Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Bridges in Mathematics

Don't know anything about Bridge in Math, but sounds like fuzzy math to me... Any teacher who sticks to only one prescribed way of thinking is doing kids harm.

But in general I have huge problems with visual-based math. It works well for some kids to a certain point. But it doesn't work well for everyone. And fundamentally, math is a thought process that involves a huge deal of abstraction.

I like Val's approach:

"I think that one of my parental duties is to teach my kids that sometimes stuff is wrong, even stuff in school. I took this approach with EM with my eldest, and I do the same with my youngest when she gets bogus homework questions. Unless you leave the school or negotiate independent study, this is a way around the bad curriculum."

The new math programs were slapped together quickly to comply with new standards. I found typos, grammatical errors, and flat out wrong math problems in my son's math program. We switched schools because of it.

Hah, you've stated some of my top concerns here. Especially for my DD, who is a concrete thinker and non-visual and not at all pleased when asked to produce a bunch of diagrams on paper of something she is already sure she 'gets'.

I saw that in my early searches and keep thinking that this company must have some really slick salespeople because otherwise how does anyone choose to pay out thousands-or-whatever dollars for a curriculum with NO evidence of effectiveness?

NZ has similar national standards. They seem to be explicitly teaching what people good at maths work out themselves. I am not sure that everyone who needs maths can develop those skills though. It works fine for my kids but doing things in your head using techniques that now have cute names must be challenging for those with low or even average working memory.