TEACHER OF INTEREST
The NUMBER CHANGER
Anita Meadows helps a student at St. Edward’s School in Vero Beach learn about number sense.
BY JANIE GOULD
If you can still see, in your mind’s eye, the notebook you
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used to write in and then memorize the multiplication
tables in elementary school decades ago, you obviously
weren’t schooled in a modern approach to number sense
called Singapore Mathematics.
Developed in the Southeast Asia island nation, Singapore
math has found favor among many American educators, including
Anita Meadows, who teaches fourth- and fifth-grade
math at St. Edward’s School in Vero Beach. She is also the
math specialist who leads professional development for other
teachers at the lower school.
Singapore, a former British crown colony that became independent
in 1963, has a strong, tech-based economy despite
having no natural resources to export or land suitable for
agriculture.
ANTHONY INSWASTY PHOTOS
“The only way they can produce anything good is by developing
highly educated citizens,” Meadows said.
She explained that Singapore educators drew on research
findings from throughout the world to devise a math curriculum
that emphasizes critical thinking and problem-solving
rather than learning by rote.
“Singapore math doesn’t really believe in the idea of teaching
someone how to calculate, because calculators can do
that,” Meadows said. “They look at the idea of the jobs that
our children are going to have in the future that haven’t been
created yet. We don’t need calculators. We need problemsolvers.
We need critical thinkers. You don’t teach the same
concept year after year, but basically you teach a concept to
mastery and then you build on that concept the next year.”
Some of Meadows’ students aspire to become professional >>
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