Re: More Math in the Media

[Anne Richardson <anne_rich@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Hi folks!

Last night some parents from various alternative public schools here in
Seattle attended a school board meeting. A number of them spoke in defense
of the narrative/portfolio approach to report cards and asked for the choice
not to do the standardized report cards - from which alternative public
schools have been exempt until now. Each speaker covered different aspects
of the issue and the speeches were very moving.

This was followed by the speech of a parent from a traditional public school
that is destined to be closed in 2003. (He was asking that it be kept open.)
As part of his speech, he said that the only choice students had in his area
were school or prison. He added that 'goodies' were not amongst their
choices, like those of us in alternative schools. While I certainly
sympathize with his plight, it is terrifying to me that experiential
learning is considered a 'goody'. I can't imagine my daughter being able to
truly learn stuff any other way. I guess I am really naive.

- Anne

> From: Ed Levine <eddie185@YAHOO.COM>
> Reply-To: Assessment Reform Network Mailing List <ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU>
> To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU
> Subject: More Math in the Media
> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 09:19:26 -0800
>
> Here's a compelling tale about a youngster's discovery of
> mathematics.  This is the second math posting from me today ... it
> must be National Math In Media day.
>
> I can relate to this story ... 40 years after the fact, I remember my
> mother yelling, "Put away those damn lists [I was usually working on
> some baseball statistics] and do your homework!"  As often as not, it
> was drill-and-kill math homework that I was trying to ignore.  Only
> as an adult did I realize that whatever number skills I managed to
> acquire were self-taught.  I could do batting averages in my head,
> but in school I was a lousy math student.  Go figure (pun intended).
>
> GREENSPAN'S MATH SKILLS HONED ON BASEBALL
> Yahoo News, Feb. 7
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even as a boy, the world's most powerful
> central banker avidly combed through statistics -- baseball
> statistics, that is.
>
> Testifying before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday on the
> serious issue of financial literacy, Federal Reserve Chairman
> Greenspan laughingly attributed some of his now-legendary statistical
> acumen to a childhood interest in batting averages.
>
> "I learned fractions very young because I had to calculate baseball
> averages," Greenspan, who turns 76 next month and who is a fan of the
> sport, told chuckling panel members.
>
> "I had an incentive to do it and by the time I got to fractions in
> school I was a whiz -- provided it had something to do with ratios
> usually under .400 because I didn't know anybody who had a batting
> average that high," he quipped.
>
> A batting average is the number of hits a player gets divided by the
> number of times a player is up at bat.
>
> It was one the relatively rare personal insights the Fed chief offers
> in public, usually laced with humor. In this case, he told the tale
> to buttress a key point that Americans need an increasingly
> sophisticated understanding of the evolving financial world around
> them to achieve financial independence.
>
> Greenspan suggested there should be more emphasis on teaching basic
> skills like arithmetic in an interesting way, and that it should
> start early.
>
> "If you don't understand arithmetic, if you don't understand how to
> multiply, divide, you are not going to understand finance, period,"
> the Fed chairman said. He added that it was "crucially important"
> that as early as in grade school and certainly by high school,
> students learn not simply to use but to appreciate numbers.
>
> "You've got to have a numerical base and I would suggest
> that...probably going back to grade school and high school (have) the
> class write about arithmetic -- in other words, have people actually
> engage in doing interest, compound interest and know what it is," he
> said.
>
> That way, Greenspan suggested, a college-age student might at least
> be equipped to handle a credit card.
>
>
>
>
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