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Society for Quality Education

Sunday at the Movies (Kindergarten Geniuses)

June 19, 2011 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 06:27 AM

This is an oldie but goodie, and eye-opening in terms of what disadvantaged kindergarten-age students can learn. As you watch the children show off their math skills, ask yourself if their creativity has been stifled by direct instruction or their higher-order thinking skills ignored. Don’t let the poor sound quality at the start discourage you from watching.

Comments

I think the video demonstrates very well what any kid can learn.

On the other hand, this approach is not new; it’s just common sense. The children are younger than the age I learned these concepts, the teacher is very good at keeping the interest very high.
Also the progression to negative numbers 7 - 8 = ? and to abstract as in 1/a + 1/a is unusual at this age and I think it is great. I did this abstract progression with my son instinctively when he was in grade 5 (much later than the kids in the video). He is one of the few kids who’s not afraid of letters in math and who knows that exactly the same rules apply!

Do you have any ideea how many kids in grade 7 and 8 freeze when they have to work with letters instead of numbers?
Anyway the approach: the types of questions, the progression of the questions, involving the whole class it’s nothing new. It’s just common sense. That’s how I was taught math.

I fail to understand how one can teach math other than this and hope to be successful.

Posted by fromEurope on 06/20 at 04:40 PM

To sum up: it is great and unusual to see kids this young doing what they do.

However, this approach and progression would work well at any age and I think it is much better than the elementary math taught today.
Even if we had this as late as elementary, it wouldn’t be too late and we would be better off!

Posted by fromEurope on 06/20 at 04:43 PM

I agree that it’s just common sense.  Too bad our modern curricula for math is written by people with no background in math.  It’s so poor it could be called ‘anti-educational’.  hmmm—perhaps it t truly is anti-educational because the only people who are benefiting are the writers of the bad curricula—not the kids grin

Posted by Bev on 06/21 at 07:18 AM
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