One of the things that I’ve learned is what homeworks are good homeworks to send home and what homeworks we really need to do in class because of parent frustration. Last year, not yet knowing this, I sent a homework home and got back such venomous mail: “What is this? Why are you asking my 3rd grader to do this? If you ever send another magic square home, I am pulling my child out of the school. I can’t do this, and neither can he.” So now I’m just making better choices on what to send home.

I think we can all agree that it's important for teachers to make good choices (pdf file).

But why any parent would object to an 8-year old child being asked to construct a magic square for homework is beyond me.

After all, think how much conceptual knowledge that child will have after his mom has looked up Magic Squares on the internet and helped him draw one.


HowToGetParentBuyIn
EverydayMathDoesItToo
ILoveTheWorldWideWeb
CarolynFisksBook
AnotherGemFromMathForum
BigNumbers

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Jun 2005

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