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If you're a fan of the Math Wars, you've heard about the question in the first edition of the EVERDAY MATH K-5 curriculum, "If math were a color, it would probably be ______ because ________." This particular question has probably engendered more ridicule and garnered more notoriety than anything associated with the NCTM Standards of 1989 on, and the progressive reform curricula that emerged from NSF grants in the early 1990s. After Googling on the question, I've concluded that no one on the planet has the slightest idea what could possibly be the point of asking this question. It has resulted in so much negative feedback that it has been dropped from revisions and subsequent editions of EVERYDAY MATHMATICS. Indeed, as recently as last week, Andy Isaacs, an author of the program who works at the University of Chicago Mathematics Project (UCSMP) posted on math-teach at the Math Forum: As for the "If math were a color, ..." question, it appeared in our fir...

Ellen & Robert Kaplan and The Math Circle If you only read one book about mathematics teaching and learning this coming season, let me suggest that it should be OUT OF THE LABYRINTH: Setting Mathematics Free by Robert and Ellen Kaplan, founders of The Math Circle in Cambridge, MA. I had the distinct privilege several years ago of attending a session Bob and Ellen led at Northwestern University's Math Club. We were taken through a short series of problems that led to the main question of the day: is it possible to cover a particular rectangle with non-congruent squares? The way things were led was truly masterful, perhaps the best teaching I've ever seen or experienced. The preliminary questions helped scaffold the main one, but once we entered into trying to solve the main problem, for which most in attendance seemed to believe the answer was "No," very few comments or questions were offered to help us. And yet those "hi...

Recently, there's been an on-going conversation/argument on math-teach@mathforum.org, unusual in its frequently bordering on civility and even some degree of agreement among antagonists, regarding the role of teaching/learning/using the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) or Least Common Multiple (LCM), which are effectively the same thing, when working with, say, addition and subtraction of fractions. It should be noted that similar issues arise later in working with rational algebraic expressions, particularly when there are polynomials in one or more of the numerators or denominators that can be factored in some of the standard ways that students have worked with previously. But my concern is with something else, specifically the arbitrary way in which many K-5 teachers insist that to add/subtract fractions one MUST find the LCD. Failure to do so often results in all sorts of negative consequences, from stern glances to loss of credit on classwork and tests. On my view, this is a cl...