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Update: The project described below is on hold. At the moment I’m trying to finish some other courses that will be even more comprehensive and effective. More news soon.
From the Sunday, March 23, 2008 Foxtrot comic by Bill Amend So many people have asked about a sequel for “Numbers Juggling – Times without the [...] Today a concerned reader took issue with what he understands my methods to be. (See comment #4 at Augends, Addends and the Commutative Law of Addition.) Fair enough, but I think he may have misunderstood my methods. That could, of course, be due to the way I communicate them (or miscommunicate them). First let me say that none of the algorithms (ways of solving math problems) I teach are “mine.” “Math Mojo” is the name of my attitude, not the methods. The methods have been either gleaned from better sources than me (and most are hundreds, if not thousands, of years older), or I have “re-invented” them. That is typical for most people’s alternative methods. Now to the issue; the reader stated:
Professor Homunculus’ reply: I’m sorry you’ve come to that conclusion. If you’ve been teaching math for 30 years, you surely have some insights. But I can’t see see how you’d say, “simple to complex” seems to work. May I ask where it seems to work? And if it does, why is it a struggle for you, and why is it so difficult? Have you been teaching with the “girations” (sic) you say I use to make it so frustrating? I’m not quite sure I understand the logic of your position. Continue reading Learning Multiplication by Rote is a Disease →
I’ve just been perusing a very interesting blog (and a great resource for teachers in public schools). It’s called MathNotations. This post intrigued and annoyed me, though. (Hey, maybe that’s a sign that it is a good blog!) It’s a poll about which method should be used to teach multidigit multiplication, like 48*73, for example. (If you do go to the link, make sure you scroll down and read the comment on Jan 30th by Michael Paul Goldenberg. It is excellent.) Unfortunately, this poll is guilty of the same myopia as the American school system in general. It’s about creating a “standard.” Standard is just another word for limitation for people who really don’t know how to excel. In the case of this poll, it is about choosing (out of an artificially limited group of choices – which is the logical fallacy of “false dichotomies”) how multidigit multiplication should be taught. The wording of the poll is:
Um, here are my options? I think not. One of the great problems in (at least) American education today is that we’re firmly locked, sealed, and vacuum-packed into the box of pedagogical dogma. Continue reading Multiplication, Algorithms, Tricks, and “The One Best Method” → Do you want to understand and be able to multiply in order to: a) help you (or your child) with life in general and the education that counts, or If your answer was b, you just saved yourself some time and effort for the next few minutes. You don’t have to read any further. But you’d be costing yourself (or your child) years of frustration. Passing a little (or big, standardized) test is just jumping through an artificial, meaningless, hoop. You don’t have to be a slave to the school system. If you really need to beat the system, you need to game it. You need to learn math much, much better than they teach it to you in public schools. Then their tests will be a joke, and you will blow them away without being intimidated. But if you just want to learn enough to get through the next test, brother, you are digging your own educational grave. |
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