Utterly Meaningless

Each year I would note that even the best math teachers in the public school where I taught were only completing about 42% of each math book prior to the start of summer vacation. The students then went home for eleven weeks, and returned to face the next book in the sequence—even though they were never taught the last 58% of the material in the prerequisite class! Still people wonder why American students fall ever further behind in math!

That’s a good point. I can’t remember ever finishing any texbook in school.

So could someone fill me in, what the heck are ‘stem and leaf patterns’?? I have Saxon 2 for my 6 year old and while I don’t use it in the scripted way it is written, I do like having it as a guide. I think it is a 1994(1990?) edition. Just curious what stem and leaf is!

Linda’s beef is with the Math 4/5 and up books that John Saxon originally authored (some with John Hake). They are being modified to some extent for content in addition to the new business practices. The K-3 materials were/are written by Nancy Larson. Still just the first editions, but several printings.

An example of stem & leaf plotting: regent...af.htm

I can see why she’s a little irritated.

I had a look at the link to ‘stem and leaf’ plots. Pardon my language, but what the hell is that supposed to do? Why in the world are they trying to teach base 10 properties with a picture analogy of stems and leaves?