[tt] [silk] A Young Lady's Illustrated (Math) Primer

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Udhay Shankar N <udhay at pobox.com> -----

From: Udhay Shankar N <udhay at pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:18:10 +0530
To: silklist at lists.hserus.net
Subject: [silk] A Young Lady's Illustrated (Math) Primer
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.1.0
Reply-To: silklist at lists.hserus.net

http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/08/winniecooper_QA

The actress who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, Danica 
McKellar, is a self-proclaimed math advocate for girls who might 
otherwise shy away from a subject that Barbie once famously described 
as "hard."

McKellar's math book for junior high girls, called Math Doesn't Suck: 
How to Survive Middle-School Math and not Break a Nail, will be at 
bookstores Thursday. It has the look and feel of a teen magazine, but 
puts heavy emphasis on fractions and pre-algebra.

Graduating summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics, 
McKellar is also co-author of a 
<http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/files/mckellar_proof.pdf>published 
proof. She has testified before Congress on math education and served 
as a substitute teacher.

Each chapter includes clear explanations that make manipulating 
numbers sound easy. "A reciprocal of a fraction is found by flipping 
it upside down. If you want the reciprocal of a mixed number or a 
whole number, just convert it to an improper fraction, and then flip 
it!" or "Going back and forth between percents and decimals is very 
easy. All you need to do is take away the % sign, then move the 
decimal point two places -- that's it!"

The book includes horoscopes, testimonials, cute doodles and quotes 
from girls. Word problems are brought to life with descriptions of 
lipstick, beads, cookies and similarly girly examples that might make 
the feminist in some women cringe. In the interview below, McKellar 
explains why being a math whiz and a girly girl are not mutually 
exclusive. Wired News spoke to her by phone from her home in Los Angeles.

<snip>
-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))


----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE