On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:43:37 GMT, bh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Brian
Harvey) wrote:
>I think, too, that the original context of this thread has been lost
among
>the big ideas. We are talking about a population of kids who have
already
>failed at learning arithmetic. So we *know for sure* that more of the
same
>is *not* going to do *these* kids any good. Maybe giving them some
actual
>mathematics won't work either, for many of them, but maybe it will, and
it
>certainly can't do any worse than yet another year of remedial
arithmetic.
You are right again. I taught every grade, every level, and really
do understand the needs of kids who have great difficulties, or at
least have a good deal of experience dealing with them. They know who
they are better than we do. Most need hands-on, and math when they
need it applied to what they are doing immediately. However, I'd not
easily accept algebra as a viable option to more, and hopefully more
appropriate application. It's simply too abstract, and kids having
difficulty with numbers that they can see will have more difficulty
with algebra that they will never use in several lifetimes. More
exciting for the teacher, perhaps, but murder for them. Even kids
with moderate difficulty have more difficulty with algebra than
arithmetic. For all of the fact that *we* can see the connection,
they by and large can not.
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