Seattle School Board Rethinks Fuzzy Math Concepts

I'm in fourth grade and doing a lot of math. The people who write the "fuzzy" math books don't care if you get the right answer, they just care that you try to solve the problem in the right way. In my class when I get an answer wrong, it's marked as wrong, and I have to fix it.

In today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer there is a story about how the Seattle School Board is having second thoughts about "reform" math textbooks.

The two recommended books are "Connected Mathematics Project II," an updated version of the curriculum used in many Seattle middle schools, and "Interactive Mathematics Program" for high schoolers.

Both use a more "conceptual" or "reform" math teaching style, which aims to help students better understand math by helping them reason out concepts themselves. Reform math also emphasizes estimating and being able to analyze whether the answer derived is correct and reasonable.

Proponents of the teaching method say it makes lessons more relevant for students and helps build a solid foundation for studying more advanced math. But critics say the approach lacks the structure and the practice problems necessary to help drive home key math concepts. They would like to see a return to more traditional skill-based curricula.

I'm glad that the Seattle School Board is holding off on fuzzy math textbooks. The right answer doesn't always matter, like the moral of a story, but in math, spelling, and grammar, you can't change the way "through" is spelled, or that 4/5=1/5+16/20.

Fast Food............Yummy or Not?

My opinion of fast food: Many people like fast food because it tastes good and is convenient, but what they don't think about is how unhealthy it is for them. An excellent source of information is the book "Chew On This" (Everything You Don't Want To Know About Fast Food), by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson.

They write:

....companies that sell fast-food don't want you to think about it. They don't want you to know where it comes from and how it's made. They just want you to buy it...........people should know what lies beneath the shiny happy surface of every fast-food restaurant. They should know what really lurks between those sesame seed buns. As the old saying goes: 'you are whatyou eat.'

What are the "yummy" ingredients in a strawberry milkshake from a fast-food restaurant?

...milkfat and nonfat milk, sugar, sweet whey, high fructose corn syrup, guar gum, mono- and diglycerides, cellulose gum, sodium phosphate, carageenan, citric acid, red food coloring #40 ( carmine, which is made from bugs ) and artificial strawberry flavoring.

Conclusion: On top of that, artificial strawberry flavoring has about 40 more ingredients. Ick. Here's my recipe for a strawberry smoothie: fresh strawberries, vanilla yogurt, two percent milk, and a ripe banana.

TECHNORATI TAGS: FAST FOOD, JUNK FOOD, HEALTH, CHEW ON THIS, ERIC SCHLOSSER, CHARLES WILSON