Okay, I found out that the world doesn't get excited about grammar skills even if I do. As my former vice principal and colleague said about teaching grammar again, "It ain't gonna happen." Okay , we're finished with grammar.
I also taught math at the middle school level. I liked teaching math and had students do all kinds of drill to learn skills. Now I realize that drill in math is no longer acceptable. However, there must be certain skills that should be taught.
Pat from Weaver of Grass thinks that learning timetables to twelve should be mandatory.
I often wonder about many of the skills and concepts I taught and if they've been of any value. Have they ever been used? I think I know the answer to that question. They probably haven't been used.
Just for fun I'll ask the Micro Manager if she can divide fractions. She gives me an odd look and then tries to see if she can do it. She doesn't know how to divide fractions and she had the top marks in her high school class.
So my next question to the Micro Manager will be, how do you find the area of a circle. With a lot of work she can find the area of a circle and then I change it to the volume of a sphere.
How about factoring polynomials? Do you remember those things? Probably not.
Remember what logarithms are and how to use them?
Yes, we learned quite a few things about triangles. Scalene triangle? Is that still in your memory bank.
I sometimes sit back and reflect about the things I taught. What value were they? Why did curriculum developers put these things in the curriculum?
I taught these skills as I thought they were valuable for kids to improve their skills in reasoning and logic.
We will never know as math was taught for it's concepts rather than reasoning and logic.
