The math text used in Wilmette's District 39 is Everyday Math. K-4. This is math stuck on stupid. Despite protests of parents over the years, despite the NCTM acknowledgement that fuzzy math has fizzled, our kids are still stuck with these kind of books. In fact, we just replaced one fuzzy math set of books with another one.
Major portions of the text are devoted to geography-- "world tours" and the like. Pages and pages pay detailed attention to calculators----and why not---the authors think efficiency in arriving at correct math answers is a waste of time---just use a calculator.
So they encourage roundabout and error-prone ways of thinking about math to come up with the answer, ways their parents can't help them with. Lattices?? I can just imagine boys being told they have to draw little pictures before they can do the math problem.
And then they have to write math journals.
Watch this explanation by a meteorologist and a parent in the state of Washington, where they are struggling with the same issues. It's an eye opener.
Link to Illinois parent site that flagged the video here. More must-see videos. And find out what is going on in your Illinois district here.
Previous posts: Mediocrity Rules, Fuzzy Math Fizzles
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