Re: Excerpts from alleged 5th grade math anti-textbook

["Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@comcast.net>]

So you do disagree with Dale Seymour Investigations that
that average should not be taught to 5th graders, and that
6th graders shouldn't even be expected to know or be exposed
to the standard method? Do you think a college statistics textbook
should cover average, and its standard method, since research
shows "adults can't even grasp this concept?"

Does everybody in this group believe that's its' harmful to teach average
or the standard method, or include it in state standards, since every
state standard specifies average at 4th grade, and every math textbook
ever written except the NCTM based books includes it at the 4th grade
level?

-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org
[mailto:arn-l-owner@interversity.org]On Behalf Of dancinglight
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 7:18 PM
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Excerpts from alleged 5th grade math anti-textbook


Yes, and yes.

They know how to compute an average.  Or, I should say, they know how to
find the mean, median, and mode.  I taught them.  They should learn it in
school.  I didn't teach them out of a text book.

The difference, I guess, is this;

For me, the textbook is not the curriculum.  It is one tool for delivering
that curriculum.  It isn't the curriculum itself, nor is walking kids
through a text book necessarily "teaching."  I've yet to see any textbook,
traditional or non-standard, that was totally complete.  I've never
considered any text I taught out of a bible for teaching math, and I've
never assumed that I was supposed to follow what the book said like a
script.  I've always assumed it was a guideline, but nothing more.

For others, I guess, the textbook is the "curriculum."  I guess it would
never occur to some to do anything that wasn't a page in a text or teacher's
manual, or to compare the text to the curriculum to see where it fit and
where it needed to be modified.

Kelley

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
-Gandhi

> So do your kids know how to compute an average, and where
> did they learn, and where should they learn it if not in
> math class? Is it the job of math class to teach average
> and arithmetic, and if not, where are kids going to learn it?
>
> I'm astonished by this "kids already walk into school
> knowing this stuff already, it's so obvious" attitude.

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