[Paladin2]

" It includes more group work."

Well, we know how that community organizing works out mathematically.

[pepsionice]

The sad reality here...is that a kid gets around to just memorizing the formulas and never grasps how you’d ever apply it. So you end up with a punk arriving at University....with no true grasp of math or the various applications that you could use to solve a business or life problem.

Note, we have all these idiots around who got deep into debt, but no grasp of the interest rates and what they really meant.

I’d rather see every kid given a workbook around the 4th or 5th grade, with a fake company situation and the various ways laid out to use math to analyze profits, losses, and expansion. Math is no good....unless you can use the stuff for real applications.

[grania]

I'm a retired math teacher who was substituting until this year. Someone in my situation has not entered alternative reality as I did until they've been in a "math class" in which solving quadratic equations is a group activity.

Math is supposed to teach disciplined process thinking and drawing logical conclusion based on verified information. The word problems and group thingies should be a maybe once a week exercise applying those newly developed skills.

Don't wind me up !!! <^..^>

[Mamzelle]

Group work is great for slacker teachers. It means one kid does the work of either teaching, or just does the work for a few other classmates. Sometimes group work is appropriate, but math is not a team sport.

[riri]

My son goes to a traditional school that specifically forbids “group work”.

[Chewbarkah]

I am trying to figure out how a “group” can do math, which involves operation within an individual’s brain.

A team can only move as fast as the weakest horse. Maybe the groups should read Animal Farm together so everyone can learn about Hope and Change.