter would have the same experience.

The way school subjects are organized in the American system contributes to these kinds of age vs. ability conflicts. Students are expected to move in lock-step with their cohort, regardless of whether they understand the material. If they don’t, they will be with kids of a different age, which has the potential to cause social problems and still doesn’t guarantee that they’ll have their academic needs met.

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What if there was a treatment that, while it might make life uncomfortable for a week or so, would allow your child to complete math homework in a fraction of the time for the rest of her school career?

GOOD NEWS! THIS TREATMENT EXISTS! It’s called memorizing your times tables.

Seriously. Whenever a student’s work takes longer than it should, weak multiplication knowledge is often to blame.

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Looking to add another math teacher to my team, I put out a job ad.

Virtually the only question on the application was this: How might you coach a student who is struggling to solve this word problem: "You have 2/3 of a can of paint and use half of that to paint a room. What fraction of the can do you have left?"

The answers were disappointing. The typical response went like this: “To find 1/2 of 2/3, all you have to do is multiply the two fractions across.”

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