RE: [MATHEDCC] Why Johnny can't do math

Al Roy (aroy@BRISTOL.MASS.EDU)
Mon, 01 Nov 1999 10:30:45 -0500

I may be oversimplifying again, but it seems to me that once a math problem
is in a textbook it is a textbook problem and not a "real life" problem.
"Real life" problems occur in real life, don't they? An arithmetic student
who is calculating a bowling score from a textbook is not solving a "real
life" problem. If the student was a member of a bowling league trying to
calculate a bowling score at a bowling alley, that would be a "real life"
problem. I remember learning how to calculate a bowling score at a bowling
alley. Knowing how to add came in very handy. I may not have been very
motivated to learn it in an artificial environment like a classroom before
I knew what bowling was all about.Once I understood bowling it was easy to
apply my knowledge of addition to the solution of the "real life" problem.
Keep the Faith

At 08:10 AM 11/1/99 -0600, you wrote:
>There was an interesting article a maybe last year in on of the MAA
>journals. It used the teaching music analogy. One of mathematics
>educations problems is that for much of the time students are only doing
>the scales. Practice, Practice but never really learn a great work or take
>a solo to a new level of awareness. If someone only studied the scales
>then little is accomplished. Even great musicians study their scales but
>they do not do so to the exclusion of their "real" work. I feel too many
>times, mathematics is the teaching and or learning of only the scales
>without putting in the deeper understanding and ideas of the Mathematical
>world both applied and otherwise.
>
>Vern Kays
>
>
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Al Roy "We shall not cease from exploration
Bristol Comm. Coll. And the end of our exploration
Fall River, MA 02720 Will be to arrive where we started
508-678-2811 x2246 And know the place for the first time." Eliot
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