The Hechinger Report – Emily Richmond
“Standing in front of a smartboard, 5-year-old Kaleb Eckerfield touches an icon of a storm cloud with raindrops. He drags it with his finger to the empty space under the day’s date, creating an instant weather report. “What do we know about how many sunny and rainy days we’ve had this month?” asks Andrea Todd, the teacher of Kaleb’s kindergarten class at Hampton Primary School, one of the nine schools located on the Fort Bragg Army Post in North Carolina. “They’re equal,” Kaleb says, pointing to the illustrations. “One, two. Two of each.” The next task awaits: a math problem requiring him to add up a string of six black dots, and then subtract two more dots from that total. Kaleb studies the equation, and then looks up on the wall at a poster of a notched line marked 1-40. He carefully writes “4” on the board. “How did you decide to write that number here?” Todd asks, with nothing in her tone or body language to indicate whether Kaleb is right.”(more)