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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the death-by-litigation dept.

A parent whose child goes to a high school in the Wake County Public School System has been sued after criticizing the math curriculum used in the district.

Utah-based "Mathematics Vision Project" or "MVP," filed a lawsuit against Blain Dillard, whose son attends Green Hope High in Cary.

Dillard has been vocal about his opposition to the MVP curriculum, which is student-driven and focuses on group work, posting on his website, blog and social media.

The lawsuit obtained by ABC11 said, "In or around March 2019, Dillard commenced a crusade against MVP, claiming that MVP is ineffective and has harmed many students."

It alleges that some of Dillard's statements were false and defamatory and harmed the company financially.

https://abc11.com/education/wake-schools-parent-sued-after-criticizing-math-curriculum/5430840/


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:47PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:47PM (#878331)

    Certain things are best learned by rote, like times tables.

    That's a matter of perspective, and to an extent neuroscience. If you can learn to visualize your times tables, or otherwise "get a feel" for the operation rather than just rote memorizing, it is even more powerful than being able to instantly parrot up to 12x12, but have no f-ing clue how to handle 13x7 without a calculator, or ability to estimate the difference between 2x14 and 7x7.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:25PM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:25PM (#878473)

    It is even more powerful than being able to instantly parrot up to 12x12, but have no f-ing clue how to handle 13x7 without a calculator

    I don't understand your point. It is only necessary to rote learn tables up to 10x10 (school did up to 12x12 because so many things come in 12's like inches to a foot). You don't need a 13 times table for 13x7 because it breaks into 10x7 + 3x7. I can use the tables I memorised up to 10x10 to multiply any two numbers together, in principle up to infinity, although it gets unwieldy if the numbers are big and I would then start needing pencil and paper - at that point I will use a calculator. I remain understanding of the principles though, contrary to the anti-rote people's accusations.

    As I said earlier, even simple addition is done by rote among educated people, for example I know by rote that 5+3 is 8, and 4+6 is 10, it is a reflex in me. The non-rote way would be to count on fingers or do dots on paper - as uneducated people would. The only reliable non-rote way to multiply say AxB would be to make A dots on a sheet paper B times (best arranged in a square) and then count them all up, which is how I taught my son the principle of multiplication.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:15AM (#878766)

      contrary to the anti-rote people's accusations.

      What people are opposed to is rote memorization at the expense of everything else, like critical thinking skills and creativity. I don't think multiplication tables are a big deal, but it becomes a real problem when nearly all math is taught as nothing more than a series of facts and patterns to be memorized and then regurgitated back onto assignments and tests, where there's no underlying principles to understand and no creativity involved. Math classes are not teaching students to think like mathematicians, and that is a real problem. Same with so many other subjects.

      Our schooling system is fundamentally broken. However, so many of the victims who suffer through it do not know what an actual education looks like, so they think the system is either fine or just in need of minor tweaks.