Reaction to Slavit Article

I really enjoyed the article by David Slavit. I think it was admirable that he wanted to create some abstract reasoning skills in younger students. The article also underlined the importance of discovering learning in mathematics. However it also highlighted how difficult it can be to allow time for discovery. The activities outlined are wonderful and allow students to form their own ideas about the principles of triangles and polygons. However the activities also show how much class time would be taken up by such activities. As outlined it would take several days to cover the congruence and similarity theorems. Unfortunately, teachers simply don't have the time to cover very many topics in this way. However I think it could be very beneficial to choose a few topics to cover in this manner because it allows students to make much stronger connections with the material.