Has anyone read Liping Ma's book? I've been reading it lately and find myself absolutely horrified at regular intervals. It's truly shocking how poorly the American teachers she studied understood very basic elementary school math. They didn't just not understand dividing by fractions or similar topics (which would be horrifying enough), but many of them also seemed to not really understand the concepts behind our standard multiplication algorithm or even the fundamental concepts behind addition with what we once called carrying.
Reading this book has helped confirm my belief that we've had such trouble getting math accommodations because his previous teacher couldn't understand DS's level because his conceptual understanding had surpassed hers.
I just read the table of contents and the first few pages in the excerpt on amazon.com. Very interesting.
The really sad thing about it all is that the topics she discusses should be taught in schools of education instead of the fluffy garbage that gets pushed in them. Courses in children's literature (involving the actual reading of books and not discussing how social justice is best promoted through children's literature)* would also be wonderful additions to M.Ed programs.
Or they could just keep focusing on fluff.
Oh well.
Val
*Yes, I actually read a course description on children's lit that used a phrase similar to the one I wrote. It was taught at Stanford a couple years or so ago.
