I had the same experience in the "Math Education" college classes. When we went on a practicum to teach math to small groups of Middle Schoolers, we were supposed to be doing an exercise in which the kids spent an hour "rediscovering" a principle of geometry. Our professor actually announced to the kids that we were not allowed to tell them if they were right or wrong, and that we would get in trouble if we did.
In this type of curriculum, the kids spend weeks "discovering" the Pythagorean Theorem with string, etc. ,but never actually do the repetitive problems necessary to master it. Then of course they don't have time to learn everything they should, because they have to rediscover everything. It's absolutely ridiculous.
YES, that exactly! Ok, let’s say they are NOT Euclid, nor Pythagorus. But perhaps they just want to use the things those great men discovered as TOOLS!
I have bright 8th graders who have to learn multiplication tables because they have been allowed to use calculators since 5th grade! They cannot even multiply to the 12s!!
And DISCOVERING theorems. Why?? Oh it just makes me spew and sputter.
You should have seen this poor PhD Math person, who teaches High School math, struggling with these idiotic theories the Drama Person (aka Math Teacher of Teachers) was trying to make us learn. “This is not how math works,” he would sputter in frustration. “You are saying that X is not X?” “Well, yes, because there are many ways to calculate that.”
I would come home, share with my husband and son, both with great math minds - “What are they teaching you? You should RUN SCREAMING from that class.” hahah.
So I did.
Hang in there. What those kids need more than anything is to learn how to think logically and clearly, so they can be good conservatives when they grow up. hahaha.