I hope my (little) daughter gets a math teacher with A. Blank's sense.
A similar point is true of all parts of knowledge, of course:
I was convinced to send my daughter to a local hippy dippy lab school when I saw the teachers facing the "But what if my child is Gifted?" question from yuppie parents. The teachers vehemently rejecting separate 'tracks' for the 'gifted' in favor of the Blank plan: if some students master something early, you needn't move them on to the 'next' thing, since this is in some respects an illusion. Rather you get them working on something cool that is 'off to the side' from the point of view of the curriculum sequence, whereby inter alia they learn the unlimited character of possible knowledge and might strike something that would really get them absorbed.
--This horrified the linearize-their-way-to-Yale yuppies in the audience, but it seemed like genuine wisdom to me. (That they were really losing people with this also attracted me.)
We'll see how it works in practice. I have a feeling Blank's utopia would be too expensive given the significance attached to education in the present age.
I wouldn't count on your daughter having a wonderful math teacher. I suggest teaching her yourself in addition to what she learns in school. My daughter isn't old enough yet (7 months), but I plan on teaching her daily.
A similar point is true of all parts of knowledge, of course: I was convinced to send my daughter to a local hippy dippy lab school when I saw the teachers facing the "But what if my child is Gifted?" question from yuppie parents. The teachers vehemently rejecting separate 'tracks' for the 'gifted' in favor of the Blank plan: if some students master something early, you needn't move them on to the 'next' thing, since this is in some respects an illusion. Rather you get them working on something cool that is 'off to the side' from the point of view of the curriculum sequence, whereby inter alia they learn the unlimited character of possible knowledge and might strike something that would really get them absorbed.
--This horrified the linearize-their-way-to-Yale yuppies in the audience, but it seemed like genuine wisdom to me. (That they were really losing people with this also attracted me.)
We'll see how it works in practice. I have a feeling Blank's utopia would be too expensive given the significance attached to education in the present age.