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Math Instruction Seems Skillfully Designed NOT To Work
Hubpages.com ^ | August 15, 2010 | Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted on 09/16/2010 6:44:01 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice

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To: TheOldLady
The real danger to the country is the destruction, for the past three generations, of the public education system.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Please read post #40.

The destruction of our education system began the very first day that modern government schools opened in the mid-1800s to early 1900s.

Our modern government schools are NOT NOT BROKEN! They are doing EXACTLY what Horace Mann and John Dewey and the other “progressives” intended!

41 posted on 09/17/2010 9:24:33 AM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: OneWingedShark

Show off. XD


42 posted on 09/17/2010 9:39:05 AM PDT by netmilsmom (I am inyenzi on the Religion Forum)
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To: JenB

I love how Saxon and Singapore are considered afterschool tutors.

We use Saxon. Why bother with teaching in class, then teaching right after school?


43 posted on 09/17/2010 9:40:38 AM PDT by netmilsmom (I am inyenzi on the Religion Forum)
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To: wintertime

Gosh, you’re right. I recall school (HS class of 1964, lots of night school after that) actually teaching me stuff, but when I really think back on it, the problem was already there. Justifications for communism, sympathy for the “poor,” and the “greed” of the free-market system were inserted in the fine education in math, science, English, history, et.al.

Now even the fine education is gone.


44 posted on 09/17/2010 9:48:20 AM PDT by TheOldLady (Pablo is very wily.)
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To: netmilsmom

LOL / Thanks! [?]


45 posted on 09/17/2010 10:02:35 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Elsiejay
I cannot understand why it is so difficult to teach children to read. My three could read before they enrolled in first grade. I could have prevented this, of course, if I had kept books and alphabet related toys away from them. Failing that, their learning to read was inevitable, especially with their mother regularly reading books to them.

My first two were just like that, reading came very easily to them. My third one did not read much at all until third grade. My fourth read by the end of first grade. I read to all of them and they all grew up in a reading/language rich home. The first two went to public school until the older one started third grade and the younger one started first. The third one went to private kindergarten and other than that, they were all homeschooled. I think each child is ready to read on his or her own schedule. I think Raymond Moore was right about this....

The first two graduated from college summa cum laude. The third one will do so as well, with an almost perfect grade point average (he just made his first A- which loses the perfect 4.0 at his school). He reads much heavier stuff and writes better than any of the others, despite the fact that he could not read much before third grade and could not write a coherent paragraph before middle school. My fourth one is a junior and is just now actually enjoying reading but is a very good writer - I always thought that for kids to be good writers they needed to read a lot. Kids are good at blowing away our preconceptions!

46 posted on 09/17/2010 10:49:27 AM PDT by aberaussie
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To: OneWingedShark

It was a complement from a math dummy. ;)


47 posted on 09/17/2010 11:30:07 AM PDT by netmilsmom (I am inyenzi on the Religion Forum)
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To: OneWingedShark

It’s a big list, but I have to quibble with you on round-off errors. Check your last result as a test — I get 6.75 + 84 + 10 = 100.75


48 posted on 09/17/2010 11:48:00 AM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: too much time

“actually, only a Mom”...I am glad to see you made the best choice for your children. Being a mom is a lot more important then being an engineer. You are doing something a could never do...being a mom :)

Worldview DAD


49 posted on 09/17/2010 12:08:20 PM PDT by WorldviewDad (following God instead of culture)
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To: Elsiejay
I cannot understand why it is so difficult to teach children to read.

i know... "they" make it difficult... i taught my older son, who as five when we adopted him, to read within eight months of his moving in with us... on top of that, he couldn't talk when he came to live with us... i taught our younger son, who was six months when he came to live with us, all of his letter sounds and blends by the time he was two... i left him alone after that, and he began reading on his own by the time he was three... i've taught a couple of other kindergarteners how to read (family members)... we homeschool...

as for math, i spent the first 3-4 years teaching my kids the fundamentals... inside and out... now both pretty much do math on their own... one is eighth grade, the other is fifth...

