Old Dogs, New Math: Homework Help for Puzzled Parents by Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew
Reviewed by: Chalkboard Dad
About the authors:
Rob Eastaway has authored and coauthored several best-selling books that connect math with everyday life, including Why Do Buses Come in Threes? and How Many Socks Make a Pair?
Mike Askew, a Professor of Math Education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, taught in elementary schools for several years, and now works in teacher education.
About the book:
So much for the “good old days” when elementary students simply memorized their times tables and struggled through long division. Today, students are expected not just to find the right answer, but also to choose the best method for doing so—and to explain why it works.
On top of that, students are learning new strategies—even for basic arithmetic—that look foreign to many parents: What are open number lines, decomposing and nets, and how do you multiply on a grid?
If your attempts to help your child are met with “That’s not how the teacher does it,” then it’s time to take the stress out of math homework. Old Dogs, New Math is your guide to:
- Number lines, place value and negative numbers
- Long multiplication and division
- Fractions, percentages and decimals
- Shapes, symmetry and angles
- Data analysis, probability and chance
Complete with sample questions, examples of children’s errors, and over 25 games and activities, Old Dogs, New Math will not only demystify math, but also help you and your child discover math all around you—and have fun doing it!
My take on the book:
I was very excited to read Old Dogs, New Math when it arrived in my mailbox. Over the years I have sat in on hundreds of conferences with parents. If I had a dime for each time parents expressed frustration or uneasiness about the math their child was learning and the way in which it was being taught, I would be typing this review on a much nicer laptop in an exotic Caribbean location. Math education has changed drastically in the thirteen years I have been involved with it at the elementary level. I still remember my first year teaching what could be called a very traditional curriculum, straight out of the textbook, with rote memorization of all the important algorithms. The students who excelled at such memorization excelled at math. Those who could not, did not. The emphasis I was taught to impart to my charges was HOW to do the math, not WHY it should be done that way. Math is not taught that way any more (and for good reason). Children are now learning math through collaboration and investigation, not through the lectures and repeated work sheet assignments of a single classroom expert.
This is good news for the learner, but for the parent, it can be torturous. Year after year, in conference after conference, the biggest concern the majority of parents seem to agree on is how they often struggle to help their child with math. Not because the parent does not understand fifth grade level mathematics, but because we are teaching their children to solve problems in a completely different way from what they were taught when they themselves were in school. If you are a parent reading this and you find your head nodding along in agreement, this book is the resource you want to order as soon as you can.
In Old Dogs, New Math, Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew have given to parents a gift of immeasurable value. I read through the book twice, the first time wearing my “parent” hat and the second time switching over to my “teacher” hat. As a parent, this is a resource that I happily recommend to any other parent who has these concerns about their child’s math education. As a teacher I will be (and in fact already have been) recommending this book at all future parent teacher conferences when this issue comes up.
I have read many books about mathematics and math education written by mathematicians. They are mostly dry and tedious because, and let’s be honest here, they are written by mathematicians, not english majors. One of the strengths of this particular book is the accessibility of the writing. Crisp, clear, at times humorous, and always easy to understand, the authors do a superb job of presenting not only why things have changed in mathematics education but what a baffled parent can do to better help their child grasp these important concepts. That is what makes this book work so well for me. There is theory of course, but the majority of the book is packed with practical things parents can do to help their child right now, today. The activities and games contained in the chapters are engaging, well thought out, and dare I say it, fun. I have run through several of them with my six year old and not only does she understand them, she loves to play them. I am often greeted with a frown of disapproval when it is time to stop, a desperate plea (“Just one more, pleeease daddy!”) to keep going.
I have recommended Old Dogs, New Math in conferences to several parents since I finished it. I will continue to do so when a parent comes to me with that frustrated look in their eye. Let’s face it. As parents, the desire to give our children every possible help and advantage as they ascend the mountains of academia runs through us as strong as the currents of the Mississippi. Eastaway and Askew’s book is an excellent guide to help us all, teachers and parents alike, in our journey.
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