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The point is that if all you do is drill, by the time you get to the beauty, your students have already made up their mind that math is the most useless crap in
by lutorm 17y ago
The point is that if all you do is drill, by the time you get to the beauty, your students have already made up their mind that math is the most useless crap in the Universe. Motivation is a powerful force and unless people see that there's any point to what they are being ordered to do, they will comply with the smallest amount of effort they can get away with.
And to say that they want to fall back on "what works" sounds a little funny given how dismally American students in general are doing. If people are so afraid to make the mediocre worse, they'll never discover what works better.
Besides, I'm not even sure I agree that you need to be able to multiply numbers before doing algebra.
- bitwize 17y agoSaxon Math is getting kids numerate to a high school level where constructivist horseshit is not. Saxon Math is largely drill and repetition based, with some practical applications like counting money and so forth. Therefore, you're wrong. QED. As for what American students in general are doing, drill and repetition were how it was taught in the mid 20th century, when America led the world in science and technology. (My father was given a pencil with no eraser in the second grade; the teacher told the class "You're second graders now. You shouldn't be making mistakes.") We abandoned that sometime in the sixties and it's been downhill since.