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Saturday, November 8, 2008

apocalypse now


“A tooty-ta, a tooty-ta, a tooty-ta-ta,” she sang while standing in a circle with 25 other kindergarten teachers echoing. “Thumbs up. Elbows back. Feet apart. Knees together. Bottoms up. Tongue out. Eyes shut. Turn around.”

Everyday Math teaches students about sequencing

16 comments:

  1. "A tooty-ta, a tooty-ta, a tooty-ta."

    Just shoot me now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is this the professional development that is needed in order to teach EM effectively, and without which it is a failure? Apologists for EM such as Catherine Cullen who was blogging at Eduwonk a while back, claims that you have to teach EM the right way in order for it to be effective.

    Well if she does, I know what to tell her:

    "A tooty-ta, a tooty-ta, a tooty-ta-ta!"

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  3. Of course, if I had been taught this way, there's no telling how much further I would have gone. I'm talking about college, not first grade!

    Bada-bing, bada-bam!! I gotta million of 'em, folks!

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  4. I'm sorry, parents. Do not try this at home. You do not have the proper certification. You could ruin your child for the rest of his school career.

    Especially the last part.

    Please, let the professionals do their job.

    And no, the Hokey Pokey is not proper sequencing. Neither is the Farmer in the Dell, Old McDonald Had a Farm, or any of those other Kindergarten songs you learned so very long ago.

    SusanS

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  5. Susan, that's hysterical. Hysterical and true. Which, of course, makes the whole thing really disturbing.

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  6. Why do we think this has anything to do with Everyday Math?

    -Mark Roulo

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  7. Mark,

    Go to the link to read the article.

    Professional development is more often than not about entertaining "the client" and selling "the program" than it is about improving teaching methods for authentic coherent content.

    ReplyDelete
  8. From the caption:

    "The song teaches students about sequencing and is part of a lesson on patterns. It’s also an element of the new curriculum for Beaufort County schools, called “Everyday Math,” which is being applied districtwide next school year."

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  9. I must be very slow today (I *am* fighting some sort of sore throat thingie ...).

    What link to which article? I click on the image and a movie plays.

    What caption? Under the movie, I see the words "Comment on this video | Rate this video | Share this video" and under that I see as quoted text, "A tooty-ta, a tooty-ta, a tooty-ta-ta,” she sang while standing in a circle with 25 other kindergarten teachers echoing. “Thumbs up. Elbows back. Feet apart. Knees together. Bottoms up. Tongue out. Eyes shut. Turn around."

    No visible link. No caption.

    Help ?!?

    -Mark Roulo

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  10. Above there is a link "Everyday Math teaches students about sequencing" that leads you to this:


    http://www2.islandpacket.com/node/31727

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  11. Oh my goodness. Just in case you wanted to read the lyrics, have at it:

    http://www.songsforteaching.com/drjean/tootyta.htm

    If you want to see a child performing this masterpiece, here you go:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgLZqEDO8b4

    Just "you-tube" tooty-ta.

    Help me.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "Above there is a link "Everyday Math teaches students about sequencing" that leads you to this:..."

    I didn't realize this was a link!

    Thanks.

    Sigh.

    Still ... this *is* only KG, right? This is pretty much what I envision KG is like ... I just wouldn't think to score this activity as "math."

    I miss all this fun stuff because I homeschool ...

    -Mark Roulo

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  13. This IS Kindergarten, and they are already starting; claiming less (singing and dancing), is more (mathematical sequencing). The problem is not that they are doing this in Kindergarten, but that they are treating us like we're really, really stupid. Oops. Maybe they really believe this stuff. That's scarier.

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  14. "Just 'you-tube' tooty-ta."

    I like the one where all of the kids (in graduating caps and gowns) perform it in front of a line of parents with video cameras.

    HELLO! Parents! Are you catching on yet? Don't feel bad. It took me a while too.

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  15. What on earth was that? It looks like a pretty lame initiation into the mysteries of some off-the-wall cult.

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  16. I've been doing professional development in Singapore Math all wrong. Forget training teachers what compensation is, mental math strategies or how to divide fractions.

    What I need is a catchy tune.

    (And, yes - I do need to teach most teachers fraction division when teaching SM. Below 4th grade they don't know or understand, above 4th grade they can frequently do the algorithm, but struggle with creating a word problem.)

    ReplyDelete