Indeed. Contrived. Dull. That's it in a nutshell.
>it is stupid!! If we can't come up with more realistic problems to =
justify
>some of the skills we're teaching, we have to begin to ask ourselves if
>these skills are necessary). After being fed a steady diet of this kind=
of
Agreed. Too much of the math we teach is just the math you need to
be a math teacher. That's a very specialized approach. =20
Curriculum writers need to do a better job of working backwards from
the actual challenges facing people in different walks of life, where
math applies.
>them to think that word problems that involve calculation are frequently
>stupid, so they don't recognize a real-life sort of reasonable problem =
when
>they finally see one. =20
Good point.
>important as others - one quick example - when I started teaching 10 =
years
>ago, teaching interpolation for trig and logarithmic functions was =
thought
>to be sacred - fortunately, $5 calculators finally made folks realize =
that
>interpolation is no longer a necessary skill to teach). =20
Exactly. Lots of material is dead weight, carried forward in time
only because the teacher knows how to do it, and so thinks this=20
must be critical knowledge to pass along. But teachers need to be
students forever. Always say to yourself: "there's some very=20
critical, important mathematics out there which my students=20
really need today -- and I don't yet know it myself, but I plan to
learn it and share it, because that's my job, and I'm good at my
job."
Kirby
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