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To: BobL

“National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)”
For those who may not know, this is the bunch who effectively destroyed math education in the US with their “Everyday Math”


My first exposure to the ideas of the NCTM was at my first teaching job, 4th & 5th grade right after ‘modern math’ was introduced. My poor kids were forced to learn math using base 6 and then base 12 to appreciate the patterns that exist in math and that way they could discover for themselves how to add, subtract, multiply and divide in the number system we actually use.

Of course rote memorization was forbidden—and it still is in common core math. I understand, or at least I think I do, what NCTM were about. Most math teachers are rather good at math, like it, always have liked it and learned their much of what they know though self-discovery. They ignore the fact that most humans don’t have a knack or talent for math, don’t particularly enjoy it and see math as a tool to use to get things done.

The result of this is that most students are subjected to teaching methodology that is unsuited for likely 95% of the population and fails to teach them what they need to know to actually use math productively.

When I was in the third and fourth grades, most of math class was devoted to memorization of the times tables. This prepared me to be able to deal with fractions in the 5th grade. Today at least half of the 8th graders cannot do 8 x 4 without resorting to a calculator or if that is not allowed either adding on paper or trying to use their fingers...


52 posted on 06/27/2021 11:38:51 AM PDT by hanamizu
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To: hanamizu

” I understand, or at least I think I do, what NCTM were about. Most math teachers are rather good at math, like it, always have liked it and learned their much of what they know though self-discovery. They ignore the fact that most humans don’t have a knack or talent for math, don’t particularly enjoy it and see math as a tool to use to get things done.”

The reason we keep GETTING DEFEATED is very simple - we assign ‘good intentions’ to the people who hate us, and hate the country.

There is literally NO PROBLEM with Modern Math, or Everyday Math, as far as the teachers are concerned - they are getting EXACTLY what they intended from these programs - which is the end of a country they despise.


58 posted on 06/27/2021 12:34:50 PM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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