At Considerable Cost

I've seen some posts recently on Facebook and Pinterest of the "cute," "amazing," and "fun" things being done in order to teach classroom and home school students about plant and animal cells.   The fact that I've just used three sets of apostrophes does not bode well for my opinions of these cell activities. Here are a few well-intended examples: Candies placed atop a gelatin "cell" Poster board model Pizza "cells" and then there's the cake "cell" When I was in seventh grade, we were given the assignment of making a model of a plant cell and an animal cell.   The normal completed project in our class consisted of poster board models.   The more elaborate ones were formed with play dough.   The teacher showed us best examples from past years of both poster board and play dough versions.   I was all set to make a stunning play dough one as I sat down at our kitchen bar.   Then, my dad walked ...

I have intended to write more about our home schooling on this blog, so I'm playing catch-up. Education critics (usually outside of the field of education) often throw around terms like "fuzzy math," or "new math," and I wonder if they have ever really examined the curriculum and approaches recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) .   When children are taught using manipulatives, the goal is for understanding of the concept, not just memorization of facts and algorithms.   The idea of memorization is not excluded, though.   At some point, for efficiency and accuracy, students must memorize their basic math facts.  The goal, though, is for the memorization to take place AFTER they understand what those facts really mean.   Practice also has its place.   Once a student understands a concept, it is important that he practice it, especially in the context of real-world problems. Here's an example from th...