Author : Andre Lanzaro, Ph.d.
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2016-12-09
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1537780794
Math Corps: Basic Training Day by Andre Lanzaro, Ph.d. Pdf
"Math Corps: Basic Training Day" provides training to do "math courses" in a totally new and fun way. Math is math, and may never seem like fun to countless hoards of terrible math students. But, the author says don't look at the math; look at the math course, and see it as a series of point scoring events called math exams. That suggests math courses can be "played" like a point scored game, or better yet, a team sport. It is a long way between the drudgery of "taking" math courses to the fun of "playing" them. There is a longer way between playing them and winning them. To progress from a math course victim to a math course slayer is a journey terrible math students can begin if they first go through a day of basic training. MC: BTD's "Charlie's Narrative" teaches teachers how such a day can create a math course slayer out of a math course hater. MC: BTD's appendices codify a math course game and high school sport, as well as suggest future embellishments. "Dr. L.," Charlie's college math course prof, founder of the college's Math Corps, managed to entice Charlie to take its single Saturday session of basic training. Charlie just wants to pass Dr. L.'s course. But, Dr. L.'s Math Corps does not exist to merely produce "just passing" math course students. The Math Corps exists to produce math course slayers by training them to destroy "Math Dragons." Math Dragons are identified by the Corps as any situation or agency that "drags down" math course student performance. Secondly, the Math Corps sees terrible math students as terrible at studying math, but potentially terrific math course team players and Math Dragon slayers. By Math Corps standards: Math Dragons are destroyed when terrible math students win the top scores on their math course exams. Midway in the course of narrative writing, Charlie realizes that The Math Corps' mission cannot succeed unless it has a weapon of mass Math Dragon destruction that is equivalent to the irresistible fun power of sports. This conclusion resonates with Dr. L.'s obsessive envy of modern culture's insatiable ardor for its popular sports, video and smart phone gaming pursuits. Dr. L. justifies his jealousy in MC: BTD's Preface, as follows. "It is not the game per se, nor anything intrinsic to games in general, but the ardor it engenders, the tireless pursuit of perfection it naturally provokes that rouses my curiosity and stokes my jealousy. It is not logic, not even common sense, but raw jealousy that does not permit me to accept anything less be accorded to a pursuit purporting to prepare our youth for college, for life, for survival. If learning to win at the "game of real life" is not pursued by a large segment of our youth with the same ardor and diligent pursuit of excellence as video games and team sports, then our system of education has not tapped into the humanity of its patronage." Can we develop the playing of math courses that enchants our super high tech society to support our games as profusely and deliriously as it does for its favored sports and games? That would mean millions of players supported by an infrastructure worth billions, and propel the U.S. scholastically. To address that question, the college Math Corps decided to confer with terrible math students. The result: a high school sport that recruits teams of terrible math students to compete via math course exam scores. Can these methods and concepts lead to the mass interest and support that will satisfy Dr. L.'s jealousy of sports fervor? This book shouts out a resounding "yes." In fact, all it may take is a single spark. Such sparks can happen when "basic trained" terrible math students organize into terrific math course scoring teams. What greater fulfillment of education's transformative purpose can be imagined than the redemption of remarkable academic attainment latent in our so called terrible students? What better way to requite Dr. L.'s jealousy?