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Number sentence is an equation explained using words a six year old understands. Children use counters all the time. Ever played air hockey? I'm not sure how t

by parfe 12y ago

Number sentence is an equation explained using words a six year old understands. Children use counters all the time. Ever played air hockey? I'm not sure how that would be confusing. A number story is a word problem.

bane 12y ago
Nobody uses these terms to describe these things. The fact that you described the crazy way CC calls things with more familiar terms is specific evidence of that. Air hockey doesn't use "counters" it uses a scoreboard or score keeper. Number sentence is not what these are called. We're teaching children the wrong things. Now they have to learn the concept twice. Once wrongly, the second time correctly. It's objectively the wrong way to teach.
- codyb 12y ago
  Well vernaculars differ and a counter is a totally intuitive way to describe the air hockey score keeper. I'd be hard pressed to call it a score board especially since the keepers are on opposite sides of the table generally. But I'm totally with you about teaching children that these are equations. I wouldn't be surprised if this curriculum or whatever was built by someone not comfortable with the word equation themselves, for whatever reason.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    Parent is thinking about an electronic scoreboard. Parent's problem problem is that they assume anything different from their idiolect is stupid and wrong.
- Retra 12y ago
  >It's objectively the wrong way to teach. Is it? I'm fairly certain that teaching is one of the most difficult things that we try to do, and that almost everything I've ever learned has be taught 'the wrong way' and then corrected later. But then, I have a degree in physics, and everything I've been taught about physics has either been wrong or is open to being made wrong. I was explicitly told as a freshmen "nothing we'll teach you in this class is true." It doesn't matter what those are called. All that matters is how they work.
  - bane 12y ago
    It does matter what they're called if they're not called something consistently. I've shown elsewhere in this thread that "subtraction sentence" has two entirely opposite meanings...on the same test. If I called aerodynamic lift "flying power" and gravity "flying power" and I asked you to calculate the "flying power" of an aerodynamic body on another planet? You might be able to sort it out as an 18 year old Physic freshman once you learned some context...maybe by your 3rd year in, but a 6 year old being introduced to this stuff for the first time? It's a terrible way to teach somebody. It's like a Machiavellian approach to pedagogy: confuse and isolate the students so that only the best rise to the top.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
codyb 12y ago
I don't see why the heck we don't just teach them the word equation instead of pretending they're too simple to understand the concept and add a word to their vocabulary. I wonder if it'd be possible that this might have a positive effect in decreasing the gap between men and women in science related fields. Perhaps if we told boys and girls they were doing well with equations they'd grow up to be more comfortable with them. Instead of "I'm not good at equations and never have been and those sound hard" (since they only started using the word with tougher mathematics or maybe never at all), they could think "Equations? Psh, I've been working them over since I was in grade one". Just an idea.

by parfe 12y ago

bane 12y ago

Nobody uses these terms to describe these things. The fact that you described the crazy way CC calls things with more familiar terms is specific evidence of that. Air hockey doesn't use "counters" it uses a scoreboard or score keeper. Number sentence is not what these are called. We're teaching children the wrong things. Now they have to learn the concept twice. Once wrongly, the second time correctly. It's objectively the wrong way to teach.

codyb 12y ago
Well vernaculars differ and a counter is a totally intuitive way to describe the air hockey score keeper. I'd be hard pressed to call it a score board especially since the keepers are on opposite sides of the table generally. But I'm totally with you about teaching children that these are equations. I wouldn't be surprised if this curriculum or whatever was built by someone not comfortable with the word equation themselves, for whatever reason.
- sukilot 12y ago
  Parent is thinking about an electronic scoreboard. Parent's problem problem is that they assume anything different from their idiolect is stupid and wrong.
Retra 12y ago
>It's objectively the wrong way to teach. Is it? I'm fairly certain that teaching is one of the most difficult things that we try to do, and that almost everything I've ever learned has be taught 'the wrong way' and then corrected later. But then, I have a degree in physics, and everything I've been taught about physics has either been wrong or is open to being made wrong. I was explicitly told as a freshmen "nothing we'll teach you in this class is true." It doesn't matter what those are called. All that matters is how they work.
- bane 12y ago
  It does matter what they're called if they're not called something consistently. I've shown elsewhere in this thread that "subtraction sentence" has two entirely opposite meanings...on the same test. If I called aerodynamic lift "flying power" and gravity "flying power" and I asked you to calculate the "flying power" of an aerodynamic body on another planet? You might be able to sort it out as an 18 year old Physic freshman once you learned some context...maybe by your 3rd year in, but a 6 year old being introduced to this stuff for the first time? It's a terrible way to teach somebody. It's like a Machiavellian approach to pedagogy: confuse and isolate the students so that only the best rise to the top.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

codyb 12y ago

I don't see why the heck we don't just teach them the word equation instead of pretending they're too simple to understand the concept and add a word to their vocabulary. I wonder if it'd be possible that this might have a positive effect in decreasing the gap between men and women in science related fields. Perhaps if we told boys and girls they were doing well with equations they'd grow up to be more comfortable with them. Instead of "I'm not good at equations and never have been and those sound hard" (since they only started using the word with tougher mathematics or maybe never at all), they could think "Equations? Psh, I've been working them over since I was in grade one". Just an idea.