tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post2513746718203643821..comments2024-03-21T09:30:11.468+00:00Comments on Man in a Shed: How the educational establishment changed maths so my kids don't understandMan in a Shedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00990902055642035293noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-46569957857344904842010-09-17T20:53:49.124+01:002010-09-17T20:53:49.124+01:00The methods demonstrated by Rob Eastaway on that B...The methods demonstrated by Rob Eastaway on that BBC video struck me as rather good.<br /><br />The rule-based methods - the "proper ways" with long division and long multiplication - are derived from the methods shown. And the grid method illustrates very clearly what you are doing when you multiply two numbers together.<br /><br />It also illustrates that it's often a useful strategy in maths to see if you can reduce a complex problem to a set of simpler problems each of which you've solved before.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-549427590100362072010-09-14T22:04:08.852+01:002010-09-14T22:04:08.852+01:00Absolutely fascinating.
I've noticed a boom i...Absolutely fascinating.<br /><br />I've noticed a boom in books for people to teach their kids basic maths, English etc at home. No wonder.<br /><br />These techniques (which I've not come across - my kids seem to be still learning the traditional way) are ridiculous because they take away from the kids the notion of the columns in a number signifying something. That is, of course, what made the Arabic number system so superior to the old Roman one.<br /><br />And don't forget that many primary school teachers can't read or write properly themselves either, so the teaching of the methods is likely to be rubbish as well. It's relatively easy to teach rule-based methods if you aren't much good at it yourself. If you're not too hot yourself, it's relatively hard to teach methods that depend on thinking about "concepts" and abstraction from the task in hand.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-30383810722843434092010-09-10T22:07:01.936+01:002010-09-10T22:07:01.936+01:00I can still remember the primary school teacher wh...I can still remember the primary school teacher who wrote out a long list of number to be multiplied and challenged us to work it out. Of course we hadn't seen the implication of one of them being zero. Sometimes there a fast way to do things and its worth a quick second to check first.<br /><br />I had a university lecturer who set us a design problem in the first year with false data - it took us 3 months to realise we had to challenge the question.<br /><br />Valuable lessons. I'm not sure if you'd get away with teaching them today.Man in a Shedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00990902055642035293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-4474916062668545352010-09-10T21:49:11.861+01:002010-09-10T21:49:11.861+01:00Of course it is best to learn it the proper way wi...Of course it is best to learn it the proper way with long division and so on first, like wot we did, but just for a bit of light relief at the end of the week, the teacher ought to have a quick fire round getting the kids to guess the answers to quite tricky calculations.<br /><br />It is really quite annoying when one's child lovingly multiplies two numbers and ends up with the correct digits but out by a factor or ten or something.Mark Wadsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-21711114418279865552010-09-10T19:12:54.296+01:002010-09-10T19:12:54.296+01:00@Mark They claim that its jsut making explicit the...@Mark They claim that its jsut making explicit the tricks some people use in their own heads anyway.<br /><br />I don't object to the methods - I just object to the Taliban style enforcement of them and the neglect of techniques that are the basis of more advanced work.<br /><br />As I said my kids are confused by all the approaches they must learn and use only those approaches when asked to.Man in a Shedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00990902055642035293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-6631405278810073292010-09-10T18:21:19.545+01:002010-09-10T18:21:19.545+01:00They have a point actually.
I have to do a lot o...They have a point actually. <br /><br />I have to do a lot of speedy calculations in meetings with clients to discuss how much tax would be payable and when, and by and large I resort to chunking or rounding two large numbers to the nearest sig fig and then adding the noughts on again, guesswork etc.Mark Wadsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9565399.post-26577494051441837172010-09-10T16:34:46.566+01:002010-09-10T16:34:46.566+01:00My God, those are complicated and long winded meth...My God, those are complicated and long winded methods .. no wonder our kids leave school dumb! And doesn't this go against all the "green" crap using all that paper to draw boxes for every little sum?Marthanoreply@blogger.com