ScoutTN Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I would love to hear what others thought of this book. I found it interesting and encouraging on one hand and totally unrealistic and discouraging on another. Amazing how well students with awful attitudes and weak math background could do with motivation! I loved the examples of how to teach mathematical thinking, but all I can do is try to imitate or use problem books because I don't think that way and had a very poor math education myself. I cannot teach like she and her grad students did and I think it unlikely that I will find such teachers for my kids. (We will outsource math for logic and rhetoric years.) I was confused by her endorsement of Everyday Math, which all the mathy math teachers I know (and many here!) say is a bad curriculum. I do understand what she says about the primacy of the teacher over the book, but I think that assumes excellence in teaching that is not always possible. I was encouraged that mathematical thinking can be taught and learned well by many, not just a select few who are naturally good at it. But she doesn't seem to factor in people who are just NOT math people. Some people are words people and get their ideas and inspiration more from literature or history than math. No matter how well taught, some people will just never really like math nor habitually think mathematically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Everyday math is not actually bad if it's supplemented with sufficient drill for the student to really get the concepts and taught by an elementary teacher who understands math. The "if's" I've just listed are exactly why the implementation is usually not very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 I loved that book, but it's heavy on "inspiration" and not so great on practical suggestions. You should check out her new website, where she's been putting up some more practical stuff. And if you get a chance to take her free course on How to Learn Math (I forget the exact title), go for it! YouCubed.orgAnother excellent resource for learning to think mathematically is Christopher Danielson's blog: Talking Math With Your KidsAnd the primary thing to keep in mind as you teach homeschool math is this: math is just common sense. If you find yourself teaching stuff that doesn't make sense, just to follow the steps, then you really aren't teaching math. Following steps that we don't understand is the human equivalent of dog tricks. For it to be real math, it has to make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Everyday math is not actually bad if it's supplemented with sufficient drill for the student to really get the concepts and taught by an elementary teacher who understands math. The "if's" I've just listed are exactly why the implementation is usually not very good. Someone I know used Everyday Math, but when I read through the text, it was just... such a mixed up mess to me. There were some great things, but also a ton of calculator activities throughout the first grade book - for math sometimes they would get to really soon, relatively speaking and there was zero consistency - nothing flowed. I could see that it could be good with the right teacher, but I kept thinking the implementation would be going uphill whereas the programs that I've liked the implementation is going downhill. And all the whimsy and side trips that seemed like they were built into Everyday Math are things that I just add myself, with living books, games, projects, and fun supplements. That just seems so much more intuitive to me. Good core program, teacher/student chosen side trips and funsies. This book looks really interesting... I can't decide if it's going to annoy me or inspire me from reading the reviews though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Everyday math is not actually bad if it's supplemented with sufficient drill for the student to really get the concepts and taught by an elementary teacher who understands math. The "if's" I've just listed are exactly why the implementation is usually not very good. The schools I know that implement EM well have t-shirts and parties for kids who have all their arithmetic facts down cold. This is expected to happen sometime by mid-second grade. This seems to somehow get lost in most implementation, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.