MATHEMATICAL "DNA": WHY STUDENTS ARE "UNDERHOURISHED"
Biochemists say that 22 amino acids create protein for nourishment and growth via programming by 4 dioxiribonucleic acids (DNA): -- that is ATCG.

 (The "O.J. Simpson Case" has familiarized the public with DNA as indicator of different humans.)

 My Thesis: The "protein" and "amino acids" for educational growth can be programmed by mathematical "DNA":
 
 

-- restated, ATCG: "Count! Connect! Choose! Conserve!". 
                  ARITHMETIC ("Count!")
                          /\
                         /  \
                        /    \ 
                       /      \
 TOPOLOGY ("Connect!")/MATH-DNA\COMBINATORICS ("Choose!")
                      \        /
                       \      /
                        \    /
                         \  /
                          \/
                  GROUP THEORY ("Conserve!")
Without proper teaching of ATCG, school children are "undernourished".

 Also, schools could save some of the money spent on science laboratories by using activities and structures suggested by ATCG to learn STRATEGY and TACTICS, now usually neglected. The science labs could then concentrate upon their specific subject matter, without "dereliction of duty".

 Furthermore, an ATCG Laboratory could motivate children to discover the rich PATTERNING of ARITHMETIC, TOPOLOGY, COMBINATORICS, GROUP THEORY -- and perhaps begin to realize how this PATTERNING might provide models for their own lives.
 

MATH-DNA: FIRST COMPONENT - ARITHMETIC ("Count!")

("Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the right answer", poet Carl Sandburg.)

 The teaching of ARITHMETIC in elementary school fails in many ways:

  1. The rich relationship of arithmetical concepts, operations, algorithms should easily control the subject , endowing users with many diverse ways of solving a problem. This allows each student to understand and use arithmetic in his/her individual way. But this relationship is not taught. So, teachers, children, citizens all (incorrectly!) believe "there's just one way to solve an arithmetic problem'. And performance suffers throughout America!
  2. Arithmetic is taught by "top-down" quasi-axiomatic methods (which fragment "The Three R's"!), as if the subject were brought by the stork, or handed down like the "Ten Commandments" from Mount Sinai. This ignores a "bottom-up" method going back to the ancient Pythagoreans. For generatics-based arithmetic unifies "The Three R's", since language-learning and arithmetic-learning mutually support each other. ("Word-bone connected to the Number-bone!") In essence, it projects the "connectivity" spoken of in the previous item, providing many ways of solving an arithmetic problem. And it would be of advantage to many girls -- often are superior to boys in the language arts. But generatic arithmetic isn't taught! Teachers, students, citizens alike are ignorant of its long-time existence and great value.
  3. Arithmetic is not taught so that ideas for numerical algebra, analytic geometry, trigonometry, the differential and integral calculus, etc. are planted (as my genratics program does) for later development, resulting in fragmented mathematical education. Hence, the first component of our mathematical "DNA" is not effectively available for "nourishing" our students, providing useful workers for our economy.
  4. Mathematicians have a name for "higher arithmetic". It is called "Number Theory". Its history is replete with challenging problems that involve fascinating number patterns. This could motivate the ARITHMETIC as trainimg for teaching STRATEGY and TACTICS. But this is another neglected aspect of arithmetic teaching.