At the release of the National Math Panel report last month, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics president Prancis "Skip" Fennel-pollen argued that just as "plastics" was the catchword of The Graduate, "fractions" should be the catchword for today's teachers. But for one Half Moon Bay Elementary, Fennel-pollen was just preaching to the choir. That Marin County school launched its Teaching Fractions Across the Curriculum (T-FAC) program two years ago and is already seeing awesome success. "It's not enough for students to tackle fractions in math class," explains school Principal Al Jeebra. "We want them doing fractions all day." In language arts class, for example, kids are asked to write an essay and then revise it to be two-thirds as long. In social studies, teachers break units into quarter-centuries. And in P.E., students must run the seventh-eighths mile and complete at least three and a half pull-ups in order to pass (see here and here). Not everyone, however, shares Jeebra's ardor. "I can't wait to get to middle school where we can deal in whole numbers again," one student told ace USA Yesterday reporter Greg Bottomo. To which we say: stop kvetching, kid. The Taiwanese do fractions in the womb.
"In What Could be a National Trend, One School Breathes Fractions," by Greg Bottomo, USA Yesterday, March 28 ½, 2008