What a great story. I had a similar experience with the Choo-choo train calendar month learning exercise. Where each car represented a month so the kids would understand the sequence of months.
So the teacher asked me how many months are there from February to August. I asked her (what was just an innocent question); can you tell me the y…
What a great story. I had a similar experience with the Choo-choo train calendar month learning exercise. Where each car represented a month so the kids would understand the sequence of months.
So the teacher asked me how many months are there from February to August. I asked her (what was just an innocent question); can you tell me the year February is in and what year August is in?
She looked at me like I was crazy and sort of mocked me in front of the class and had me get up and count each car so I could come up with the answer of 6.
She said; now do you understand the year doesn't matter? And lmao I said; no not really, do the months just stop at December?
I thought the exercise was to recognize that a calendar is really just arbitrary in the sense we don't just start the "clock" again once a calendar year was over.
She kept me after class so i could "practice" counting the months. So I sat there for awhile fuming. Then I mustered the courage to say; Sorry Mrs Frederick I don't think December is the caboose any more than January is the locomotive/engine car.
She seriously didn't get it and a bunch of the kids snickered about how dumb I was.
If the school-system worked, kids showing aptitude for that kind of lateral thinking (for want of a better term) would be promoted to classes with teacher strained and able to let the kids develop said aptitude, not curb it.
A good teacher uses the kids' abilities as tools and levers when teaching; a bad teacher enforces conformity of thought.
What a great story. I had a similar experience with the Choo-choo train calendar month learning exercise. Where each car represented a month so the kids would understand the sequence of months.
So the teacher asked me how many months are there from February to August. I asked her (what was just an innocent question); can you tell me the year February is in and what year August is in?
She looked at me like I was crazy and sort of mocked me in front of the class and had me get up and count each car so I could come up with the answer of 6.
She said; now do you understand the year doesn't matter? And lmao I said; no not really, do the months just stop at December?
I thought the exercise was to recognize that a calendar is really just arbitrary in the sense we don't just start the "clock" again once a calendar year was over.
She kept me after class so i could "practice" counting the months. So I sat there for awhile fuming. Then I mustered the courage to say; Sorry Mrs Frederick I don't think December is the caboose any more than January is the locomotive/engine car.
She seriously didn't get it and a bunch of the kids snickered about how dumb I was.
If the school-system worked, kids showing aptitude for that kind of lateral thinking (for want of a better term) would be promoted to classes with teacher strained and able to let the kids develop said aptitude, not curb it.
A good teacher uses the kids' abilities as tools and levers when teaching; a bad teacher enforces conformity of thought.
(Why yes, I'm biased.... 😎)
Totally logical question on which year between the months.