Word Prisms

David Staples replied to my blog which was a bit of a surprise because, no offence to myself, I wouldn't have. He breaks his comment into five different points. Point 1 states that my fight is with cognitive scientists and math profs, not him. He continues by stating that the science is settled here for now and I'm getting it wrong. Cognitive scientists are clear that fluency in basic arithmetic is a pre-condition to deeper understanding in math, to the ability to move on [to] do more complex math problems. I must admit I had to reread my blog to understand what he was trying to say. After all, I thought I made it clear that I didn't know what made some students good at math and others not. However, after a reread, I realized that he's doubling down on his hubris by claiming that I may not know but he does . In short, it's "fluency in basic arithmetic." For support, I needed to go down to point 5, where he states that my "own research is unimpres...

David Staples - Hockey Report David Staples is an interesting kind of guy. His primary interest is hockey which he writes about and produces a podcast about entitled, "The Cult of Hockey." Nevertheless, that doesn't stop him from pronouncing his expertise in other areas. For the last four or five years, one of his primary concerns has been Alberta's math curriculum. Why he should write so prolifically on the subject or feel so passionately is a bit of a mystery. More mysterious is why he considers himself an expert on the subject. Alberta Education just released the results of the Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Exams. For the first time, the students were given a written, no-calculator portion of the test which 1/3 of Grade 6 students failed. In other respects the results for both PATs and Diploma exams were much the same as last year. Grade 9 math PAT results were slightly down from last year while the Diploma results in math were slightly up. Pretty ...