Posted on 01/01/2014 4:30:20 AM PST by Kaslin
Bkmrk.
Many thanks for this link! It looks fascinating. I am a teacher & look forward to checking it out.
bfl
You know I used to scorn John Stossel w/out truly knowing what he stood for. Wrong on my part! I watched his show & I am hooked. He makes SO much sense & like how great he is w/ all of his guests. He is very respectful even w/ people he vehemently disagrees with.
BFL
If you google his name, John Taylor Gatto, you'll find a lot of lectures and speeches on YouTube, too.
He has a very discursive and meandering style that some may like, and others may find frustrating. I like it despite its limitations. I tend to pay better attention, because you never know what fact is coming next. It helps me to remember the facts better.
One of my daughter's classmates is a screaming math genius - unbelievably talented. He burned through all the high school math courses while he was still in middle school.
Our school arranged for him to take higher math courses from the profs down at GA Tech. He was happy as a clam, and all the kids were very impressed at the lengths the school would go to to accommodate the exceptional student.
Of course, they charge enough for the privilege < roll eyes > But on the other hand, it didn't cost his parents any extra for him to hang around the North Avenue Trade School. Either the school made private arrangements, or the profs were happy to get an opportunity to recruit the kid for GT. I think he wound up going to MIT though. :-(
I back my way into math through music - once you really get into composition and analysis (especially of medieval polyphony, or Bach) you find yourself doing math. Hence the close connection in more enlightened times between math and music (e.g. The Music of the Spheres, John Dunstable (the greatest English composer before William Byrd, also an astronomer and mathematician) and the Quadrivium).
Music sounds better though, plus I like and understand it, so it's all good.
I spent the afternoon in the company of a Juilliard graduate who explained to me the mathematical basis of music. It was beautiful, and I think I understood it for about a day...
He actually explained math in music so it sticks pretty well (for a non-maths person). I don't know how he stands all us amateurs in the choir, but he does.
“...fourth-graders are better off being taught how to add, subtract, multiply and divide!”
I’m sorry, but if they can’t add, subtract, multiply and divide well before the 4th grade they are perilously behind for studying a STEM field as an adult.
My son is in 4th grade. I bought the 6th Grade Saxon (7/6) Math Book and after schooled him while in 3rd grade. He caught on quickly and now takes 7th grade math in a public school. It was a hard sell at the school but they let him take the advanced math class with the 6th graders and he’s doing great.
You are correct and, yes, many are that far behind.
The greatest weakness is often in areas involving fractions, word problems or multi-step problems.
Passing the standardized test is not the same as learning to use math to solve problems.
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