Monday, January 28, 2008

teaching with poker

I am watching a Cobert Report rerun where he is interviewing the Harvard Professor who believes playing poker is a great teaching tool. I think he has a very great point, although we do need to consider the ramifications of gambling addition.

However, take away the losing one's life savings, and you do have to admit that there is a lot of math in card games.

We teach kids (think first graders) how to play a game called 'make ten' where we take turns turning over number cards until a player turns over a card that can be added together with the other cards on the table to make 10. And when kids have mastered the concept of making ten? Increase the number to 15, 20, or... 21? Does this sound like I'm teaching kids black jack? Sometimes I wonder if math workshop is really just casino training.

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