Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I live in one of the leftier places in the country, and the school district my kids are in bears little resemblence to what bilmore describes above, which makes me suspect this "teach self-esteem movement" is the same sort of guide to educational policy that Trading Places was to trading commodities futures.
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Viewpoint may play a part in your perception. When you look at your kids' math books, and you see problems which don't really call for answers, but, instead, talk about things like "explore different ways that YOU might want to try to find a solution to this problem, and discuss these ideas with your exploration partners", and it strikes you as an appropriate approach to mathematics, well, I think our conversation is simply going to wander.
If, instead, your district has moved back to a more "yes, there IS one correct answer to this problem, and your job is to find it" mode, then, consider yourself lucky, because vast swaths of the country's school system have not yet done this. Speaking to an older friend, fairly high up in the MN ed system, and who is firmly of the belief that the "right answer" isn't as important as getting the kids to "think about strategies" last week, I was told that "a small percentage" of schools have "moved backward" in this regard - to the "find the answer" mode. I say this only to disclose where I'm getting the quantitative picture on where schools generally are across the country.
