With occasional exceptions, what is taught in schools in America is
to do what your told, be passive and quiet, and follow the teacher's or
the book's authority.

Learning knowledge and thinking and understanding, such as we might
understand those concepts, has no place at all with too many teachers.

"Teaching to the test" is the latest example of this awful trend.

(I speak from recent experience with two different public school
systems and several private schools. I have one kid in college and
two teenagers.)
Richard

John Korb wrote:
>
> Urrggghhh!  I've run into this one before (read "sore subject").
>
> The explanation I got (get this) is that "3 is the last digit used in ALL
> calculations involving the number 346."
>
> My response to the teacher was basically "Is that so!  Then please show
> your work for the long division problem where the dividend is 346 and the
> divisor is 2."
>
> Shortly after she picked up the piece of chalk she conceded that 3 would
> not always be the last digit used.
>
> <begin rant>
> My third child is now finishing Elementary school, and I am constantly
> amazed by how poor the textbooks are, and how many errors there are in the
> math textbooks.  Even when there aren't blatant errors, there are very
> often word problems which are very ambiguous and very poorly written.
>
> This may sound strange, but you know your child has a good teacher when the
> teacher uses handouts of the teacher's own design rather than the fancy
> pre-printed ones that come with the textbook.  Why?  Because from my
> experience the good teachers know the material, know the books are garbage,
> and create their own teaching materials so that they can properly teach
> their class.  You know you have a good school when the principal allows the
> teachers the flexibility to use their own materials.
>
> Another measure of a good teacher is his or her ability to alternative
> approaches to problem solving, and tolerance for the same.  Good teachers
> know that different people (children) visualize math problems in different
> ways, and that some students will not understand one approach, but
> understand another.
>
> One year my son was having problems in math (and he wasn't the only
> one).  He even spent a couple of afternoons after school with the teacher
> trying to learn the methodology currently in vogue.  After two afternoons
> both he and his teacher decided he was hopeless.
>
> After hearing from the teacher that he was hopeless and after his tears
> subsided, I took him home and demonstrated the way I had been taught to
> solve the problems, decades ago.  About 30 minutes later he was solving the
> remaining problems on his own, and getting the correct answers.
>
> The next evening there was a note from the teacher telling me (in no
> uncertain terms) that I was NOT to teach my son any problem solving methods
> that were not in the textbook.  Okay, so it was, in her eyes, better for
> him to fail math than to use an "old" approach and succeed.  That's just
> plain warped.
>
> By the way, I never did figure out the "new math" way of solving the problem.
>
> My children have had some great teachers, and a few (in the minority) poor
> teachers, but I've yet to see any great textbooks.
> <end rant>
>
> John
>
> At 2001-09-28 14:07, Mark Boyd wrote:
> >This is a simple math question from my 9 year olds homework.  Could someone
> >with a mathematics background explain the reasoning behind the alleged
> >correct answer for me? Because I just don't get it.
> >
> >The question:
> >         What is the last digit in the number 346?
> >
> >She answered 6 and so did I.  The correct answer is apparently 3.  Why?
> >I've already written a note to the teacher requesting an explanation, but I
> >was hoping someone in the group could come up with something better than
> >"Because the book says so".
> >
> >Thanks
> >Boyd.
> >
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> >* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>
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--
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Director of Computing Systems and Networks
Information Technology Division, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
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