One of the oldest proverbial sayings in the English language is, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” If there are any of you out there that still insist on calculating math solutions with a slide rule (or who even remember what a slide rule is!), you know what I mean. As the march of time presses on, I tend to resist change, especially for change for change’s sake. If something has worked well
3 Jun 2015
On what rock should your mathematical house be built? In Matthew 7:24-27, the wise man built his house upon the rock. In all branches of mathematics, knowledge is built on previous learning, so for the higher mathematics courses, what is that secure foundation? Many suppose, erroneously, that it is the work done with arithmetic in the early grades. While manipulation of numbers cannot be discounted in importance, the real bedrock is algebraic studies, specifically Algebra
There is some debate over the study of geometry with and without proof. Here is the perspective of someone who has been teaching geometry in a variety of educational settings (public school, homeschool co-op, and online classical Christian school) and from several different textbooks (including Jurgensen/Brown, Jacobs, and Larson/Boswell/Stiff ) over the last 25 years: To make a familiar comparison, consider studying scripture. If you take a passage of scripture and delve deeply into the