Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.
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I stumbled across Dan's work (http://blog.mrmeyer.com/) through another standards-based grading advocate Shawn Cornally (http://101studiostreet.com/wordpress/).
[I am neither of these authors and I'm not randomly plugging sites.]
I have found their sites and thoughts rather interesting. These sites have explained -- in much better words than I can do -- on why I was so frustrated with both high school and college classes (particularly undergraduate). Having sat through 10 credits of calculus-based physics makes me want to scream, now, at just how crappy they were and how little long-term understanding I pulled out of them for the goal was not what Dan & Shawn & other SBG-advocates, uh, advocate.
I hope to see education move in their direction.