Cortland Alumni, Volume 4, Number 4, February 1948
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SUNY College Cortland Digital Commons @ Cortland Alumni Magazine Alumni Publications 1948 Cortland Alumni, Volume 4, Number 4, February 1948 State University of New York at Cortland Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.cortland.edu/alumnimagazine Recommended Citation State University of New York at Cortland, "Cortland Alumni, Volume 4, Number 4, February 1948" (1948). Alumni Magazine. 14. https://digitalcommons.cortland.edu/alumnimagazine/14 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Alumni Publications at Digital Commons @ Cortland. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni Magazine by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Cortland. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ST A" ; Table of Contents FEBRUARY, 1948 Page Mathematics in the Elementary Schools 65 Dr. Ben A. Sueltz Cortland State's New Science Major 67 Mists and Dreams 67 Rev. William E. Doughty The Residence Hall for C.S.T.C 68 Miss Hoag Retires 68 Summer Session—1948 68 President's Letter 69 Marie Schuler '30 69 Iota Phi 70 The Corlornors 70 Gymnastic Exhibition — C.S.T.C 71 Campus News 71 The Faculty 72 Aquatic Club Presentation 72 In Memoriam 72 Class Notes 73 FEBRUARY 1948 PRICE 50c reunioning classes June 12, 1948 College Calendar 1947-48 NOVEMBER 14-15 Homecoming Week-end NOVEMBER 26-DECEMBER 1 Thanksgiving Recess DECEMBER 19 (NOON)-JANUARY5 CLASSES OF Christmas Recess JANUARY 24 All-school formal 1898 1923 1943 JANUARY 26 Registration; second semester 1908 1928 1946 FEBRUARY 12 Lincoln's Birthday FEBRUARY 21 1918 1938 1947 Hellenic Ball FEBRUARY 27-28 Winter Carnival MARCH 4, 5, and 6 Aquatic Pageant MARCH 20 Dance Concert OFFICERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION MARCH 24-April 5 Easter Recess Miss ELLA VANHOESEN Honorary President APRIL 23-24 DR. E. LAURENCE PALMER '08 President Delta Psi Conference ANTHONY TESORI ;>9 First Vice-President MAY 6 MRS. LOUIS FOLMER (Helen E. Butler '29) Second Vice-President Glee Club Concert MRS. ROBERT POTTER (Helen Johnson '18) Third Vi c-President MAY 7-8 WAVA MCGRATH, '16 Secretary Moving-Up Day Week-end GERALD DEXTER Treasurer JUNE 12 Alumni Day JUNE 13 Baccalaureate Sunday n , r, WIMEAHU ALUlVim Robert Berry '40 TT ... „ T >1 JUNE 14 r- r- L r, ... Hazel Stiiwell Latimer - Franklin E. Coolidge 35 T . Commencement William M. Dowd 12 ^eo A. Meldrim a0 Olive Edgecomb Dunn '03 I™™1* WOI Bessie L. Park 01 Margaret Klett Walrad '29 Editor Eileen Maher Winchell, '12. StateCT "T rd\|reSS a^d "eWS ltemS Stl0Uld be addressed to the Editor, The Cortland Alumn leachers College, Cortland, New York 1 U l P by th?AluZi ltol tTo7ofTe l£w wSS? »™ng Ca ITin October, December, February and Mi copy 50c. Entered as second-class matter M A944.at thjpost Office^C^rtHn^! N.Y^under'uw actof ftlawh 3,18? The Cortland Alumni VoIume !V ^ FEBRUARY, 1948 Number 4 Mathematics in the activity education", for it holds the ciples of fractions. Every school Elementary Schools essence of meaningful learning. Un should have some "cake-pan-frac BEN A. SUELTZ fortunately, activity in itself is not of tions". Get an 8-inch cake pan and great worth. The worth-whileness of some compoboard. Let the pupils It is now ten years since New York any activity or of any school tech help you make some fourths, thirds, State developed its new program under nique depends upon what the teacher halves, eighths, and fifths to fit into the title Mathematics for Elementary and the pupils see therein and what the cake pan. You may want to paint Schools, re placing the former Arithmetic they get out of it. If we could now get the fourths all one color. You may Syllabus. This change of names was a happy combination of real worth want to put lines on some of them to deliberate. It was intended to give a while functional activity coupled with indicate half of a fourth. Once you get greater breadth and significance to a genuine appreciation and under started you will see many things you arithmetic in the public schools. For standing of mathematics both as a can do, as for example, 4 fourths equals merly too many people had come to body of knowledge and as a functional 5 fifths, etc., and 4 eighths equals 2 associate drill procedures on abstract servant in the affairs of intelligent fourths. These principles, as developed, processes as the mam aim and modus people, then we would know what to may then be written with symbols and of arithmetical teaching and learning. instruct, how to instruct, and what the mathematical techniques of chang Children frequently could perform avenues of learning to suit to various ing and reducing fractions may be de very