I have some serious doubts about this Ginsburg character after reading his EdWeek opinion piece on "Doing Mathematics vs. Understanding Mathematics. "

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coach_gs_teaching_tips/2015/03/doing_math_vs_understanding_math.html

Here's the guy's webpage touting his various accomplishments, including one about being a "hero" in education according to Microsoft (Jeez...)

http://www.ginsburgcoaching.com/Home_Page.html

This guy is apparently some kind of superman when it comes to teaching math in an "urban" setting, too.

Gawd help us all if he ever teaches this crap outside the ghetto.

In this latest entry he tries to show a method of calculating a sixth bowling score so that the average of those scores would be 205 given that the first five scores were already known.

So, basically, the problem is given five numbers, what is the sixth number such that the average of those six numbers equals 205. 

Most people would know that this means the total of the six scores would be 6x205=1230, so
the sixth score would simply be 1230 minus the sum of the first five known scores.

Pretty simple. 

And a good example of clear mathematical reasoning using the fairly simple concept of averages.

His "answer" had me quite stunned for its stupidity when compared to the much simpler method he said (somewhat dismissively) that most of his students (and I, if not totally wasted on some mind altering substance) would use.

He basically turned a fairly simple three step process into about a 10 step process which used addition and subtraction instead of multiplication and subtraction to get an answer. 

Sure he got the same answer, but went all around the problem to do so.  Bad form. Bad math.

Even dumber is the fact that he knew the process the students allegedly would use only had three simple and logical steps while his was much more convoluted and involved computing a "deficit" or "surplus" of each score from the mean as well as keeping a running tally of the summation of those individual "deficits" or "surpluses". 

All kept in a table, no less.  Jeez, talk about analysis paralysis.

The students methods were much more elegant and showed a superior understanding of the material than his did.  I seriously hope that idiots like this are not having a big influence on teaching math in our schools. 

His big "complaint" about the simpler method is that kids might do it without knowing what "mean" means.

Oh, for crying out loud, teacher, TELL THEM WHAT "MEAN" MEANS!  Start by averaging two numbers, if they're that slow.

It certainly makes more sense than your BS method of dancing all around the meaning without making it any clearer.  If anything, YOUR method makes it easier to get the answer without knowing what "mean" or "average" means because most people will tell you that "average" has something to do with SUMMING A BUNCH OF NUMBERS AND DIVIDING THEM BY THE NUMBER OF NUMBERS.

NOT ADDING AND SUBTRACTING "SURPLUSES" AND "DEFICITS" WHILE KEEPING A RUNNING TOTAL IN A TABLE.

That sounds more like something an accountant would do to reconcile a bunch of credits and debits on a spreadsheet.

If I were grading, I'd give his "students" an A and him a C, depending on whether or not I saw him adding and subtracting using his fingers and toes.

Because he is seriously retarded if he thinks his method shows a better understanding of mathematical concepts such as averages.

I guess most teachers nowadays are just so mathematically illiterate that they would actually believe some doofus like this and put him on a pedestal.

This kind of stuff just makes me angry at what passes for "education" today.

And the fact that he labels his stuff  "understanding math" is probably a bit intimidating to those teachers who feel that they probably do not "understand math" well enough to question this BS but who may still feel that his method is cumbersome at best.  And NOT a good example to follow.

Well, I DO "understand math" and he is a doofus for putting kids who may not know any better through this convoluted method.