# 1929 Math Instruction Experiment - Interesting



## akhomesteader (Jan 5, 2006)

I found this the other day as I was wondering how to handle homeschooling for my middle son who is only 4. He wants to do everything his older brother does. He's learning to skip count on his own (and I haven't tried teaching that yet at all; it's just fun to him), he adds, subtracts, etc. I didn't know if I should go ahead and start a Kindergarten/1st grade program kind of informally with him, do fun science stuff along with reading books and lots of outside stuff (kind of a Charlotte Mason approach) or just what to do. Then I found this wonderful article. 

It's long (3 parts), but well worth the read. Here's the link to the first part, and some excerpts. He advocated getting rid of formal math instruction until 7th grade. He tried this experiment on larger and larger groups, with consistently wonderful results. Very interesting.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/1.html



> L. P. Benezet
> Superintendent of Schools, Manchester, New Hampshire
> Originally published in the Journal of the National Education Association, Volume 24, Number 8, November 1935, pp. 241-244
> 
> ...


That was just a little of Part I. I won't go on here, but the results of his experiment were VERY interesting (and amazing to many of the teachers). The article is long, but well worth the time to read it. What do you think?

Jenny
*Frontier Freedom*


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## Cheryl in SD (Apr 22, 2005)

Great articles, Jenny!


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## akhomesteader (Jan 5, 2006)

I hope folks will find the time to read them --- at least the first one. Later on (in either part 2 or 3) he tells of the outstanding results and how his "experiment" was tried in more schools. I think he was only able to postpone formal math instruction until 6th grade, though. He also gives a year-by-year math curriculum outline. It's really only about a paragraph of instructions on how to teach math in each grade. I'll try to remember to go back and find that to post here, too.

BTW, for my 4 year old, we decided no formal school for about a year or so. I've found lots of really good, fun science things online that we can do at home --- lots of nature things, talking about what we find, etc. I think that will serve him better in the long run. I'll still let him do math as he picks it up, but no pressure.

Jenny


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