Sunday, October 29, 2006

Don't let them TERC you around

Linda Moran advises a handwringing dad on afterschooling. It's a measured and thoughtful response well worth reading, albeit a tad too measured for my taste.

The fearful dad writes:

Our two children (daughter - grade 4 and son - grade 1) attend a mostly wonderful private school. I say mostly wonderful because parents have been unhappy with the Math programs there for a while.

This Fall the school announced that they would be adopting TERC later in the year (apparently there is a new version of the TERC curriculum that they are waiting for). I am afraid that this will make matters worse, not better.

Our daughter is very bright; she is particularly strong in reading, writing and languages. My concern is not performance, but rather her attitude. She finds math frustrating and is learning to dislike the subject. This for a kid who otherwise loves school so much she can't wait for summer vacation to end. She prefers book stores to toy stores. You get the idea.
It's tragic that fuzzy math not only cheats children but also makes them hate "math". I would say that the academic well-being of one's children comes first and that concerns over hurting the feelings of educationists shouldn't enter the picture.

It's also remarkable that people pay for private schools only to have them feed fuzzy math to their children.

6 comments:

uniquematerial said...

What's a TERC?

Instructivist said...

It's a hyper fuzzy math program.

Linda Moran has a good description here: http://www.squidoo.com/beyondTERC/

uniquematerial said...

Oh, my -

War is Peace.

:p

CrypticLife said...

My kid's in first grade in NJ. TERC math scares the bejeezers out of me, even though I know he's personally well beyond it (he's two full years ahead of his grade level -- in a Japanese curriculum -- thanks to tireless efforts of my wife).

There are a lot of Asians in Bergen. They're not relying on the public schools.

Anonymous said...

Linda Moran here, just to let you know I've changed the address of that Beyond TERC lens on Squidoo.

It's now http://www.squidoo.com/tercmathridgewood/

I allowed myself to be bullied into destroying that original lens, but no more.

If anyone wants to help make it searchable, it's easy. Go to the lens, give it a high rating, sign the guestbook, and use my email function to email it around. Thanks!

Instructivist said...

"I allowed myself to be bullied into destroying that original lens, but no more."

That sounds severe. Where is this bullying coming from?