Skemp article response:

Skemp Response

        This article reminded me of the students that I assisted with at Kumon tutoring centre.  I was hired to assist in high level math, roughly from grade 8 to university first year.  Kumon reinforces the Socratic method of teaching mathematics and assistants should only help with a ‘hands on’ approach if the student has not been able to answer the question correctly within roughly three attempts.  Thus, each student was quite independent when it came to self practice and understanding.  My method of assisting the students was to try and make them understand the relation of the concepts with the previous curriculum that they have learned, that way in the future; recalling this topic and how to solve it would be faster for themselves.  Of course, some students would understand and apply what I suggested to them really quickly, but they would also forget it by the next day.  Hence, retention of important relational mathematics was lost just as quickly as they understood it. 

        I do agree with this article that relational mathematics is probably more beneficial for students who are learning mathematics.  However, there is always the issue of being too time consuming for everyone to understand.  I wonder if someone will eventually publish a high school mathematics textbook that is both efficient and fun, but emphasizes on the concepts explaining the formulas and calculations.