JPropp>And I think we can all agree that some of the lies math teachers tell are actually more cognitively indigestible than the truth! Also: math teacher preparation programs should be designed so that teachers who oversimplify are *aware* that they're oversimplifying. <Jim Propp Or worse, lying, apparently because "factor" sounds easier than "divisor". "How could these widely used textbooks be wrong? Who am I to contradict them?" So I'm asking you authority figures to help me (perhaps privately) petition this teacher that s|he is perpetrating a bad usage that will need to be unlearned, and should switch to "divisor" with the overwhelming support of teachers and practitioners of more advanced mathematics. --rwg And that reduced improper fractions can be in "lowest terms". I'll bet that many teachers imagine that further reduction of the fraction is possible after converting a reduced improper fraction to a mixed number! Ah, only now do I realize their insistence on mixed numbers leaves them with a smaller fraction to reduce. But if they'd just reciprocate that fraction, and iterate, they'd have continued fractions and Euclid's algorithm! I just stopped hating mixed numbers. On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 5:12 AM, Bill Gosper <billgosper@gmail.com> wrote:
Perhaps because they're taught factorization rather than Euclid's algorithm, gradeschoolers are now being forced to say gcf ("greatest common factor") instead of gcd. Or maybe just to make it sound easier. So I asked a kid: 12 contains how many factors of 3? And how many factors of 2? And how many factors of 1? "Tell your teacher 1 can't be a factor of anything. 2 and 3 have no greatest common factor." "I'll get in trouble."
A lot of stuff we're taught is oversimplified. We have to unlearn it and relearn it later. But this is ridiculous. Is there some way we funsters can gang up against this idiocy? --rwg They're also taught that improper fractions are not in lowest terms.