Some love notes from my fans:
“According to your bio, teaching is not your primary profession. It is something you are just doing post-retirement. This does not mean you do not have useful insights. It does mean that you need to know your limitations for formulating educational policy.”
“Ph.D. in applied math here. The traditional form stinks. By focusing on the “algorithms”, the traditional method gives no intuitive insight into the relationships or what you’re actually doing. It doesn’t build on first principles. That’s why so many kids get an A in, say, Calculus but really don’t understand it at all- they just know how to plug & chug. There’s a reason why 20% of freshmen at the top universities in the country (Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, etc.) have to be remediated even after acing their AP courses.”
Yes, my fans dearly love me. And with plaudits like these, who can resist reading more of what I have to say. You can start with “Math Education in the US: Still Crazy After All These Years”. Makes an ideal gift for people whose idea of viable educational policy is formed by what they learned in ed school and reading articles in Phi Delta Kappan.
traditional math 
Seems you hit the target again Barry. Keep writing.
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So there are 80 percent who don’t need remediation for students who are at top universities. And the alternative methods would exceed this?
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Like you, I have trouble grasping how apparently serious, intelligent people can be so blind. Thanks for your excellent posts, which reassure me and others of similar mind, that we are not the ones who are crazy!
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Thank you, though I don’t find it surprising that people have such reactions. As you can see, I have found a good use for their thoughts and use them as endorsements for my books. It works. Sales always increase after I post these quotes.
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I’d like to meet these students who can get an A in calculus with no understanding.
What this translates as is “with less understanding than I have now, and I’ve forgotten that I was once in the position that they are in”.
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