Kindergarten goes faster the second time around

It’s difficult to to float logs down a river with so many meanders. (Image by Imp5pa)

Among Adam Sandler’s oeuvre of silly movies, there’s one, Billy Madison, in which Sandler plays a man who must go back to school and quickly progress through all of the grades, starting with kindergarten.

Though the premise is absurd, I find myself thinking of it often as I support my students in doing something similar, particularly in math.

Too many students were pushed too far, too fast in the first place, leaving them with an uncertain foundation. Because this is the only reality they’ve ever known, they don’t even realize that their lack of foundation is the problem — they assume that they are just unintelligent. In order to solve the problem, we must, like Billy Madison, go all the way back to kindergarten and reestablish the basics, progressing much more quickly through the material than a small child would.

It takes some time for the student to buy in. Though they certainly won’t have to sit in a classroom with six-year-olds, they often balk at the idea that they have to spend time on “review” when they already feel so desperately behind. It’s my job to help them understand that if their knowledge is like a river, the reason it’s slowed to a trickle is that there’s something damming it upstream. Once we clear the debris that have accumulated in the channel, the river will flow rapidly, faster than they are used to. Even though it’s hard work to get back upstream, it is worth it and will save us time and energy in the long run.

After all, how long will it really take a twelve-year-old to complete kindergarten math? In Khan Academy, there are 29 exercises. It usually takes a seventh grader, even one who is desperately struggling in math, no more than a day to do it. First grade, which has another 28 skills, takes another day.

Things start to slow down in second grade, which has 51 exercises and takes about a month. This is where the student first encounters resistance and frustration. “I’m supposed to know this already!” In order to progress, the student has to demonstrate an understanding of place value instead of simply following a procedure. This is an important shift that makes everything easier, but getting there can be an emotional process.

Next is third grade, which has 115 exercises — more than double the number in second grade — and takes about a month. The student has picked up a little more confidence and can handle setbacks without shutting down.

By fourth grade, the student starts to encounter material she never understood in the first place. However, the student has gotten much better at spotting when she doesn’t know something and is more likely to ask for help instead of randomly guessing, aimlessly persisting, or giving up. That means that it still only takes about a month to complete all 133 exercises.

With a student who is highly intentional about improving at math, I believe that the entire K through 4 program could be completed over the course of a focused week. However, the student would have to begin by believing that it’s possible and seeing the benefit, is a lot to ask of someone for whom math has always meant pain.

Even on this slower path, though, the student experiences a transformation. They’ve been secretly carrying around the fear that someone will find out they don’t know how to simplify fractions, and now they know. They’ve never really been able to visualize division, and now they can. That’s the confidence boost they need in order to do the next three years’ worth of math in a matter of months.

It doesn’t have to take nine years in order to do nine years’ worth of math. As with most journeys we undertake, a clear intention and vision, combined with a belief that it is possible, allows us to achieve more in less time. With the help of a teacher or coach, we can clear the misconceptions and emotional barriers preventing movement. From there, it’s simply going with the flow, all the way downstream.