Two memories of this math controversy in SCASD never fail to make me chuckle when I think back on them. The first was a comment posted on the CDT site after the Ed Mahon wrote his first article on the subject, entitled “The Great Math Debate”. The commenter wrote, “If you say ‘math debate’ over and over again, it sounds kind of funny.”
The second one happened at a math information session for parents last spring. The district curriculum staff were telling the parents how much fun Investigations was for their children, and a parent raised his hand and said, “You know, it’s okay if my kids don’t have so much fun if they learn some more math. They have plenty of fun at home.”
Parents for Quality Math Education
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Minneapolis Public Schools just went from Everyday Math to TERC Investigations in 2009. In 2004, they were using IMP.
ReplyDelete“You know, it’s okay if my kids don’t have so much fun if they learn some more math. They have plenty of fun at home.”
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm tired of educators making sure their activities are "fun". In fact, I think "play-based" preschools can be harmful because they teach that everything needs to be fun.
Sometimes things aren't fun . . . they're difficult, time-consuming and tedious . . . but these activities can be rewarding when they lead to larger goals.
I so agree with what that parent said. Learning is often hard work. This is an issue of expectations. If we create the expectation that learning will always be fun then students will always expect that. Education will be dumbed down if schools only teach what is fun.
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