I was asked to tutor a kid on our street with his 6th grade math homework, and encountered exactly these kinds of baffling "data analysis" problems, many requiring some kind of appropriate misunderstanding of standard terminology, intuition, or both, to "solve." We ended up having long sessions discussing these problems, how they were stupid, and what a reasonable person, such as the student in question, might do instead. Then we would discuss how to respond to nonsensical questions in such a manner as to maximize the chances of being "correct." He enjoyed this frank discussion and ended up doing quite well in the class. On the other hand, they had some nice exercises with polyominos. I've noticed polyominos have filtered down even to the second grade level in the Palo Alto. "Good God, sixth grade math and they're playing with BLOCKS?" I heard someone say at one meeting. grade schools. Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "R. William Gosper" <rwg@spnet.com> To: <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 12:55 PM Subject: [math-fun] Public education more harmful than Al Qaeda (350 line flame)
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun