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Mathematics educators have recognized that although basically a cognitive and intellectual enterprise, learning mathematics is related to children's attitudes toward the subject. Proponents of mathematics reform have emphasized that children need to develop more positive attitudes toward mathematics. A pretest/posttest experimental design study examined the effects of SQUARE ONE TV (SQ1TV), a television series about mathematics aimed at 8- to 12-year-old children, on the problem-solving behavior and attitudes toward mathematics of 240 fifth graders from four public schools in Corpus Christi, Texas. Performance and attitude data were collected from a subgroup of 24 students exposed to 30 SQ1TV programs and from 24 students in a control group having no SQ1TV contact. Reported here are results involving two dimensions of this study, children's motivation to engage with mathematics and their enjoyment of the subject. The implications of the research included the following: (1) motivation and enjoyment were closely related and based largely on arithmetic achievement; (2) children's enjoyment of problem solving focused on the intrinsic aspects of thinking hard and figuring out, rather than on performance concerns; and (3) pretest-posttest change suggest that SQ1TV had a positive impact on children's motivation toward and enjoyment of mathematics. (MDH)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert