Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Who Teaches The Teachers

Here's the best, most likely explanation I've yet heard for why so many teachers across the country continue to support fuzzy math:

There's a dirty little secret behind fuzzy math. The technique didn't become popular just because it supposedly made math easier to learn. It became popular because it made math easier to teach.


What a disgrace. Anyway, there's much more than that nugget in the linked column.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that too many decisions about math ed are being made by people who are math-phobic. They think somehow if math were made more *fun* or *relevant* it would be easier to learn. Rubbish.

What makes math fun is gaining a sense of mastery. Period.

Darren said...

While I agree with both previous comments, I have this to say to anonymous' final statement:

Hear hear!