A reader asked: I hate math! No matter how much I try to like it, I just can’t. It just bores me to death, which makes me uninterested in it, which makes me bad at it! Do you have any tips on how to lighten it up a little bit and make it more fun? [...]
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I was told that he is not allowed to use the word ‘and’ because it stands for the decimal point… What !!!??? Is this something new? [...] Ah, math ed. I hate it. Yes, I hate it. It has become a corporate tug-of-war for the hearts and minds of petty pedagogues, and your kids are in the crossfire. Should it be Math-U-See? TERC, Singapore, Saxon, or one of the other over-marketed mind-usurpers? I like math. I love math. I hate to see [...] (this post is a continuation of yesterday’s post - Why do we have to show the work?)
This youtube video is by a woman with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of autism). Her observations are very insightful. I encourage you to watch it in the entirety, because she covers a lot of interesting points that are not [...] It’s a control issue; pure and simple. They will not give it up. They will not admit it. They will not even face it themselves or even consider that it might be true. They feel threatened, and they will use every bit of rhetoric and rationalization they can dredge up to try to legitimize it. [...] Many mathematicians and some math educators are aware that a lot of the stuff that passes for “math” in schools is simply number manipulation, or rote memory of math “facts.” [...] If you are “beyond school age” (which of course, you never are, because of adult ed. and more and more colleges accepting adult students) you may be in luck. You can learn math at your own pace, and from better sources than most schools offer. [...] My general theory is that you can have the best curriculum in the world, but if the kids “just hates math” it will do you as much good as a screen door on a submarine. [...] Well, of course it’s not the problem, just one of many, but here it goes… Somehow along the way, people got the feeling that math is supposed to always be right, and that math teachers are supposed to know all the answers. Math has gotten the reputation of being an authoritarian science. I don’t think [...]
Infinite Pretzel photo graph by oskay
A concerned teacher asked: I have a senior girl who, though smart, has math phobia, poor background (her school was art-centered, not math) and hypersensitivity to criticism. What can I do to help her [...] |
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