The "100s of problems" approach is very British/European/Russian.
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What would help would be if the hundreds of practice problems were interesting in themselves.
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. I disagree. That's asking for candy for every try. Key is to get addicted to method itself, not effects or insights it produces
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Like Mathletics competitors? I think that's asking too much of the method itself.
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I mean, think of any skill you perform daily on easy problems: dialing a phone, touch-typing, crossing the street, making coffee.
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those are easy and limited in scope rather than generative in scope like math methods
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I didn't say lots of easy. That doesn't work for anything. Math training is progressive difficulty usually.
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Oh, in that case I agree — hundreds of *different* problems, each a little harder than the last? That's ideal.
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Montessori is based on the idea that kids choose the right level of difficulty (and area of focus) for them at the moment. Works okay.
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You need guidance, of course, and Montessori provides it, but kids have a lot of internal motivation to learn. Until adolescence.
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Don't have developed opinions on earlier stages. I think kids should play a lot till 12 or so. Far more than they study.
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I'm not sure play and study are so separate, but I'm no expert on teaching, just on how I've learned myself.
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in nature I'd say they're not. In industrial schooling, they've been artificially separated.
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