From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner
Newsgroups: net.books
Title: Re: BOSNYWASH Syndrome - (nf)
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.718
Posted: Mon Feb 28 18:23:57 1983
Received: Tue Mar  1 06:40:30 1983

#R:ihuxp:-37700:ucbesvax:13500001:000:1432
ucbesvax!turner    Feb 24 07:35:00 1983


	Umm...I thought this sort of thing went into net.flame?

	As for "simple rote memorization", drill and practice, etc.--
    this is what turned me off to mathematics initially.  I was lucky
    to have latent talents, but I didn't really pull ahead of the
    game until late in high school.  Blame it on TV, if you like, or
    on good ol' New Math.  To me it was boring, pointless and repetitive.

	I learned math by playing, not grinding.  I learned spelling
    by browsing dictionaries and getting a feeling for etymology,
    not by rote memorization.  Learning is easy when it's fun and
    exploratory.  No textbook is so well written, however, that some
    bumbling teacher can't use it as an instrument of intimidation.

	Personally, I doubt very much that the quality of texts is
    anything near the determining factor in education that you seem
    to think it is.  Mine were uniformly poor, if memory serves, but
    I had high standards.  If it was boring, I didn't read it.  If it
    was interesting, I went through it twice as fast.

	The important thing is to encourage your children to read a
    variety of things, increasingly of their own choice.  Try giving
    them a book allowance.  I would have loved this when I was a kid.
    As it was, I mowed neighbors' lawns for cash to buy my 50 cent Dell
    paperbacks.  (Those were the days!)

	By the way: read any good books lately?

	    Michael Turner