I recently ran into a family friend at church that I haven’t seen in years. Like all long lost acquaintances, she asked me where I was in my schooling. Upon hearing that I would be a teacher in two short years, she proceeded to lecture me on the importance of making students to mental math, something she feels her granddaughter doesn’t do enough of. “She’s always reaching for her calculator,” she told me.
Like usual, I nodded, smiled, and changed the subject.
I understand the importance of doing some math in your head. Obviously, basic math skills are important, but if I have a tool I want to use it. I have terrible memories of struggling through “no calculator” portions of AP Calculus tests (and I can’t think of a real life scenario when manually finding a derivative would be necessary).
I like the logic of my college stats professor, who told us that there was never a time when he was solving a real-life problem where he would not have the opportunity to use as many resources as he could find.
If we want progress in education, why don’t we allow students to use every opportunity available?
No comments:
Post a Comment