On Charlie's show today, he was going on about how math teachers are ill prepared to teach math in schools today. I did not catch the whole drift, as that I was driving in between appointments, but Owen Robinson was kind enough to post on it, and provide us with a link to the article.
Sykes, as is his wont, went on a strange tangent, and started to say how all teachers should specialize in their given field, whether it be math, English, science, or what have you.
My question is would he hold teachers at his beloved charter schools to the same standards? And what about home schooled children? Would he require the parents to be have degrees in all of these subjects?
I just surfed into your blog, and really like your style. I agree that the hate-nazis need to tone it down a notch. I am also very thankful that I "detoxed" from radio talk shows a long time ago (when Imus was still in NY, and still was even a bit funny).
ReplyDeleteLuckily, I don't know who Sykes is (but he sounds like an atavism of Bill Sykes, from "Oliver Twist.")
His conclusions from the report on how poorly math is taught in schools are probably side-effects of his anal-cranial reversal.
But there are conclusions you can draw from it that make more pedagical sense. I've blogged about them at http://mathmojo.com/chronicles/2008/06/27/why-teachers-cant-teach-math/
with a "hat tip" to your post.
I'll be back to check out more of your excellent writing and thoughts.
Hotcha!
Brian (a.k.a. Professor Homunculus at MathMojo.com )