There was a lot on the agenda in this month’s work session for the Noblesville School Board.
The Noblesville school leadership team updated the board on topics that included SMART goals, winter NWEA growth and achievement, reduction in the number of standards by the Indiana Department of Education, as well as program updates on math, literacy, social studies, and science.
Then the chief financial officer gave a business update and outlined the current Project Lead The Way construction plan, as well as showing an alternate plan for expansion to Noblesville High School. I will discuss my thoughts on a couple of the above-mentioned agenda items in a future column, but for now, I will speak in more detail about the upcoming civics class and the math curriculum.
Civics education is back thanks to a bill authored by Representative Tony Cook in 2021. Civics is to be taught in the second semester of sixth grade beginning this year. The Indiana Department of Education has developed the standards for the course, and they are extensive.
Elements for discussion lead the student to understand the difference between Direct Democracy, Representative Democracy, and a previous version of a Bill of Rights. The students will then focus on the ideas of constitutional government, in particular our federal and state constitutions. The function of government will be studied as well as the rights and duties of citizens in society.
This is a welcome and long-needed return to the education of our kids. As a naturalized citizen, the study of civics has been of keen interest to me. Our children must learn what makes our form of government work and how they can participate in it.
Now on to math. Noblesville Schools is in the process of reviewing options for the new Math Program. The program levels are divided between K-5 and 6-Algebra II. There were four options given for curricular material for the program levels. Parents were emailed a survey to fill out which included links to the curricular materials. The options given were Bridges in Mathematics from The Learning Center, Eureka Math Squared from Great Minds, Everyday Mathematics from McGraw Hill, and Reveal Mathematics from McGraw Hill.
I hope that the options for the math curriculum were given thorough scrutiny. My hope is based on two crucial thoughts on the importance of a sound math education.
First, a good understanding of math principles is required for almost everything we do and use daily. Whether it be in finance, manufacturing, engineering, insurance, and yes, teaching, there are few areas where a good understanding of math is not used.
Second, math is universal. My belief in this comes from personal experience. As an immigrant who came here in third grade, I did not do well in English whether that was reading or writing. What I did do well in was math. Mathematics is the same whether you learn it in the U.S. or Cuba, the country of my birth. The same holds for whether you learn math in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else.
If just for those two reasons alone, math should be taught in its purest form. Other subject areas can be open to discussion and interpretation, but mathematics is objective. Let’s hope that the survey results indicate Noblesville parents chose a new math program that contains objective exercises and examples free from bias and ideology.