13 Rules That Expire Summary

“13 Rules That Expire” by Karen S. Karp, Sarah B. Bush, and Barbara J. Dougherty, is a thought-provoking read because, for one thing, students do not actually know that these thirteen rules perish until someone notifies us. When I first read this article, it came to me as a bit of a shock. This is an article that all math teachers should read before teaching in a classroom. This article is about the rules that teachers use to teach math to younger students and how those rules will expire before they graduate from junior high school. Many teachers struggle with getting their students to understand math. Math is often one of the hardest subjects to learn. Teachers know rules that can help students, but often they forget that those rules become more nuanced than presented.

Often enough teachers come into the education field not knowing that what they teach will affect the students in the future. This article is about how these thirteen rules are taught as ‘tricks’ to make math easier for the students in elementary school. What teachers do not remember is these the ‘tricks’ will soon confuse the students as they expand their knowledge. These ‘tricks’ confuse the students because they expire without the students knowing. Not only does the article informs about the rules that expire, but also the mathematical language that soon expire. There are multiple examples and graphs within the article to demonstrate why and how these rules and mathematical vocabulary expires. “13 Rules that expire” will also notify the teachers on how they can teach student math long term instead of short