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THE DYSLEXIA
SOLUTION
Volume 2 • #3 • November
2002
NEWSLETTER
Now that Hallowe’en
is past, it is time to ditch the disguises and expose the
real thing underneath. In the last newsletter about fractions,
I put a disguise on a fraction to make it look fatter by
multiplying both top and bottom by the same number, which,
as you all know, is a disguised 1. Taking the disguise
off is easy if you were the one who put it on in the first
place. You know which fraction with the matching top and
bottom you multiplied by, so all you have to do is to divide
the top and bottom by it. But if someone gives you some
overstuffed fraction, like, say, 108 over 270 and you started
taking out two over two, you still have to take out nine
over nine, and you STILL have to take out three over three.
Obviously the fatter the disguised one you can take off,
the sooner you are finished. (Those math teachers with
bad consciences about using anything but correct terms
can say you go for the greatest common multiple.)
Some years ago
when I was teaching a seventh grade math class, the educational
buzz words were “making education relevant” and “getting
parents involved in their children’s education”.
We had been monkeying around with fractions and proportions
just before Thanksgiving and I had what I thought was a
brainstorm. I said to the kids that if they had eight or
ten people for
Thanksgiving dinner, how did they think their Mom figured
out how big a turkey to get, or how much pumpkin pie she
would need for that many people? I suggested that they
ask at home, thinking that this was a way to have Mom look
brilliant
and the kid realize why we did all this stuff in class.
A few of them
actually asked, and the answers all came back the same:
“Good heavens, I don’t go through all that.
I just guess!”
So you know who the turkey was that time. On the other
hand, it reinforces my contention that most of what any ordinary
mortal does with math is estimate, and if you don’t
know the times table FAST and basic information about percentages
and probability, you may lose a lot of money on lottery tickets
and interest charges on your VISA card. You can safely ask
anybody how to spell antibody or especially, but if you ask
how much 9 x 7 is, they look at you funny. Teaching tip:
Whenever you call on somebody in class there are always
a few kids who promptly go to sleep because they feel safe
for the moment. To keep everybody paying attention, try this:
have a small pile of papers and a magic marker at each desk.
When you ask a question, have everybody write the answer
on the paper with the magic marker and hold it up toward
you for you to see. This works well for arithmetic, spelling,
etc, where there is apt to be one answer. Not only does everybody
get “called on” at once, but you can see at a
glance what sort of mistakes some kids are making. (Be sure
that when the bell rings, each kid replaces the magic marker
on the desk before he tears out the door!) |
