A pharmacopoeia is a medical book containing an official list of medicinal drugs, together with their efficacies and side-effects, along with tested procedures. The physician doesn't have to remember all of this. But imagine the public reaction if pysicians said there is only one medicinal drug to deal with a given medical problem!

This is exactly the situation with regard to most mathematical problems. The teacher usually knows only one and offers only one. It may be efficacious for this student and "bad medicine" for that student. (This is the principal source of IATROGENIC MATHEMATICS -- MATH PROBLEMS CREATED BY MATH PROCEDURES, just as IATROGENIC MEDICINE concerns MEDICAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY MEDICAL PROCEDURE. And I claim it is the principal cause of the "learning-cycles" we go through, between extremes such as "The New Math" and "Back to Basics".)

You may find, in educational literature, many articles and papers claimiing that "a significant number of elementary school children" have learned SUBTRACTION by "the take-away method"; but also other articles and papers claiming that "a significant number" have learned from "The Austrian Method"; etc.

(As a volunter tutor at Yorkville Settlement House in New York City, I used 6 different methods for teaching fractions, decimal numbers, and percentages to 6 different students. After each mastered these subjects, each taught the others "the way he learned". Learning that their teacher was not using the textbook procedures, I taught teach them his method so they could translate their answers so that the teacher could understand them.)

A Methodocopaoeia, loaded on a labptop computer -- networked to a mainframe database, when needed -- could enable the teacher-on-the-line to find that method which suited the needs and understanding of the individual student. Online tutorials could "walk" the teacher through any algorithm or procedure.

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I CHALLENGE you to contribute ideas and examples and perhaps software to develop a METHODOCOPOEIA.