Phaedrus: Monica's Comment Reply

The thing that caught my attention the most about the blog is that students often learn things that are not in the curriculum at all. We have a set of things to teach, but often are teaching many other things at the same time. For example:

Most readers of this will probable know I teach math in a juvenile maximum security prison. When I teach math I am constantly reminded that I am really teaching a whole host of other things. I am teaching manners, respect, study skills, life skills, appropriate interaction, note taking, hand washing. I mean, it is any number of things I teach in a day that has nothing to do with math.

But it is more important to learn things that are not in the curriculum. I hear all the time "when will i ever use this?" I agree that most of these students will never use anything like a quadratic equation in the real world. That isn't the point of most mathematics education.

First, but doing higher math your ability to do basic math increases to where it is natural. I'm not good at dividing because I learned about it in 2nd grade and stopped using it. I am good at it because every since learning it I use it all the time as a part of working other more difficult problems.

And Second, Problem solving is a main topic in math. I might go so far as to say it is what math is all about. Being able to understand that for a situation rules apply and finding answers to problems can be done systematically, by trial and error, by starting with a guess, by substituting or exchanging one thing for another. This is huge. Learning skills to solve problems is paramount to people, especially inner city youth in gangs.

But that is about all I had about that. Just thought I'd shout out about everything we learn that isn't in a state standard.