From: donna ellis <donnaellis@oponline.net>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2004112310:17:59
Subject: front end "guess" oops estimation

	My 8 1/2 yr old daughter just finished FEE, after mastering rounding
in the thousands.  Naturally, she is confused by the conflict between
the 2 approaches. 

I never experienced anything so absolutely insane as this purported
skill.  No wonder why every kid in the developed nations beat the hell
out of US kids in math.  

Why is FEE ridiculous?  Easy.  Take for eg, 149 + 299 + 875.  If you
use FEE, you are so off base (answer 1100).  Why not simply round to
the nearest hundred (answer 1300).  (Actually, the precise answer is
1323.  Now, comparing stradegies ( or should a say some way out guess
and a stradegy, isn't 1300 closer to 1323 than 1100??????  I just hope
and pray that when I officially become a senior, I will have patience
for the cashier, the bank teller, stockbroker and accountant who had
the misfortune learning and relying on FEE.   BTW, I'm not a
mathematician, but I learned how to add, subtract, multiply & divide
before any complex math was taught.  In 1st grade, for a brief time, a
bead board was used to show physically how it works.  The teacher &
school expected that the kids would quickly comprehend and then it was
off to the arithmetic tables.  Interested, a large majority of the
kids moved along without any difficulty.  Why don't we just have high,
but reasonable expectation for our children, instead of crippling them
with senseless stradegies based upon some esoteric idea that we all
suffer from some brain malfuction.  Teach our kids to set high goals
and rise to academic success.  A final note, what about letting a kid
explore the wonder of numbers and discover their own stragedies.  They
actually may do better than being spoon fed.

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