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Amy Gruen’s blog is a pile of fun. She’s a magpie, looking about her world for odds and ends to bring back to her classroom, then posting pictures and explanation for our benefit. Recommmended.

Bryan Meyer:

You always hear people say, “kids don’t like math!” Correction…kids don’t like feeling dumb. People don’t like feeling dumb.

Dan Goldner:

I’m flabbergasted. I have a number of students–maybe 10? 20?–who determine by division how many bills there are, then figure out by multiplying 60x60x24 how many bills are given away in a day. Fine. But then they start subtracting … after day 1 there are 9,913,600 bills left. After 2 days there are 9,827,200. Almost immediately many students lose interest, but there are a few arithmetic ox that start chugging through it (with calculators, to be sure). 9,740,800. 9,654,400. I watch in disbelief as the markerboards are filled in, line by line. 8,617,600. 8,533,000. After a while I can’t help myself. I casually mention that people sometimes use division to do repeated subtraction, and I countdown from 10 by 2′s and compare to 10/2. They are a little chagrined at not having thought of that, but they try it. Then they face confusion about handling the remainder.

About 
I'm Dan and this is my blog. I'm a former high school math teacher and current head of teaching at Desmos. He / him. More here.