Posted on 03/29/2010 12:45:10 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Anyway, you just need to get in touch with your inner math person and analyze your feeling about numbers, then you can become one with the numbers and share their experience of being in the universe.
(gotta go, the nurses are back from break)
Of course being able to calculate in one’s head is superior to relying on calculators.
But memorizing the easy cases of one-by-two digit multiplication and the easiest cases of two-by-two digit multiplication is to multiplying several digit numbers mentally as “sight words” are to phonics.
Punch in an extra digit on the calculator, and they don't have any feel for numbers to catch the error.
So, what else is new? Public education has always been assaulting math, and English, and history, and science, and any topic it’s assigned to teach.
ping
My niece was removed from public school in the fourth grade because her parents found the new math program too confusing for her. My sister-in-law is a science teacher and she used to develop curriculum for her county. She knows a poor curriculum when she sees one.
Anyway, math scores plummeted. Parents who could moved their children to private and parochial schools. I wouldn’t be surprised if the public school is still struggling with that dog of a curriculum they saddled themselves with.
No, not another exactly. They seem to be all the same thing but with different admixtures of simple and advanced, so that kids can’t become comfortable. Remember, these things are not chosen by teachers but imposed on teachers. Read the article, watch McDermott’s video, you’ll be morose.
These things are so counter-productive you end up sure that the intent is not to teach math but to make sure nobody knows math.
Yes, school administrators and teachers have special knowledge that no parent can expect to possess.
I don’t know if it’s still done today, but remember when it was popular for educators to use strange, arcane language (educababble?)when describing almost anything to do with public education to parents. It was laughable. Apparently, it’s still going on in some places:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/709657—for-plain-language
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