Educating Risa

Just a quick post tonight, as the whole family has been down the last few days with a nasty stomach bug, and I’ve run out of saved posts to publish! Came across this interesting quote during the ample time I’ve had for lying in bed and reading over the past few days. It conveys much of what I believe about keeping children’s natural sense of wonder and curiosity—which extends to the realms of math—alive:

The usefulness of mathematics in everyday life is undeniable, but overemphasized. “What if literacy were taught only by means of parking tickets, job applications, tax forms, and other material that people will need to read? That would be an accurate analogy to much of the traditional curriculum in mathematics.” Thus mathematician Dr. Neil Koblitz and computer scientist Dr. Michael Fellows argue for including entertaining, enticing math topics in primary grades.

   -page 8 of Patricia Clark Kenschaft’s Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math, Even if You Don ‘t  (Canada) (US)