What is with math in the last few years? I sit down in math class, and the teacher goes up to the front of the room to begin teaching us a new concept. After a few tries of writing the questions out on paper, I begin to understand. Yes! I've got it! Then - BAM! - all the sudden, the tiles are brought out. Not just the tiles, but the blocks. And the strips of coloured paper. What's this? The teacher explains that we're going to have to use tiles along with printing it out, and then we're going to have to draw out the tiles and blocks afterwards!
I go up to the front of the room and ask if I can simply write out the questions on a piece of paper. The teacher sighs and gives me a sympathetic look. They tell me that, yes, I have to use the tiles, even though they know that the whole process would be much more efficient without them.
So I went back to my seat and did the whole long, gruelling process over again. And then I wrote it out. And then I drew it. And by the time I was finished one question, I knew that if I hadn't have used those tiles and blocks...well, I could have easily been done five more.
But that's not the point. My experience isn't everyone else's experience. So, after several classes of doing this, I asked around the classroom, and every single person that I talked to said that they hated the tiles, too! Lately, I've been thinking, hoping, just wishing that maybe, possibly we won't have to use those tiles and blocks anymore. But it turns out that we'll be using them all through high school. Government. Union. It's mandatory. I can't believe this discrimination of visual learners! It's absolutely ridiculous! I think that in a classroom, people should just write the questions out, and if they're having trouble with the new concept or they are a hands-on learner, they can use the tiles. But otherwise, it's just an absurd waste of valuable class time.
I know this whole rant has probably been tedious and annoying, but you have to understand that the way the government is making us do mathematics nowadays is actually making it a heck of a lot harder for many, many students to learn.
