The Psychology of ArithmeticThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
The Psychology of Arithmetic
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Arithmetic -- Study and teaching
8 6 9 9 16
- - - - --
4 3 8 4 8
11 7 13 8 6
-- - -- - -
4 5 8 5 6
Write the missing figures:--
6 2 8 1 2
- = - - = - -- = - - = -- - = -
8 4 4 2 10 5 5 10 3 6
Write the missing numerators:--
1
- = -- - -- - -- - --
2 12 8 10 4 16 6 14
1
- = -- - -- - -- -- --
3 12 9 18 6 15 24 21
1
- = -- -- - -- -- -- --
4 12 16 8 24 20 28 32
1
- = -- -- -- -- -- -- --
5 10 20 15 25 40 35 30
2
- = -- -- -- - -- -- -
3 12 18 21 6 15 24 9
3
- = - -- -- -- -- -- --
4 8 16 12 20 24 32 28
Find the products. Cancel when you can:--
5 11 2
-- × 4 = -- × 3 = - × 5 =
16 12 3
7 8 1
-- × 8 = - × 15 = - × 8 =
12 5 6
SIGNIFICANCE FOR RELATED ACTIVITIES
The use of bodily action, social games, and the like was discussed in
the section on original tendencies. "Significance as a means of securing
other desired ends than arithmetical learning itself" is therefore our
next topic. Such significance can be given to arithmetical work by using
that work as a means to present and future success in problems of
sports, housekeeping, shopwork, dressmaking, self-management, other
school studies than arithmetic, and general school life and affairs.
Significance as a means to future ends alone can also be more clearly
and extensively attached to it than it now is.
Whatever is done to supply greater strength of motive in studying
arithmetic must be carefully devised so as not to get a strong but wrong
motive, so as not to get abundant interest but in something other than
arithmetic, and so as not to kill the goose that after all lays the
golden eggs--the interest in intellectual activity and achievement
itself. It is easy to secure an interest in laying out a baseball
diamond, measuring ingredients for a cake, making a balloon of a certain
capacity, or deciding the added cost of an extra trimming of ribbon for
one's dress. The problem is to _attach_ that interest to arithmetical
learning. Nor should a teacher be satisfied with attaching the interest
as a mere tail that steers the kite, so long as it stays on, or as a
sugar-coating that deceives the pupil into swallowing the pill, or as an
anodyne whose dose must be increased and increased if it is to retain
its power. Until the interest permeates the arithmetical activity itself
our task is only partly done, and perhaps is made harder for the next
time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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