Everyday Reality

An interesting conversation took place a few weeks back.

I asked the combo class teacher, "Are you guys doing fractions like the other classes yet?" I wanted to demonstrate the relationships between the lengths of musical notes.

"We just got a taste of it this week."

"Okay.  I'll do my demonstration, and give them a little more exposure."  And we proceeded to show how an eighth rest is half of a quarter rest, a quarter rest is half of a half rest, and a sixteenth rest is half of an eighth rest.  At which point, the recess bell rang.  

I was packing up, the teacher told me, "Yeah, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, fractions appeared in our text."

"Are you guys using Everyday Mathematics?"  I knew very well they were, but I was being polite.

"Yup."

"Huh, I've read about it, and uh...."

"Yeah, see my eye twitching."

"I get it."

"My best math student told me yesterday, that he didn't get all this dividing fraction stuff."

I left shaking my head.