I was listening to 1-blue-3-brown's podcast episode with Sal Khan, Founder of Khan Academy. An exciting concept came up: Mastery-based learning.
I spent a couple of weeks trying to write up a book that helps upcoming 8th graders with their math. I've always known this, but writing it down as a map made it all the more apparent. Our syllabus from 1st grade to 12th is pretty discrete when it comes to social science or, to some extent, regular science. Math, on the other hand, is a journey spread across our entire school life. You NEED to understand factors and multiples to understand LCMs and HCFs, which you NEED to do the most basic operations with fractions. Geometry takes you from just lines and angles all the way to Trigonometry. Failure to understand a single topic on the road will compound to failing later in life.
Woah woah woah! Let's take a step back and answer the real questions.
What am I studying math for? It is a language that describes the objective truth. No matter which field you take up, anything objectively true will be represented with numbers, its properties defined by functions, and its predictions made with concepts borrowed from math. Physics is an easy example that pops into our heads; surprisingly enough, the humanities also borrow the same ideas. Economists plot data and use regressions to predict the future. If not vector calculus, they use whatever math is taught in school. Even math, which is less often used, like geometry, shapes a person's thinking such that those powers of inferences are easily transferred to other aspects of life.
If this is why I'm studying math, what would failing look like?
Exactly the opposite. If you finish a year in school, let's say 6th grade and come out of it still confused over the BEDMAS rule or how variables work, you have failed. And rightfully so, your report card will reflect the same. But if you continue to the next grade with those meagre grades, you've set yourself up for failure. There is no possible way you'll be able to make up for that lost one year while also being forced to learn something above your current understanding.
But this is our education system at the moment. A rat race that forces students to move up a ladder without the proper training. Ultimately, all this would come crashing down when the student escapes school and applies for college.
But does it have to be this way? That is the question that mastery-based learning poses. With subjects like mathematics, is it ethical to promote students without ensuring they've understood all or at least the basics of what's expected of them in the next grade?
Maybe instead of taking a year out after 12th to cram for entrance exams beyond their scoop, it makes more sense to take a year out in the earlier classes to recalibrate and bridge the gaps in their understanding, ensuring, if not negative, even positive growth.
This is what I have in mind at the moment — an extra year taken out of underperforming students to specifically teach those subjects they lack so that they can continue in their journey as per the expectations of the education system.
But which year? What metrics? What proof? All these are unanswered questions that I'll probably write about later.
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