50 posted on 09/17/2010 12:18:47 PM PDT by latina4dubya ( self-proclaimed tequila snob)
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To: netmilsmom
We use Saxon.

so do we... i have to say, i'm glad they added a separate geometry course to their math curriculum...

51 posted on 09/17/2010 12:20:34 PM PDT by latina4dubya ( self-proclaimed tequila snob)
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To: apillar

Under the Rules of Affirmative action I have an answer:

1/2*3+4*5*6/7+8*9 = 100 !

I’m a black farmer and/or small businessWOMAN for the purposes of giving this answer.

In other words, you MUST accept it as a correct answer or be fined and.or jailed.


52 posted on 09/17/2010 12:27:05 PM PDT by bvw
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To: too much time
Afterschooling - saxon, singapore, and key curriculum are my favorites. The spiraling, group-work, reflective, reform math is garbage.

Homeschool parent here. We've also used Saxon and Key-To. Saxon does use the spiral method, which seems to work for some people but not for everyone. Every student is unique.

53 posted on 09/17/2010 2:06:59 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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To: latina4dubya

>>i have to say, i’m glad they added a separate geometry course to their math curriculum<<

We’re not there yet, but Saxon has been a life saver in Algebra. I’m pretty math illiterate. We were using Switched on Schoolhouse and they explained NOTHING! We would have to wait for the Principal (dad) to get home to teach the lesson. When my older daughter was almost finished with 9th grade, we gave up and bought Saxon with the DIVE video. Now, after watching her work for hours (I used to cut her off after four) I see her and she flies through her work. In fact, she has been able to make up so much that she will be done in January, then on to Algebra 2.

I’ve heard Singapore is great too but you have to start at the beginning. They refer to past grades.


54 posted on 09/17/2010 2:24:20 PM PDT by netmilsmom (I am inyenzi on the Religion Forum)
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To: Tired of Taxes

Have you tried an abacus for your estudantes?


55 posted on 09/17/2010 2:58:22 PM PDT by bvw
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To: bvw

No, but I always wanted to. The only one they’ve ever tried was online. Do you know how to use an abacus? Do you know where someone can buy one?


56 posted on 09/17/2010 3:08:26 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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To: JenB; Tired of Taxes; wintertime; little jeremiah; Impy; fieldmarshaldj

I believe this readily. I believe that the math books are intentionally confusing. We already know that reading instruction is defective.


57 posted on 09/17/2010 5:49:18 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (Obama's more worried about Israelis building houses than he is about Islamists building atomic bombs)
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To: Clintonfatigued

I did a lot of homeschooling of my kids and others’ kids. Started in the late 70s actually.

I decided by the mid 80s that not only reading but also math texts were created to be purposely confusing. The writers of textbooks want children to be confused, unable to think clearly or rationally, and of course every text is saturated with mind numbing boredom and leftist ideology.

I basically invented my own lessons much of the time. My own reading pamphets, simple arithmatic problems, spelling, comprehension, etc. And I am a high school dropout/kickout.

My 13 yr old daughter finally found a college algebra book and did it herself (I was too dumb at math to assist her) for her own amusement.


58 posted on 09/17/2010 6:39:56 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.)
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To: TheOldLady

The destruction of education *begins* with hiring quotas — they destroy the incentive for doing well in school. Add to that the near-total destruction of industrial jobs, AND the widespread employment of illegal aliens, and the value of a good education (even where such is available) is degraded to near-nothing.

And you’re right of course, the public schools are a disaster.


59 posted on 09/17/2010 7:11:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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To: Clintonfatigued

I believe this readily. I believe that the math books are intentionally confusing. We already know that reading instruction is defective.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Reading instruction is**INTENTIONALLY** defective, as well!


60 posted on 09/17/2010 10:17:58 PM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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