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Teaching Math: Tools VS Methods
I’ve written several articles critical of how math is taught, but saying that something is wrong isn’t helpful unless you also tell what people should be doing instead. I’ve put a bunch of thought into how I do math vs how it’s taught. A number of people have commented that my methods require students to need to learn a lot more than the standard method does, however, that’s only true if you are all about memorizing methods rather than using math tools. let me explain with an analogy.
Imagine a carpenter. If he built things like we teach math, he’d need a different set of instructions for each thing he built. A wooden box has one set, a table has another, a roof has a third, a door frame a 4th, a shed a 5th, etc… what actual carpenters do is have a good understanding of what their tools can do and apply them as needed. This gives them flexibility and allows them to build things they don’t have specific instructions on how to make.
This is what we need to do with math education; teach the tools and then show the student how to use the tools in different applications. Let’s look at three of my favorite tools.
Breaking numbers apart
One of my favorite things about numbers is that you can break them into pieces. Let’s look at some examples of how this can be used.
