Interesting article. This quote really grabbed my attention, One affordable and smart step would be to terminate policies and practices that prevent American teachers from teaching what matters most to their students. Everyone jokes about it but upper level math matters to very few people and they lead successful, happy lives without it. It breaks my heart when students who still do not grasp numbers and the basic operations are expected to somehow demonstrate mastery of concepts like irrational numbers, equations, inequalities, slope, etc. and I watch them in intervention classes getting low score after low score on STAR tests every two weeks, and they just look so defeated. This is especially difficult knowing, for some, it is truly a waste of their time since they will never use it in life. I know the argument is we are teaching them critical thinking skills, but I believe there are ways to teach that without undermining their confidence. I really do love teaching math and I love my students year after year. That is why I will not stop hoping that someday we will find a way to teach different kinds of math to different kinds of students and tailor it to their individual needs. Then it will be authentic and purposeful.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:55:35 +0000