Most of all it gives hope to all of us out there who worry that our children are not learning enough, will not be able to go to university or get a job or be successful.Every child has potential- we just need to nurture it.
The part about maths hit me the most. as I have recently taken a free online Maths course with Stanford University .The professor is Jo Boaler who wrote The Elephant in the Classroom .The fundamental message was that if you want to make maths fun you have to create problems and allow the children to work things out for themselves without instruction (as that narrows their minds and hampers the flexibility of thinking.)
Yesterday my son was watching an instructional video on You Tube about sniping. I asked him what three columns of numbers meant.The first was distance. the second was height and the third was ...................He explained that the further away you were from a target, the higher you positioned the Scope'. I said I couldn't really see a pattern in the numbers other than the height numbers went up the further away the target.
That he explained was because as the bullet got further away it got slower and started to descend so it was important to point the rifle over the target in order to get an accurate shot. His explanation was a lucid and a simple explanation of both the physics and maths. No one had taught him but he was comfortable with the concept and has found in computers a learning medium which suits his learning style!
I am just delighted we found out what it is before it was too late!
I hope you enjoy and are as excited by this article as much as I am!
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/all/
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