Reply to Excellent summary about what is so wrong about the MCPS math curriculum

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Reply to "Excellent summary about what is so wrong about the MCPS math curriculum"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Yes, ES teachers who didn't go into teach out of a love for math has been a perennial problem.  However, the issues with 2.0 go far beyond weak teachers.  To exaggerate just a bit it's a curriculum written by math haters, it takes the abstraction out of math and replace that with verbal skills.  [b]It de-emphasizes algorithm and tells the person who understands a concept there are yet another three methods to be learned.[/b]  It undermines rote arithmetic which similar to reading needs to be learned in early child hood or it will not happen.  Having some of these skills down pat in ES unlocks higher math more than lip service to [i]deep understanding[/i] ever will.

Comparing two siblings is never going to be definitive.  I know my second has always been stronger in math and I won't credit 2.0 with that, I also see a lack of discipline applying algorithms which I will hate on MCPS for.  Anecdote is biased.  Anyway, you might want to wait until you see what has happened to those high school classes. At the moment they have been thoroughly gutted by the curriculum office.  In fact they are being written while being taught. [/quote]

I think that you misunderstand the word "algorithm". All of those various methods [u]are[/u] algorithms. And knowing how to solve a given problem in several different ways (i.e., using several different algorithms) actually does promote deep understanding much better than "here's how you do the standard algorithm, now do it over and over and over again".[/quote]

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