When I went to school, it was expected that the skills we learned in math, spelling and grammar was to be applied in the other subject areas such as composition and using our math skills to understand the circumference of the Earth or finding the longitude and latitude or even perhaps building a picture frame. My father one summer day taught us how to build picture frames, so us kids would not raiding the attic and other places in the search for picture frames for our club house or fort. That day, we learned all about 45 degree angles, long before I was exposed to it in the math class, That day,  we used our math skills. My father taught us how to build pictures frames using the materials at hand, and the hand tools. We thought we were some smart cookies, using a method without a protractor and any fancy tools. Our fort was starting to look like a real club house, and we went to work fixing the frame of our club house, using the same method that my father taught us that day. Like in this link - http://www.finehomebuilding.com/item/25809/accurately-cut-miter-angles-without-using-measuring-tools

One would not find it in any of the curriculum and instructional methods in the project base section that seems to replaced real math instruction. But it sure came in handy from time to time, impressing the men or doing it on my own when one only has the hand saw.

Project based math has got to be the silliest of them are when it comes to the 21st century fuzzy math. And it really doesn’t help the students to mastered and understand measurement, if the basics are not taught first. Another area in math that is poorly done is in measurement. On those days, I longed for the old math textbooks of the 1960s, where the basics were taught and then the kids went off to applied their new found knowledge in their activities. That summer long ago, building picture frames, I along with the rest of the neighbourhood kids incorporated our new knowledge of 45 degree angles because we already had the basic foundation in place - the measurement knowledge. The only thing we learned new that day, was how to create 45 degree angles, so the frame corners would meet to a tee. After all we had to have proper little picture frames in our club house, and after that we realized we had to do the same thing with our club house frame because none of the corners were aligned with each other.

Common Core Is Dead

Says Huckabee

http://www.bipps.org/mike-huckabee-changes-tune-on-common-core-state-standards/

Former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, widely regarded as a conservative, backed the new standards.  Now he doesn’t even want the term “common core” to be used but wants a return to “common sense”.  I think his TV program might have some effect on averting the disaster shaping up in America.

21st C Learning here in Canada is also on shaky ground, Post PISA 2012.