What a great story in this Jay Mathews article: Lisa Suben, a fifth-grade math teacher in DC, wrote her own math curriculum for low-income children. One comment in particular stuck out to me: “Understanding is built by making connections between as many strands of knowledge as possible.”
Sticky ideas make use of what’s already in the heads of the audience. Sticky ideas make reference to ideas you already know, they tap into different kinds of memory, they use familiar story structures. There aren’t many details in the story about specific elements in the curriculum — maybe when we get a chance we’ll call up Lisa and ask her more. Sounds fascinating.
