[Edu-sig] Switching gears..

[Kirby Urner]

>It is interesting that our agendas do diverge  - I think you consider 
>yourself an innovator looking to revamp math education from 
>the ground-up with new fundamental concepts,  and I consider myself in
>many ways a reactionary, looking to restore something
>that I believe once was, and got lost .  And yet we agree on so much.

I'm not sure to what extent our thinking diverges outside 
some set of concepts related to geometry.  At this point,
I don't have an overview of how you'd approach inter-
connecting math topics outside of Euclid's Elements and 
projective geometry (neither of which I have any problem 
including, which isn't to say I've achieved the level of
mastery you have vis-a-vis either).

In some ways, I'm trying to recover classical topics that 
used to be covered as a matter of course.  Today with the
1st graders it was all about greek roots (tetra, octa...
hedron) and chatter about the Platonic Five -- what sets
them apart from the others etc.  The only non-classical 
part was the bean-fill (using lima beans and polyhedra as
measuring cups) -- although that could be considered 
Pythagorean, as I hear the school was really into beans
somehow.

Kirby

PS:  my overview.html (vs. overcome.html) is at:
http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/overview.html

>Not that that fact gets either of our agendas anywhere.
>
>ART