A glimpse inside Hillsdale College's network of classical schools across the country.
Nobody argues that schools ought to teach Shakespeare because it helps students to write office memos. Yet many argue that schools ought to teach Pythagoras because it helps students to become engineers. While engineering and other STEM fields are certainly noble endeavors, would it not be a shame to say that any student who becomes a lawyer, librarian, poet, or plumber cannot benefit from a mathematics education?…
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”– George Eliot, Middlemarch
To learn calculus is, at its core, to learn the rules of playing with infinity: the infinitely big and the infinitely small, or infinitesimal.…
George Polya, a master in mathematics education in the early twentieth century, is credited with saying that if a problem takes fewer than 24 hours to solve, it isn’t worth solving. When I first heard this, I was discouraged. How can I help my students to understand math if everything worth knowing takes so much time? How can I support my struggling learners and encourage them to see math as worth knowing, and even exciting?…
We began our lesson on fractions, and I prepared to say the words I read in the manual the day before. “The numerator is the number above the fraction line. The denominator is the number underneath the fraction line. They represent parts being taken or the total number of parts in the whole, respectively.” As I considered these words, I realized how abstract these ideas are.…
I had the pleasure of observing one of the richest math classes I’ve seen in a while. It was rich, not necessarily because of the complexity of the math problems that the students solved, but because of the way that the teacher engaged with words to help her students understand the reason for the mathematical algorithms they practiced. She weaved the origins of the vocabulary into a lovely tapestry of mathematical understanding.…
To help teachers and parents understand Singapore math, I’ve been writing about how although it can seem difficult at first, it’s actually a common-sense approach to mathematics that really gets results. Before you read this post, take a look at an introduction to Singapore math here.
One of the most recognizable parts of Singapore math is bar modeling, an approach to solving complex problems using pictures.…
This week and next we’re featuring a few simple things students can do to continue their classical education in each subject: literature, history, math, science, art, music, and PE.
So, you’re at home for the foreseeable future with your young math student. The textbooks are complicated, and on top of that you have responsibilities of your own, other children to take care of, and your child isn’t really enthusiastic about studying math.…
Parents of students who are new to classical schools know that Singapore math is unlike any math curriculum they’re used to. Why? What makes it so different, and why is Singapore math so popular in homeschooling circles and classical schools?
There are countless (ha!) math curricula available on the market today, each claiming to boost students’ scores on state tests, meet national and state standards, and encourage high academic achievement.…