Elementary schools run by universities

From: Allan Adler (ara_at_nestle.csail.mit.edu)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: 27 Jan 2005 20:55:32 -0500

I'm subscribed to an email list dealing with some educational issues.
In one of the better recent postings, someone noted that sometimes
colleges and universities run local elementary schools and asked
whether any college/university run elementary school takes arithmetic
seriously, in the sense of actually teaching kids how to do arithmetic
(whatever else they might or might not teach them), advocacy of that sense
of seriousness being apparently one of the raisons d'etre of the email
list.

Unfortunately, he hasn't gotten any examples of such schools that do.
Independently of how one feels about the issue itself, it is reasonable
to ask which elementary schools run by universities actually teach kids
how to do arithmetic by teaching them algorithms and emphasizing proficiency
in them.

Does anyone here know?

The practice they seem to be trying to end is that in which, instead of
learning algorithms, the pupils are taught to use calculators and generally
how to feel good about math. So, it seems to be a contest between two
approaches, neither of which I think Herman Rubin would approve of,
and this group seems to be organized around the practical problems of
implementing a particular one of them.

Me, I say, "Out of the classrooms and into the streets", but not the way
they meant it in the 60's. I think that education shouldn't be viewed as
the special province of schools, and that schools don't own the definition
of the word "education". Once that point is appreciated, I think the language
of reform will be less co-opted. So, that is yet another point of view. 

-- 
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.