Word: beberman
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...away as Florida and Alaska looked on, the students excitedly gave Mathematician Max Beber-man their answer: the sentence is already true because anything times zero equals zero. What the teachers saw were ninth-graders discovering a math principle entirely by themselves. This approach is so important to Beberman that he may not even tell new students the name of his subject. It is algebra, taught in a way that U.S. mathematicians consider the freshest reform in nearly a century...
Known as the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics, Be-berman's nine-year-old project is an effort to give new life to the most irksome subject in U.S. high schools. Supported by $600,000 in grants from the Carnegie Corp., Beberman's system was taught this year to 8,000 students in 95 secondary schools across the country. Next year it will reach 120 schools. The only problem is a shortage of teachers versed in the method. At 34, Beberman has a full life's work cut out for him training them...
Child's Language. As Beberman sees it, conventional high-school math "turns out rigid little computers with a limited range of programs." Often detesting the subject, teachers view it as such a painful manipulation of inscrutable symbols that they miss the underlying concepts. They either teach it mechanically or try to liven it up with "interesting" problems, e.g., computing interest. Such teaching is completely alien to the child's mind, says Beberman. "Children are not miniature adults. They have a thirst for the abstract and the world of fancy." They may even grasp math relationships faster than reading...
With a stern hand, the teacher writes x+5 = 9 on the blackboard. If a youngster pipes up that the "unknown" is 4. he is shushed. The teacher must first demonstrate the rigmarole of subtracting 5 from both sides of the equation to get 4. Says Beberman: "The student had a notion of what a variable really is - and probably for the last time." Numbers v. Numerals. In his own elementary algebra course, Beberman first focuses on the semantic difference between a number and a numeral. One is a permanent concept, the other a mere name for it. A number...
...Beberman's business is pinpointing the numbers behind numerals...