"Are you ready for some football?"Tonight marks the beginning of the 2009 NFL season as the Pittsburgh Steelers play host to the Tennessee Titans at 8:30 pm on FOX. As the season unfolds, a number of sixth graders will have a vested interest in the performance of certain NFL players as they compete for the 1st ever Team 6 Fantasy Football Championship. By volunteering to participate in the Team 6 Fantasy Football League, they will be actively engaged in informational text, statistical analysis, data-based projections, and collaborative decision-making. In so doing, they'll be learning some of the skills necessary for success in the workplace while having a whole lot of fun.
Other teachers across the nation are taking advantage of the widespread interest in fantasy football by integrating it into their curriculum. Below is an excerpt from a recent article posted on TIME magazine's website -
"The fantasy craze has even crept into our educational system. Dan Flockhart, a former middle-school math teacher in California, designed a fantasy-based curriculum that thousands of teachers are using in their classrooms. His workbook, Fantasy Football and Mathematics, encourages students to draft teams and compute points according to formulas that incorporate basic math concepts like decimals, fractions and negative integers. But before you conclude that this trend is the final sign that American education is doomed, know this: fantasy math may be working. According to preliminary research by the University of Mississippi, most teachers who use Flockhart's program are reporting higher levels of math enthusiasm — and better grades — among students."
- Sean Gregory, "Fantasy Football: Is It Going to Our Heads?", TIME.com, August 31, 2009
Mr. Reed
lindsay_reed@hempfieldsd.org
