3 ms·

Is anyone else ever disturbed by the attempts to "make X fun!" by inclusion of cartoon characters and other inanity? I think it's a distraction; the kids just p

by neilk 18y ago

Is anyone else ever disturbed by the attempts to "make X fun!" by inclusion of cartoon characters and other inanity? I think it's a distraction; the kids just pay attention to the cartoon. I know that some teachers would disagree, but in my experience, most teachers at the primary level don't really love math. Not the way I do, anyway. At the very best, you get people who liked doing rote problems, and those sorts of people just suck. The rest struggle through the lessons as much as their charges do, and they'd be lost without the teacher's guide. In my opinion, the way to make math fun is to make the exercise of the skill itself more fun. Make it part of a game. For bonus points, make the game complex enough that multiple strategies can work, estimation or direct calculation or induction. And I'd like some recognition of the fact that some people are insanely good at this and others will always struggle, so create teams where different skills are useful (calculation, problem solving, record keeping, data gathering) but everyone learns the basic lessons. Sooner or later you're going to be alone with the pencil and paper and Mr. 4 and Ms. 5 are not going to be there to help.

jodrellblank 18y ago
"Is anyone else ever disturbed by the attempts to "make X fun!" by inclusion of cartoon characters and other inanity?" Yes, Mr Lockhart is - "A similar problem occurs when teachers or textbooks succumb to cutesyness. This is where, in an attempt to combat so-called 'math anxiety' (one of the panoply of diseases which are actually caused by school), math is made to seem 'friendly'. To help your students memorize formulas for the area and circumference of a circle, for example, you might invent this whole story about 'Mr. C', who drives around 'Mrs. A' and tells her how nice his 'two piesare' (C = 2πr) and how her 'pies are square' (A = πr2) or some such nonsense. But what about the real story? The one about mankind’s struggle with the problem of measuring curves; about Eudoxus and Archimedes and the method of exhaustion; about the transcendence of pi? Which is more interesting? measuring the rough dimensions of a circular piece of graph paper, using a formula that someone handed you without explanation (and made you memorize and practice over and over) or hearing the story of one of the most beautiful, fascinating problems, and one ofthe most brilliant and powerful ideas in human history? We’re killing people’s interest in circles for god’s sake!" - http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf (which I originally found linked on HN or reddit, and enjoyed reading ... but then what? Where is a near layperson to find mathematical writing that walks the line between Mr C and his two pies, and the impenetrable mathworld.wolfram.com, neatly skipping the textbooks written to look comprehensive to school purchasers, rather than to be useful? ( http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html ))
- neilk 18y ago
  That was great. Thanks. I do, however, take issue with his notion of teaching math for purely aesthetic reasons. That definitely should be part of the curriculum, but I personally feel that only a few students are really attuned to that sort of thing. Others will enjoy the mechanics of calculation, and others will love reasoning and problem-solving. Some won't like any of this, but not everyone is cut out for a life where math is a big part.

by neilk 18y ago

jodrellblank 18y ago

"Is anyone else ever disturbed by the attempts to "make X fun!" by inclusion of cartoon characters and other inanity?" Yes, Mr Lockhart is - "A similar problem occurs when teachers or textbooks succumb to cutesyness. This is where, in an attempt to combat so-called 'math anxiety' (one of the panoply of diseases which are actually caused by school), math is made to seem 'friendly'. To help your students memorize formulas for the area and circumference of a circle, for example, you might invent this whole story about 'Mr. C', who drives around 'Mrs. A' and tells her how nice his 'two piesare' (C = 2πr) and how her 'pies are square' (A = πr2) or some such nonsense. But what about the real story? The one about mankind’s struggle with the problem of measuring curves; about Eudoxus and Archimedes and the method of exhaustion; about the transcendence of pi? Which is more interesting? measuring the rough dimensions of a circular piece of graph paper, using a formula that someone handed you without explanation (and made you memorize and practice over and over) or hearing the story of one of the most beautiful, fascinating problems, and one ofthe most brilliant and powerful ideas in human history? We’re killing people’s interest in circles for god’s sake!" - http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf (which I originally found linked on HN or reddit, and enjoyed reading ... but then what? Where is a near layperson to find mathematical writing that walks the line between Mr C and his two pies, and the impenetrable mathworld.wolfram.com, neatly skipping the textbooks written to look comprehensive to school purchasers, rather than to be useful? ( http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html ))

neilk 18y ago
That was great. Thanks. I do, however, take issue with his notion of teaching math for purely aesthetic reasons. That definitely should be part of the curriculum, but I personally feel that only a few students are really attuned to that sort of thing. Others will enjoy the mechanics of calculation, and others will love reasoning and problem-solving. Some won't like any of this, but not everyone is cut out for a life where math is a big part.