I read an article today criticizing the University of Chicago's "Everyday Math" program. They portrayed it as a touchy-feely, low-content, "fuzzy math" program that prevented students from learning anything useful about math. It's apparently plagued with questions like "If math were a color, it would be _______ because ________."

The program's web site has a gallery of student work, some of which does seem to be silly and low-content.

This is a drawing by a kindergartener of what appears to be a beta fish.

Not bad, and probably an age-appropriate activity using geometric shapes.


This, however, is by a 5th grader. WTF??

Other stuff was rather impressive given the age groups.


This was made by a 1st grader. Notice how he demonstrated the relationship between 2s and 4s in various ways, even using division. I was in the gifted program at my school, and I didn't touch division until I think the 4th grade.

Other projects included an algorithm for dividing numbers by 5, letters sent to the University of Chicago criticizing their use of 4.10 after 4.9 in chapter headings (these appeared to be form-letterish, as if the teacher prompted them what to write), and a 5th grader's detailed plan for allocating $1 million in expenses for taking care of homeless people during the holidays (I'm not sure where you can buy 5 pairs of panties for 100 women all for $300, but I don't know the wholesale market that well either).

Anyway, I teach GMAT and GRE math to adults who often times don't know the very basics, and it's troubling. These people probably learned under a more traditional system, but it didn't work. The article accuses teachers of just handing out useless worksheets, which I could see as a problem under any system. I'm just curious if anyone was familiar with the "Everyday Math" program and if it's really just fluff, "new math" revisited, or something that might actually be beneficial to students.

Discuss.

Red.

It is probably good. Too much heavy emphasis on formalized math could potentially remove much of the intuitivity of it, creating a barrier between the paper math and everyday situations.

I think it is important that they don't lose grip completely though, because the same is obviously true the other way around and we do need formalized math also.

Ultimately I think it is gold if they manage to bridge the gap between everyday applications of math and formalized math, math is a wonderful way of logic usable in most of life's situations and I think we'd all be better off if it was more common to apply it.

It would be black, because I said so.

Black isn't a colour!

Other than that math is obv dark blue.

I like my math to have angel wings and to play lead guitar for lynard skinard.

white

I have faith that any teacher that puts any effort at all into trying to change the system is doing so for the right reasons. I think all, if not most, teachers do it because they genuinely want to help people learn and make a difference.

If someone in this boat decides that it is worth the effort to try something different, I have trouble disagreeing with them.

Only time will tell if it actually is something that adds value to the education system.

Look at the work that is currently on the cusp of acceptance WRT reading/writing and dyslexia.

As long as we can all agree that, by the process of elimination, we can determine that electrons taste like grape-ade.

Now this part is silly. Clearly 4.10 represents the 10th section in Chapter 4, and as such isn't really any kind of decimal representation. Maybe "4-10" would look better, but who wants a Chapter -6?

EDIT: Also, what's with the "If math were a color..." thing? I've never understood that kind of question making a bit of sense to anybody but a synesthetic. Heh, I'd actually be interested to hear what color math would be from some color synesthetics, though I don't know if words evoke colors like numbers and sounds might. I've heard that some get tastes from different words. Now I'm just rambling.

The question is meant to get students thinking about the nature of math. Whatever their answer is, the goal is to try to get them to connect what they're learning to what they already know.

Math is orange, and tastes like fish.

If math were a color, it would be...black and white. No hedging in math.

It's like that for some.

Thread made me think of fractals for some reason.



Math can be art, you can quantify a color or a set of colors.

<shrugs> When the usual approaches have proven not to work, I guess you have to get creative with students that lack the capability to learn even simple mathematics using traditional methods.

It's not really about kids "lacking capability." Different kids learn in different ways, but traditional education only really engages one way of learning. This is probably why math and science are seen as harder than English or Social Studies.

To me math is somewhere between white and silver. I'm mildly synesthetic, as I think most people are.

If you don't think you're synesthetic at all, think about whether you'd consider the low notes on a piano to be more "fat" and "blunt" and the high notes to be more "thin" and "sharp".

Oh, and I've been to a lot of schools, had a lot of teachers and seen both extremes of the "too fuzzy" and "too rote" teaching styles. I'd advocate a middle ground.. But I do think the importance of conceptualization in math is generally underestimated, with too much emphasis on following formulas and churning out problem after problem. I don't have nearly enough information to judge this particular class.

Another good example is how red and yellow are "warm", while blue is "cold".

This makes sense. Perhaps it's not entirely analogous, but I'm tutoring an 8th grader right now, and he has difficult time with purely academic questions, but if I present things in a more "real world" setting, he seems to get them.

"What happens to the solubility of a gas as temperature increases?"
"I don't know"
"How does soda taste when it gets warm?"
"Flat."
"Why?"
"The solubility of the gas decreases."

These words also describe the physical waveforms created by low and high pitches. Not sure if the idea of fat or thin notes comes from synesthesia or from the literal physical experience of hearing differently shaped soundwaves.

FWIW, wiki says there's a form called ordinal linguistic personification, in which people associate words or numbers with personalities. I never thought much of it, but I've always tended to assign moods or feelings to numbers. Some numbers are friendly or favorable, and others are more abrasive. Thought I was the only one in the universe who would think this way.

what you guys are talking about is sort of borderline synesthesia. if you are truly synesthetic this test will show it, if you immediately, without any hesitation can tell how many 2's are in this picture then you are synesthetic. it is because synesthetic people tend to register differnet numbers as having colors so the 2's stand out as a different color

poopcolored imo