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A mélange or rojak of the best math methodologies and pedagogies from the East and the West, which has given local students in the “fine” city of Singapore an asymmetric or unfair advantage over their peers overseas—when even their weaker students fare better than the global average.
Singapore Math has sprung up a cottage industry in math education, as millions of homeschoolers worldwide realized that wallet-friendly, brain-unfriendly math titles have helped their children hone their problem-solving skills.
by Numerati December 15, 2024
Get the Singapore Math mug.The idea that math educators should focus on effort rather than on results—that failure is part of the success equation, because a set of false starts, failures, and frustrations are often necessary or unavoidable before someone could experience some degree of mathematical progress or achievement.
To fail is no shame, but failure to try again often is. A growth mindset in mathematics is to try or fail again, while failing better or faster each time.
by Numerati December 14, 2024
Get the Growth Mindset in Mathematics mug.When π, the world’s most arguably beloved or beautiful mathematical constant, weighs the pros and cons of revealing too little or too much about herself in order to maximize her universal appeal, while minimizing any negative publicity or fallout, in popular culture.
With fierce fellow competitors like e and 𝜙 watching her every move to outwit her, it’s no surprise that π is perpetually paranoid—pi calculus remains a necessary evil for her to maintain her competitive edge.
by Numerati December 12, 2024
Get the Pi Calculus mug.When canned and conventional math methods (or dated and dead ideas) live on, and anxious teachers and parents rely on old school techniques to solve word problems, especially when oft-visual problem-solving strategies are available to help students with “look-see” solutions.
Tens of thousands of American math teachers are stuck with zombie math, refusing to experiment with Singapore’s more intuitive bar model method in solving brain-unfriendly math questions.
by Numerati December 9, 2024
Get the Zombie Math mug.One who has achieved far beyond what his average or below-average mathematical intelligence could allow him to do, by lying, bullshitting, scheming, pretending, or backstabbing—the mathematical equivalent of a racist-rapist-turned-fraud-felon who got elected, rejected, and reelected despite all the odds against him.
Guesstimate how many mathematical frauds make it bigly in the publishing industry worldwide every year.
by Numerati December 6, 2024
Get the Mathematical Fraud mug.When you can’t be a spectator vis-à-vis the world’s most disliked school subject, but you need to be a player to master it—reading or listening about math won’t make you fluent in the subject, but doing math will.
Like Christianity, math is a verb. Just like you can’t impact lives if you merely know about Jesus and His teachings, so reading pop math books without dirtying your hands is unlikely going to raise your quantitative literacy in meeting the technological challenges of the 21st century.
by Numerati December 6, 2024
Get the Math Is a Verb. mug.When incorporating Singapore’s bar model method—the problem-solving visualization strategy to tackle word problems—at the elementary school level and its aim to develop students’ pre-algebraic thinking skills (before they are introduced to formal algebra) are not often partially achievable or necessarily correlated in practice.
Wallet-friendly Singapore math textbooks, workbooks, and teachers’ resources on their own doesn’t guarantee problem-solving mastery—bar-modeling orthogonality seems to be a constant in many traditional American classrooms, often because of teachers’ or parents’ faux perception that a foreign math curriculum or publication is harder (or even inferior) than their local inch-deep-mile-wide one.
by Numerati December 5, 2024
Get the Bar-Modeling Orthogonality mug.