Breaking the Sunday blogging ban--

I just found this passage on a TERC thread at Math Forum:

A 5th grader in the gifted/talented program at her school came to a carnival. "How much money did you bring?" "Thirteen quarters," she said. "Well, how much money is that?" A blank look, followed by, "I don't know - I didn't bring a calculator." Surprised, I asked her equally bright friend if she knew how much it was. "We haven't had long division yet," she responded. The girls in the troop who use a traditional math program knew instantly that the amount was $3.25. Same ages, same grades, different kind of instruction, different results.

I just asked Christopher what 13 quarters is.

It took him maybe . . . 5 seconds (he skip-counted up by 4s rather than dividing 13 by 4 -- don't know what to think about that), then he said $3.25.


AboutLongDivision
StrugglesWithLongDivision
MathInTheBlood
ForgivingDivision
ForgivingDivisionPart2
TryThisWithForgivingDivision
TeacherGuideEverydayMath
EverydayMathEpilogue
ThirteenQuartersInTerc
HowNotToTeachMath
WhoSaysLongDivisionIsHard

-- CatherineJohnson - 12 Jun 2005

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