Originally Posted by MumOfThree
Val one wonders how much the panic over "Showing your work" for the most basic concepts (5+7=12) is not just because many teachers don't really get it, but because those teachers that don't get it are getting the message from above (thanks to Liping Ma, etc) that they must teach / provide profound understanding and they've got not freaking idea how to assess if the child HAS a profound understanding...

Sigh.

True. One must understand something before one can teach it.

It's interesting...I used to teach at a local skating rink on Saturdays. They let me teach up to a certain level based on the fact that I was roughly 4 levels (out of 18 total) above the highest level I taught. I could show people how to do the stuff in those other 4 levels, but wasn't really good at those skills yet, and I also didn't yet understand how skill x would be needed later on. They only wanted me to teach the levels where I had that knowledge. This seemed perfectly reasonable to me. It would be unthinkable to ask me to teach a certain jump if I wasn't really, really good not only at it, but at the subsequent jumps that build on the skills you gain in that jump. I mean, this is obvious, right?

I'm amazed that schools don't take this same approach. As in, you don't ask someone to teach fractions unless s/he is really skilled at manipulating them in Algebra 2.


Last edited by Val; 10/10/13 05:09 PM. Reason: Clarity