This YouTube video featuring Seattle area Meteorologist M.J. McDermott, was passed on to me by a Seattle area, not Seattle School District, teacher whose district uses the same TERC textbooks mentioned in the video and confirmed how ineffective they really are. Here is the money quote:
The authors of Everyday Mathematics do not believe it is worth the students' time and effort to fully develop highly efficient paper and pencil algorithms for all possible whole number, fraction and decimal division problems. Mastery of the intricacies of such algorithms is a huge endeavor, one that experience tells us is doomed to failure for many students. It is simply counter productive to invest many hours of precious class time on such algorithms. The mathematical payoff is not worth the cost, particularly because the quotients can be found quickly and accurately with a calculator.In related news, I hear that most good books are eventually made into movies.
Watch the video.
1 comment:
Of course time wasted on mastering math can be better spent on telling students how evil the Military and Bush is and discussion of Anne's Nocole(sp?) baby.
And some books make good bird-cage-liners :)
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