4th Graders Have to Count to 1 Million

October 7, 2013

The 4th Grade Math Curriculum for Massachusetts and New York are long, boring documents. They could probably represent the same information in a 1.5-page bulleted list. It seems that the 8-and-9-year-olds of MA and NY are tasked with an array of tasks that most American adults would find daunting, which, among other things, includes:

• Counting to 1,000,000
• Performing arithmetic on fractions
• Long division
• Unit conversion

and last, but not least (because most college students struggle with it),

• Geometry

It seems like a lot, but math is one of the most important subjects for a child to study; other countries routinely outperform Americans, especially in math. But in some less-fortunate countries, it’s hard for kids who want to learn to do so.

Hopefully we’ll be able to create something great that can help children everywhere learn better. Because all of humanity benefits when more people learn.