Diving into uncharted waters




One of my major projects is to create a course that is co-taught between a math teacher and a shop teacher. I grew up working with tools, building cars, and general making anything with my hands. My parents always told me there is nothing you can't do, you just need to learn to do it. My father was big into this, he had me build my own car when I was young, including painting it.

Today we don't do that as much in our society. We have this in grained passion to send all of our student to a 4 year university and then off to some high paying corporate job. This is an unrealistic view of the world. even if you are destined to be the CEO of the next big thing, maybe you should also be able to fix a chair, or tune up your lawn mower.




I truly think that there is a strong need for true 3D problem solving. Students need to work with their hands and apply the math they learn. So in order to do this I want to begin the revolution, with a course that provides the classic mathematics along with the hands on, real experiences that life will offer. I will be documenting the process as well as I can. (Remember I am a mathematician).




Step one will be to outline what the mathematics course would look like in a standard format. I will then modify the course to suit a more fluid pathway with the labs ingrained into the lesson.

I will be endeavoring to create these lessons and labs as I go. No promises.

 I will also have some accompanying video to show some of these labs from my shop.

Don Biery

The ShopMonger