Definitely not Sydeney.
OK, in a futile attempt to unPonzi our blogging scheme, we’re closing off our four competitions.* The winners are indicated below, and any winner who has not died of old age should email us to receive their prize, a signed copy of the best-selling** A Dingo Ate My Math Book.***
The single worst line in the (current) Australian Mathematics Curriculum – Potii
This competition never properly got going, although some pretty funny stuff came out. We’ve declared Potii the winner, as much for weight of effort as individual examples.
The idea in modern mathematics education that is least trivial and least false – student-teacher (wst)
This competition really took off, and/but the poverty of substantive entries was notable. (This was to be expected, and was really the point.) The clear winner is student-teacher (now wst), for their concerted effort to find something/anything, and in spite of their suggesting some Kaye Stacey triviality.
The best example of problem-solving in the draft mathematics curriculum – Glen
The draft is ostensibly full of “problem-solving”, but somehow it turned out to be impossible for anybody to come up with anything that wasn’t trivial or ridiculous. The winner is Glen, with a truly appalling example.
The best argument for the draft mathematics curriculum – John Friend
This one was pretty funny: pretty much nobody came up with anything, and really the prize should jackpot to the next comp. But, we’ll stretch it, and permit a John Friend entry from the problem-solving comp to count here. The inclusion in Year 8 Number of the X-trick to write recurring decimals as fractions is a genuinely positive addition. (Even if the draft simultaneously fucks up the conversion of fractions to decimals.)
Potti, student-teacher, Glen, John Friend, come on down!
*) We have plans for a new competition …
**) In Polster and Ross households.
***) If preferred, a winner can wait to receive the sequel to Dingo, which should appear later this year.
I would have tried to find the worst line but it is not fun reading all the garbage.
I’m just too busy with other garbage dumped on me. Did you end up having a worst line in mind?
Thank you for the prize, Marty.
Thanks, Potii. Don’t forget to email me, so we can figure out how best to get you your prize.
In terms of “worst line”, I’m honestly not sure. It’s tricky, since the curriculum is more offensively nothing than actively offensive. (The draft curriculum, on the other hand …) Some of the early year elaborations, getting kids to figure out stuff with software, are actively appalling. And the right-angled triangle calculations line is also revolting.
Cheers, Marty. I’ll send you an email. (It’s quite embarrassing really, I feel like the kid at swimming sports who won the wading competition …)
Well, maybe the kid who won the Butterfly by being the only one to make it to the other end of the pool.
Well, since you put it that way, I see myself as doing a Bradbury and I’m very happy to have won the Gold …
Cool. The book will be much appreciated!
Email me an address.
What an honour! I did try very hard to find something, but you are right that it wasn’t much.
I will send you an email. Thank you. 🙂
From anyone else, I would have interpreted the “honour” as appropriate sarcasm.