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Fantastic post. As a Primary teacher posts like yours help keep me on the right track. I used to struggle to include work on generalising and pattern identification and description and did so using the inductive process you described above. I did it because I was told children should be doing it but was never satisfied that it served any purpose beyond keeping children busy. I have not done it in a long while, and have instead turned to teaching core maths skills. I have found children taught the key skills are more engaged with maths and believe they can be successful in it. Nevertheless, I have continued to be nervous I am neglecting something by staying away from the above. Writers critical of progressivist education such as yourself have been crucial in helping me improve my teaching, growing my own knowledge and helping me avoid the empty nonsense promulgated by progressivist education activists.

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