[IAEP] food for thought...

[ana.cichero]

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opinion/how-to-fix-our-math-education.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
>
>
> Excellent point of view.  Thanks for sharing this.

Mathematicians in charge of the schools and universities maths departments
usually argue that we cannot teach newer math concepts to students that have
not studied all the algebra and calculus that comes before.

They say that all that background is needed to properly achieve higher ideas
without turning them into poetry.
I agree in that point, a math object is nothing in itself if not accurately
defined,  not accurate, but is it a problem if your are not going to devote
your life to maths?
Concepts, structures and procedures for handling complexity simpler abstract
ways than reality is -in my point of view- the value of math in education..
Emphazising rigour in detriment of including newer and more difficult topics
is the actual choice, at least in Uruguay

I -as a teacher- really would prefer being allowed to discuss interesting
math ideas than forcing people to built a hard and difficult construction
that leaves people out of any of the maths in use in the last 100 years and
not loving the subject in most of the cases.

-----

This kind of changes will not start in little places like uruguay, so please
go ahead and good luck!!
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