NOTES ON US COINS cents name color face says 1 penny copper Lincoln "one cent" 5 nickle silver Jefferson 10 dime silver FDR Roosevelt "one dime" 25 quarter dollar silver Washington "quarter dollar" 50 half dollar silver Kennedy The canadian penny I have gives the name of the head (Elizabeth II), and the number of cents (1)! From: "Dan & Judy Konieczko" [Arthur Hu] visited the Lake Washington School District testing office to take a look at the ITBS test (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) to figure out why my 2nd grader "only" got 75th percentile when he's good for 95 in reading and he seems to know everything there is in the 2nd grade math textbook I have at home. It is a high security test, I could not write down notes, but some things did strike me. This is what I noticed: - Money problems requires discriminating between the unmarked side of black and white coin photographs distinguished only by the heads of Washington (25), Lincoln (1), and whoever is on the side of the nickel or dime (can somebody help me, who ARE these guys??) US money is NOT marked as to value on either side in numbers. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This post really struck my humorous side this morning and indicates so very clearly the great schism that exists in our system today. The "parents" as represented by the people who are writing the tests have a certain expectation about the basics that they perceive are being taught in the schools - the US monetary system for instance. As a student many years ago, it was not difficult for me to know that Thomas Jefferson meant five cents and FDR meant ten cents (and that five and ten cents really meant something, too). I had no trouble because my history and social studies classes gave me a thorough background in both of these historical figures. Furthermore, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson was always found somewhere prominently in the school, alongside the pictures of G. Washington and A. Lincoln. In many schools today these icons of US history have been removed from the classrooms and many references to them in the written books have been all but eliminated. It is no wonder that students have a difficult relating the pictures on the money to any reason to even care why they are there. There is definitely a division of learning expectation on the parts of those who write the tests and those who do the classroom teaching. Until this is recognized and a common understanding is found (sorry Arthur, I'm talking about some basic core standards) about what is or is not important, then I fear that more stories like this will be the norm. Dan