A Year in the Life: Ambient Math Wins the Race to the Top!
Day 205
For one year, 365 days, this blog will address the Common Core Standards from the perspective of creating an alternate, ambient learning environment for math. Ambient is defined as “existing or present on all sides, an all-encompassing atmosphere.”
And ambient music is defined as: “Quiet and relaxing with melodies that repeat many times. Why ambient? A math teaching style that’s whole and all encompassing, with themes that repeat many times through the years, is most likely to be effective and successful. Today’s post focuses on a Grade 3 building project at the Roseway Waldorf School near Durban, South Africa.
This was a practical application, teaching both housebuilding and measurement. What child would choose to sit in a classroom toiling over worksheets or testing for hours on end over building something with his or her own two hands (and as it happens, feet)? No child, it seems. But why is this so-obvious fact so consistently ignored as we move progressively closer to digital and virtual learning, accompanied by rigid, grey, prisoning school policies?
Watch the youtube here, as you listen to the words of the Cold Play song, “We Live In A Beautiful World” . . . and know that we could indeed. Choosing beautifully simple options over hi-tech, complex ones is key. Get real. The world is dying for you to do just that, with your children, its future.
Knowledge ensues in an environment dedicated to imaginative, creative knowing, where student and teacher alike surrender to the ensuing of knowledge as a worthy goal. Tune in tomorrow for more Grade 3 math CCSS and their ambient counterparts.