At 8:30 PM CST tonight, October 20, 2011, Natural Math is hosting a presentation about a new book called Modern Math for Elementary Schoolers by Oleg Gleizer. It’s a Creative Commons book on advanced math for elementary school children! (So it’s free! Get it here.)
Gleizer’s inspiration is from a similar situation in which I currently find myself: To what school should I send my child? Of course my answer is The Bon Crowder School at Home. Alas, Husband believes there’s no reason to fully homeschool if there great schools out there.
So are there great schools out there?
I started reading the book and stopped on page 4. Gleizer is explaining his method of finding math teachers. He asked math teachers of potential schools these two questions in the interviews:
- Given a straight line and a point away from it, how would you draw another straight line passing through the point and parallel to the original line, using a compass and straightedge as tools?
- How would you draw a four-dimensional (4D) cube?
Of course, I immediately began to wonder if I was good enough to answer these questions myself!
I got the answer to #1 after some thought, and am pondering #2. I’m refraining from reading on, as I want to come up with my own answer before I read anything else. But I’ll be attending the presentation this evening.
What about you? Can you join us?
P.S. I’ll have to wait to post the answer to #1 tomorrow, as I have discovered that I don’t have a compass. How on earth can you teach math without that?! How embarrassing! So I’m off to Walmart right now to get one.