Sunday, December 18, 2011

Number objects

Britain is not the only western country concerned about the ability of its population to handle mathematics.

The French are looking to methods devised by an Iranian born woman who believes that the problems are down to the impenetrable language in which mathematics is taught, & insists on children being given a thorough grasp & understanding of the concept of number.

I am somewhat puzzled by the example of the teaching materials which I have seen. For example, in the lesson on ‘4’ children are asked whether that number can be applied to a picture of a table, & to give an explanation for their answer; both yes & no are acceptable, depending on whether that is because there is only one table, or because it has four legs. Similarly either answer is acceptable when asked of a picture of a dog. The four letters m-e-l-l also count as four.

But Yes is not an acceptable answer to the same question about a collection of 4 rubbers, pens & pencils because Mrs Baruk bans pupils from answering ‘four objects’.

The logic escapes me.

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