Here’s my dirty secret – Math Mojo isn’t about any math techniques. It’s about re-humanizing the learning experience. My goal is to get people to realize, “Hey, that’s amazing! I can really learn meaningful stuff if I want to! And it’s always more fun and rewarding than that stuff the drones do!” [...]
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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 it co-opted by [...] 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 this is the [...] That it’s “broken” seems clear. But what is “it?” Each state, district, and even type of school is different. One thing that is clear is that creating simplistic “standards” (which are supposed to cover all federally funded schools) is just jaw-flapping by people who understand neither education, math, nor children. [...]
Photo credits: two unknown and one from monkeymucker I recently read a post at:
dolcevitaacademy, which talked a bit about something that is close to my heart, which is: should you focus on teaching concrete skills first, or rather on concepts? (I’ve blogged about that on the post about Math Skills v. Math Concepts.) This seems to be about what the “math wars” are about. If you don’t know what the math wars are, here’s the quick and dirty on them: At some point, around the early sixties, American educators decided that what we needed to improve our math education was a new way to teach math. This was probably due to our getting our butts kicked by the Soviets in the Space Race for awhile in the late fifties. Some genius came up with “The New Math,” which was basically a somewhat new way to teach math; it had nothing to do with any kind of actually new math . I mean, two plus two still equalled four. Since then, “traditionalist” and “constructivists” have been sniping at each other about “which way is the best way.” (I like to snipe at both.) Teachers are not being taught math adequately, and generally fail to teach it well to their students. (Do tell…) [...] 
What the heck does writing backwards have to do with math? With so many things in bloom here in rural upstate New York, I figured it’s time for some new Ideas with Math Mojo. 
One of them is the addition of a new segment, called, “Strange Powers of the Mind.” Look for a lot more weird stuff like this at Math Mojo. Sign up for the Math Mojo Monthly (“Comes out Quarterly, Mostly!”) Newsletter to keep up with the additions. |
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