well such things as addition, types of instruction. rived. Similarly "improper fractions" division, and percentage with abstract Let me illustrate what we mean by and carrying from fractions to whole numbers, but they lacked understand "meaningful arithmetic" by using frac numbers are made meaningful. These ing and the ability to sense essential tions as an example. But first, let me are simple illustrations of the basic mathematical situations in the world ask propaedeutically: Have you ever tenet in our syllabus that states that about them. This movement to make seen and touched and smelled a real "Rich experiences precede the learning arithmetic meaningful to children in cow ? of a process and give meaning to it." New York State is part of a larger As pupils gain insight and understand movement that has extended through ing of mathematical ideas in terms of out the country. real things, they then should proceed However, arithmetic instruction in to the more mathematical type of un New York has not improved as much derstanding. For example, with real as it should. Two factors have con pies, 23T/5 is half of a pie just as 3/6 tributed to lack of progress in our COW is half of a pie. On the mathematical state. Fust, there is always an apathy You have seen pictures of a cow. basis pupils recognize that any frac on the part of many schools and teach You have also seen the word "cow . tion whose numerator is one-half its denominator equals one-half; (3T)- ers toward any kind of change. Teach Now just imagine trying to give a city- There are mathematical principles ers who were accustomed to drill tech bred child a "meaningful understand that establish a conclusion and the niques frequently attained a high level ing" of a cow from the word C-O-W. pupil who "undertands" these prin of computational excellence and were That is about what we frequently have ciples has a powerful tool. Similar il loath to spend the necessary time re done with fractions. We have written lustrations of understanding may be quired for the development of basic "Li" and said this is a fraction. Now drawn from such topics as measures, meanings and understandings as well all of us know that there are real frac decimals, percentage, and geometry. as functional uses of arithmetic. Sec tions. There are one-fourths of apples, A considerable amount of experi ondly, the "activity movement" hit sheets of paper, rectangles,lines, hooks, mentation and writing has been done New York State in the mid-thirties etc. So let us start with the real things, in the field of Arithmetic or Elemen and many teachers went overboard the apples, rectangles, etc., and then tary School Mathematics during the into activities without properly eval proceed to the pictures of fractions and past decade. Thiele and Sauble at uating the genuine worth of the activi finally to the symbols. In this way we Detroit, Brownell at Duke University, ties. At its worst it was properly get a basic concept. We can use mod Brueckner at The University of Mn- called "the era of orange crate educa els for further understanding of frac nesota, Van Engen at Cedar Falls, tion." Nevertheless, let us not decry tions and for the development of prin- 66 THE CORTLAND ALUMNI, FEBRUARY 1948 6. Usefulness of processes, e e (V — Iowa, Spitzer at The University of four through six, must assume respon mult.) ' -s- W - np Is Iowa, and Sueltz at Cortland, New sibility for certain definite learnings in 7. Comparisons of decimals. Otherwise the pupil 8. Comparisons of fractions and decimals York, are among those writing and each school year. 9. Relationships of measures, (smaller it, € experimenting in this movement. You is likely to be permanently weak. more, etc.) " 10. Knowledge of time, calendar, and measures' will find some of their contributions Arithmetic is sequential and cumula facts. listed in the annotated bibliography tive to a degree not found in any 11. Number relationships in processes other field. We owe it to the pupil to at the end of this article. Judgments: Currently work is proceeding on the see that while he is in the school he has 1. Judgments of size, e.g., 5j/£ inch pencil the best counsel and teaching that we 2. Judgment of shape in relation to volume measurement of the broader aspects 3. Judgments concerning fractional relations of Elementary School Mathematics. are able to give him. It is not enough pictorially. merely to let him be amused and talk 4. Judgments of economic principles, e.g Cortland graduates may be interested "supply and price". ' to know that the pioneer work in this about things. He should learn with 5. Judgments of amount needed for given number of people. field was done at Cortland and other certainty those things that an intelli 6.