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Showing posts from January, 2008

End of the holidays

Today is officially the last day of the summer holidays. Tomorrow is Australia Day, so Monday is a public holiday. Tuesday is back to school for us teachers and on Friday we take the year 7s through the routine of using their lockers. The locks work very intuitively - not at all! I have had a great 6 weeks at home. I spent heaps of time with my two kids, did some work on my Master's thesis (about half of what I had planned, mind you) and managed to slot in just enough double bass practice to stay at the same level (not a very ambitious attitude, I know). I taught my little one to sleep in his cot again and that was quite a good thing. Anyway, the new school year beckons. Many things to do in preparation but as they say in the movies "bring it on"! My best wishes to teachers around Australia as they get back into the classroom. I hope you have all had a holiday with much to be grateful for. I know I had.

Mathematics as the science of reasoning

Last year, a music teacher at my school photocopied an article and placed it in my pigeonhole. I picked up the article and saw the title "Maths minus reason = failure". I assumed it was an apology for everything being taught with its real life applications . Gladly, I was wrong. The article was written by Marty Ross who does much to popularise mathematics in Victoria. His partner in this is Burkyard Polster. You might think of the pair as the Myth Busters of Mathematics - geeky, intelligent and entertaining. Back to the article. Ross states: "Clearly the purpose for teaching mathematics cannot be primarily to convey facts and formulas that are rarely used and almost immediately forgotten. The true purpose is to teach the reasoning by which these facts can be established." Ross goes on to lament the way in which the Pathegorean theorem is taught in Victoria. It is a formula to be accepted and applied over and over. He states that "the fundamental reason to t