The Times of Trenton - Hamilton Metro Section
Monday, Nov. 16, 1998

Parents added to state's new math equation

By Peter Aseltine
Staff Writer

Hamilton -- For Mary Hurrey, a leaky faucet will never seem the same - and neither will her children's school.

It's not that there's a plumbing problem at University Heights Elementary School.

Hurrey simply got a taste of New Jersey's new math and science standards, drop by drop, as one of 10 parents who participated in a workshop in the University Heights media room last week.

Last week's workshop, developed by the New Jersey Math Coalition at Rutgers University, was designed to help parents understand what their children are learning.

Parents at three tables performed an experiment to learn how much water would drip from a leaky faucet in 24 hours. Equipped with an eye dropper to simulate the faucet, a measuring cup and a clock, they set out to get the answer.

The tables came up with answers ranging from 1 gallon to 2.8 gallons, the amount reached by Hurrey and another mother, Thana Ibrahim. The answers varied because some droppers had wider openings and some parents squeezed the drops out faster.

What was more important was that the parent's methods also varied. Some timed how long it took to drip an ounce(four minutes in Hurrey's case), divided 60 minutes by that time, then multiplied by 24 to get the total ounces. Others measured how much dripped in a minute, multiplied by 60, then multiplied by 24.

Different answers also were reached in a second experiment, which involved simulating insect camouflage and survival rated by dropping colored "beetles" tiny pieces of colored paper - onto a multicolored sheet, or "garden," and seeing how many blended into their background.

"There's not just one right answer," said Ruth Mooney, who led the workshop as math supervisor for the Hamilton school district. "There's not one right answer in life. That's what we're trying to teach and make parents aware of, too."

The Workshop is part of a project called Families Achieving the New Standards in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, of FANS for short. The project - funded by the National Science Foundation and several private corporations and foundations - is intended to give New Jersey parents insights into the standards adopted by the state in May 1996.

Those 61 Core Curriculum Content Standards include 56 standards defining expected abilities in math, science, language arts, social studies, world languages , visual and performing arts and health and physical education. They also include five categories of workplace readiness skills. The state tests student achievement on the standards in grades 4, 8, and 11.

The goal for FANS is to instruct nearly 300,000 parents at 10,000 workshops across the state over the next three years, said project manager Daniel Gerger. The workshops include a video showing students in classroom activities geared to the new standards.

The standards require students in all grades to go beyond rote learning from books and lectures. Students are asked to engage in creative problem-solving, often working in teams on hands-on projects involving design or experimentation. They usually must document their reasoning and methods step by step.

Those skills mirror the skills needed in today's high-tech society, Mooney said.

Like other baby boomers, Hurrey was under the false impression she'd learned the new math.

"Can we go back to school now and do it again?" she asked, laughing. Hurrey, who has a son in third grade and a daughter in second grade, said she was pleased to see the schools are changing to meet the times.

"I think it's exciting the schools are addressing the needs of society and looking at the long-term needs of the students, instead of just the immediate need to read and write," she said.

Ibrahim, who has children in grades 1, 9 and 12, was laid off from her job as a portfolio manager's aide at Merrill Lynch last month following the economic shivers caused by turmoil in Russia.

"For our kids, the world is going to be very different," she said. "It is difficult for us to get a job and keep it, but it's going to be even harder for them with computers and technology replacing jobs. I'm glad they'll have a solid background to fall back on."