Elsewhere, I have deplored the fact that, IN EVERY FIELD, we are TACTICS RICH, STRATEGY POOR! I claim that this shows up the most in MATH CLASSES.

We've long vacillated between the EXTREMES OF THEORY AND OF PRACTICE. We tried "The New Math" -- which I opposed in 1957-8. partly because of content, very much because of neglect in preparing teachers and parents for it. Then we went into a "Back-to-Basics" movement. There's plenty of evidence that, under this program, STUDENTS CAN CALCULATE, BUT CANNOT SOLVE RESAL=LIFE PROBLEMS. ITEM: American student teams do poorly in Problem-solving Competitions against "foreign"student teams.

I compare the typical American student to the little bird in the TV "Flinstones" Cartoon: put its bill down on the stone record and it can play the "music". Put a student's beak down on the beginng of a problem and maybe he/she can solve, but otherwise the student doesn'nt know how to begin. And we can send a beak-placer out in the Real World with every graduated student!

I've long proposed DIVIDING THE TIME FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING CLASS INTO DAYS DEVOTED TO THE STRATEGY OF PROBLEM-SOLVING and DAYS DEVOTED TO THE TACTICS OF PROBLEM-SOLVING.

On DAYS DEVOTED TO THE STRATEGY OF PROBLEM-SOLVING, allow students to use computers, calculators, tables -- anything to facilitate THE TACTICS OF PROBLEM-SOLVING, so that students will not get lost in the wilderness of calculation, while LEARNING STRATEGY.

On DAYS DEVOTED TO THE TACTICS OF PROBLEM-SOLVING, take away computers, and such, requiring the students to perform on pencil and paper. And make it clear to the students that this action also trains them to make sure THEY ARE ASKING THE COMPUTER THE QUESTION THEY THINK THEY ARE ASKING.

And the STRATEGIES and ANSATZES sketched herein can be of use in training them.