Maybe only mathematicians and math teachers would understand this but it still might be a good read if you are at all interested one person's opinion of why American mathematics education is full of crap.
I would take it with a grain of salt though. It IS important for students to know math facts - just as important as the discovery of mathematical relationships. I don't know any math person who can't tell you what the square root of 144 is. Instantly - off the top of their heads.
This same math person should also be able to explain, in simple terms, why the square root of 144 is 12 too.
And thus, the conundrum.
1 comment:
Hmm... in both my junior high and high school (geographically distant, totally different sets of students) it seemed like there were lots of kids who were good at algebra or geometry, but not the other one. I figured they staggered them so that we could alternate working on the one we were good at with the one we were bad at to exercise our brains more evenly, and so we didn't get beaten down 2 years in a row.
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