Posted on 03/31/2008 6:59:33 AM PDT by too much time
Take a minute to think about the following: When was the last time you made a mathematical calculation in your head or by hand (yes which means not using a calculator)? Surely, some of you avoid math like the plague – especially when your teenage child comes around looking for help on their math homework – but you must admit that even in this compalculator era it comes in handy to be able to tally your bills in your head or figure out the miles per gallon you’re getting while driving along in traffic.
Surely it seems reasonable to expect that people with high school diplomas and college degrees shouldn’t be afraid of a little algebra. We all took math in school, and although most of us struggled with the subject, and many of us hated every second of it, we did it and we got by. We got by, and it has helped us in some way or another while at college, work, or home. But if you thought math was hard for you, consider how hard your kids have it.
It shouldn’t be hard to understand why most American teenagers struggle with math and other basic subjects like science and English. Schools are overcrowded and rundown, teachers are underpaid and......
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Addition. With 10x10, I was actually saying “10 by 10”. Although once you have the addition, you only need to memorize 15 or so multiplication facts and you have that one cold as well :)
So very true.
I’ll check out the Zoombinis.
Everyday for anything under 20x20. I freak out the cashier because I'm usually faster than her machine.
Who uses math and science? I do, even though I do not work in a strictly scientific field. My family used “real world” examples to teach math concepts to me when I was a wee bairn. For example, they used money and units of measure as a means to teach fractions. I also use math (including geometry) quite a bit in my hobby.
I’m still trying to figure out the “need” for one of those Texas Instruments graphing calculators by junior high school. Seems like learning the calculator would take more time than learning the math the calculator is to perform.
Nice! That’s the only way to go in the early years. Just the discipline alone will carry them through until their algebra brain comes in, somewhere around the age of 10.
I always liked math, and really loved geometry. It was the homework I could do while I watched TV! Calculus was my downfall. My daughters, on the other hand, had no trouble with it.
An old timer taught me that .250 is the only number you need to know, if you want a fraction multiply or divide and then convert.
Teaching math with real world examples, as you are doing, is best. Teaching kids how without understanding why leads to confusion.
My son and I play the “change game” with clerks all of the time. It’s always good for a laugh.
I had to laugh at this only because my 7th grade son changes everything to decimals. I am not sure why he started doing that, but he says that it makes everything easier. Fractions are easier for me, so I have to convert everything back to make sure that he is doing the problem right.
The rule is add and divide up and divide down. Once you get the hang of it it is easy.
Another reason to homeschool.
Education majors have the lowest SAT, ACT, and GRE scores on campus.
I conclude that too many government teachers are:
1) Math phobics themselves.
2) Don’t have a high enough IQ to master math.
3) Were government school graduates themselves.
Also, the parents of school kids are, for the most part, were recently government schooled in “new” math methods, and therefore completely unable to teach their kids basic math.
When I was in college (late 60s), my university had a “School of Education”. The inhabitants were the utter dregs of academic society. Judging from what I read, nothing has changed.
Heh heh heh... reminds me of the episode in Friends when Joey was teaching an acting class. "If you're supposed to look bewildered, just try to divide 213 by 37 in your head."
The article is wrong when it says that while he hated the classes, taking them helped him down the road. Nothing I took in high school has been of any use to me, and there is not one person who cares whether I remember any of it.
Same here.
Everything I’ve learned that I found useful was in college, homeschooling my own kids, or on my own, cause I needed to learn something for a job or something like that.
Ditto!
The only thing the school did was send home a curriculum and textbooks.
Even with English, it was my parents who taught me English composition. They were the people who ruthlessly ( thankfully) red penned my compositions, and corrected all spelling and grammar.
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