We Need a Serious Math Revolution Part I

All textbook, worksheet, lecturers, and test teachers wake up, this is for you.  Why?????????  Why are you still teaching this way?

Seriously, you can not possibly make a good case for learning using these items.  IT IS 2012.  There is Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, and a million other social media outlets where teachers are sharing ideas, better ways to allow the kids to learn.  Our kids are way too intelligent to be spoon fed information.  Let them go explore and learn it (with a little help here and there).  When we teach things to students that they could figure out on their own, we are stealing that      learning from them.  They would retain something they learned themselves better and longer than if we just tell them.  So you say they won't want to learn it, you're right, so make it a part of something fun.  Yes I said fun.  If your kids aren't having fun while they learn then you are missing a huge motivational factor.

I love being a teacher and working with the kids everyday but I hate the old school definition of teacher/teaching.  The word teacher or teaching means the person that delivers or the delivery of information to a group of students.  Either we need to completely get rid of those words in our educational system or we need to change peoples perceptions.  The kids have brains, make the students use those things.  Being told how to do something then repeating it is not learning. It is insulting our kids.

Math is a beautiful thing that anyone on this planet could find and connect to any topic they like.  When you spoon feed and lecture about math processes you are killing their passion to learn.  You are also not showing them or helping their capabilities of learning.

Shelve those stupid archaic artifacts and let the kids explore, struggle, and finally really learn and apply what they have learned. 

Coming.......
Part 2  Let's change the whole structure of math classes.

Part 3  How to teach math involving applications and processes.

Picture Source.  http://www.realizedworth.com/2012/11/is-your-corporate-volunteering-giving-program-a-perk-or-a-revolution.html/revolution