Field report from the northern front of the war on mathematics...
A local school board brought in a mathematics education expert a couple years ago. A superintendent raved and raved about her and told me to check out her work and attend a talk for parents that they were sponsoring. Of course, my first step was to google her credentials and find out that she had a BA which of course I was impressed by (I did later find out that it was a BA in English AND Math which I didn't realize was a thing, I always thought math ∉ BA, I'm now smarter).
My favourite example from her about something teachers could do to help kids love math -
Paraphrasing -
Kids need to not fear numbers. Get them to have fun with numbers. (sure, I'm with you so far) Have them write a poem about their favourite number and how it makes you feel. (oh for &^%#$# sake) She then proceeded to read us a poem about the number 7 and how it made the kid feel. I just pictured my math-loving kids rolling their young eyes and my 2E DS shutting down completely.
Let's turn math class into English class and then kids will love it. Oh wait, except for the kids that hate English class and love math..... Good thing those kids don't exist because EVERYONE hates math right? It is so very scary, how could they not?
