kitchen table math, the sequel: David Klein's AP/IB grades changed by Fordham

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

David Klein's AP/IB grades changed by Fordham

This is distressing news.

Based on my own n of 1, I'm sure David's original grades were correct. C's camp counselor last summer, who is attending Rensselaer Polytechnic, told me the IB math sequence he'd taken in high school was a joke. He didn't learn much calculus, but he did write a "research" paper. Looked some stuff up and slapped it together.

I wish to heck I knew what I did with my notes on the conversation. He gave me a rundown of the many topics IB didn't mention while students were busy slapping together low-quality papers.

If I run across them, I'll post.

A few years ago I checked out the IB web site. The lower grades IB curriculum was entirely constructivist, which made me think the upper-grades curriculum couldn't be far behind.

.............................

It was a lot of fun having C. in camp with a math-brain counselor. The counselor would tell him things like, "I don't like to read and write papers. I just like to do math." This was an utterly novel concept to C, who quoted it to me verbatim on a number of occasions.

No comments: