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From: mcramer@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Mert Cramer)
Subject: Re: Subtle Math Questions
Message-ID: <1991May3.124454.12758@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991May2.195751.22316@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 May 1991 12:44:54 GMT
Lines: 31

>   Perhaps I should have elaborated when I suggested that
> math teachers should be given more help in motivating their students.
> This, I believe, would certainly include being able to show the real world
> relevance of the topic. 

The notion that, within the present framework, any change in maths instruction
will make a difference is naive. An informative discussion of the development
(or not) of maths skills in pre-school children is in a BBC documentary called
"Four plus four equals the wings of a bird". Among the points it makes:
1. For most people math is something you do at a desk and has no relivance to
   life problems.
2. The formal method of teaching math makes the subject which the student
   encounters which is NOT concrete (numbers apply to anything) hard to
   visualize.
3. The teaching of math concepts by exploration rather than by lecture is
   a more effective technique.

This film was presented on David Suzuki's "The Nature of Things" program a
few years ago. I recorded it but since is was the first use of my VCR it is
a bit ragged. If you are in the Waterloo, Ont. area and want borrow the tape
let me know.

One the major points in the film is that the curiosity about math and numbers
is largly destroyed by the usual techniques of promary teaching. You might say
that anyone who has an interest in math by the time they get to university
has survived in spite of all formal education has tried to do to them.
Of course, the university maths education is in exactly the same distructive
mold as all that went before so that anyone who survives at the univ. level
is either really dedicated and intersested in math or a masochist (or both).