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