

UPenn Math Professor: Fractions should be scrapped - raghus
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/mathscience/2008-01-23-fractions_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

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geebee
Fractions vs Decimals was a big debate in my 5th grade classroom. The teacher
asked us, after showing us each way, which one we preferred. The class was
split.

At the time, I thought the debate was just about convenience in hand
calculations - a mistaken notion that seems to be at the core of the link. I
didn't realize how conceptual fractions were until college, though, when I saw
a proof in number theory that the square root of two can't be represented as
the ratio of two integers.

It wasn't until real analysis that I started to understand why "natural"
numbers like pi and euler's constant can't be represented through fractions
(and why this is what you should expect), why factions can be counted but real
numbers can't, and so forth.

Personally, I think kids need to learn fractions to get mentally ready for
this sort of realization... but maybe that's just because that was my path
toward understanding it. On a purely computational level... the symbolic
reasoning needed for algebra and calculus (which isn't just math theory, but
almost everything mathematical) is probably more related to mentally managing
fractions than decimals (the quadratic equation, for example, uses the
dividing line. A decimal representation wouldn't be useful here, would it?)

All in all, kids probably need to understand that most numbers can only be
approximated with fractions and decimals.

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bayareaguy
If students spend less time on fractions, long division and so on then
presumably they will have more time for something else. If I had to offer a
suggestion it would be something that still involves fractions in an applied
setting, like basic ideas of probability and statistics.

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utnick
Its hard if not impossible to describe decimals to a new math student without
using any fraction terminology.

But ya, maybe fraction arithmetic by hand is a little outdated.

