America's Math Report Card: (You'd better sit down.)

Now, we don't like to be Debbie Downer but we have some bad news for you. Math skills in American schools are suffering. A lot! Out of our 50 states, 20 of them are scoring below the national average. In fact, Americans continually score in the bottom or mid-tier with math, when compared to our international peers. In a recent article published by Big Think, 3 main reasons are pinpointed for America's low math proficiency.

1. Students have a fundamental misunderstanding of what math is, and what it can do. 

2.  A lot of mistakes come from pressure to memorize math concepts and to get speedy answers.

3. A huge misconception that says "I will never use this in the real world."

Professor Pho-Shen Lo at Carnegie Mellon believes that "everyone is a math person; all they lack is the proper instruction." The professor goes on to say, "that math is a language that builds upon itself, and not understanding the foundations of math is like not understanding the roots and structure of a language."

Another apt description of what Math actually is was given by Neil deGrasse Tyson who said, "Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos." 

Mike Colagrossi, author of the popular "Why America is bad at Math" article, says, "Math, in a sense, is a way to speak and manipulate the world in a logic- and reason-based system using a specialized written language. It is the language of numbers, quantity, and space, and it's used in applications for engineering, physics, and so on. It's doubtful that math is presented this way to children or students at an early age. But that's just one part of the problem with how we approach math."

So if your child's experience with math isn't sufficient, where do you turn? What can you do to help them master the "language of the universe"?

Mathnasium of Tustin is ready to turn your child's math education around. We have the right math tutors with the right training to provide your student with the right experience. Math results begin to soar when math is taught under specific conditions. Conditions such as:

Teaching for understanding, not just memorization.

Teaching at the right pace- no rushing and no pressure on the student to meet a deadline for understanding hard concepts. 

Individual tutoring experience- not sitting in a classroom with 20 other kids, each kid at a different level of math understanding. 

If you're ready to see your child bloom in math, bring them to Mathnasium of Tustin.