Integrated Math, an Experiment Gone Wrong

If you're a student from Wayzata High School, then there's probably a 90% chance that you took, at one point, an Integrated Math class (unless you're one of those super math geniuses that bypassed the whole system freshman year, to which I have to say I commend your skills in the math ways.) And if you've taken Integrated Math, you've also probably felt frustrated with the system at least once as well. And I don't blame you. With its random subject changes, higher expectations regarding previous expertise, and rapid pace, it's no wonder you might feel the urge every once in a while to rip up that shiny, expensive, paper-covered textbook. To put it in a nutshell, Integrated Math is flawed. It's an equation that yielding only one solution, "ERROR." However, this equation can be solved, but it will take a few adjustments, recalculations, and some formulas to reach the optimal result possible.

Integrated Math is, on paper, a system that is professed in its title, integrated. It "integrates" different mathematical concepts and tries to put them into "real-life" situations, whether it's running a cookie and juice stand to build arches for houses. But while it seems like a good strategy on the surface, in practice the reality is far from Integrated Math's intended goals. It can completely change subjects on you from out of nowhere. One day you may be talking about, say, inequalities and solving them, and before you know it you could be venturing into the wonderful world of similarity and congruence of triangles. Inequalities=triangles? WRONG! But this kind of sudden shift in focus (a real-life example, taken directly from Integrated Math 3X) only begins to reveal the haphazard system Integrated Math truly is.

In order to "integrate" all the subjects Integrated Math teaches, the course requires previous exposure and background to more "basic" math concepts. That's why there isn't one Integrated Math class, or two, but four, one for each year of high school. Such a prerequisite is completely understandable and justified, except for one thing, humans forget things easily, especially during the most wonderful time of the year, summer vacation. Furthermore, in a school like Wayzata, which follows the block system, a person can take a year's worth of math in half the time, and while this does mean that a person can take two years of math for the price of one, it also means that a student can go one, one and a half, or even two years without ever touching a calculator to use for the quadratic formula! That's a long time to forget some of the more "basic" math concepts required for next year's class. A critic of my criticism might counter by suggesting that we remove the block schedule rather than Integrated Math, but my rebuttal would have to be that the block schedule provides way more benefits than Integrated Math ever has or ever will, and thus must take precedent over it. Furthermore, removing the block schedule would create a much larger stir than removing Integrated Math. Block schedule>Integrated Math, period.

If the sudden shifts in curriculum and the imparting of information in the course were spread out over a longer period of time for each unit, some of the problems mentioned above might be substantially or even significantly mitigated. But the sad fact of the matter is that this is not the case. It's not just a matter of shifting from inequalities to triangles, it's a matter of shifting from inequalities to triangles in two weeks' time! This is most certainly not enough time to delve deeply into both of these important subjects, and it certainly aggravates the whole "basic" information business as well. One of my tutors for the PSAT once commented on how it goes by so quickly, only those who are really proficient in math can even hope to keep up with it. The rest of the student population is left scrambling to get their act together to get an A or B in class. This rule applies even in the math X's, or accelerated classes where the more "proficient" students are supposed to be. No, this problem is intensified in math X's; accelerating an already accelerated class is apt to cause hardship and trouble, no matter who's taking the class.

Haphazard unit changes+unrealistic requirements (considering time)+fast pace=UGGGHHHHHH, MELTDOWN!!!!!! Okay, maybe not that. But it does equal a flawed, unrealistic, and unacceptable math curriculum. But it doesn't have to be this way. It's not like every school in Minnesota is under the curse of Integrated Math. There are plenty of other curricula to be used as examples locally, models to be tested and formulated specifically for the home of the Trojans. The students of Wayzata High School demand and deserve the right to a good mathematics education, and hold the power to achieving it. They can talk to school administrators and suggest different curricula. They can research and look up different math textbooks and deliberate on which one's the best and most understandable in the student's eyes. This math problem can and must be solved. Everyone at Wayzata holds the power to pick up their calculators, type in that formula, and get "NO ERROR, ONLY CLARITY" as the answer on their screens.