Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 10:22am PT
|
Same goes for epipens. What if I don't administer meds correctly? Can I be sued?
No. You are not a health care professional being paid to provide that specific service. All must apply.
|
|
Festus
Social climber
Enron by the Sea
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 10:22am PT
|
Ken M, I agree with you completely! As good and as dedicated as the majority of my kids' teachers have been to date, which of those teachers will be the one, (or if we're lucky "ones") that makes that huge difference in opening up an entire world, even a passion for, a subject or endeavor that will shape and inspire the rest of their lives? I suspect there will be one or two, but you're right that that is a far rarer thing than it should be in a perfect world. As for that one bad teacher at the wrong time, all too true that it can have a devastating effect and--at the very least--shut down an entire subject and countless fields of endeavor as future options for a kid. That's tragic, yet I see no system and no possible way that you can ever root out every single teacher capable of causing that train wreck in a child's educational journey. Yes, I've seen a couple of those teachers, my oldest son has actually had two, though only one he won't entirely recover from. It's going to take a truly great teacher to now bring back his interest in learning Spanish. On the other hand, his other truly bad teacher (clearly "tenure first, students second") was a Geometry instructor, and full recovery in that subject happened the very next year (the school year just ended) in the hands of a truly great math teacher. We're so lucky that he landed in that class on the heels of his only truly bad math experience. Yep, the great teachers are a priceless commodity and a system that finds, nurtures and inspires more like that is the best possible investment we can ever make.
But my original point was simply that most teachers, in my experience and YES at our undoubtedly higher performing schools, are good and dedicated. And I'm talking about public schools here, schools in a huge district that has some significant problems overall, but in our neighborhood the public schools have tremendous community support and backing and it makes a difference. I wouldn't call Mira Mesa a poor area of town, but it's certainly a far cry from an affluent community here. Largely working class, its public schools feed into a high school that puts more kids into UC schools than any high school in the district. My point is only that it can be done because I've seen it done here.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 10:50am PT
|
This was the EXACT same premise that got American industry in such trouble, and pushed the Japanese to the front.
not what I think... the premise was that "American industry" was some how exceptional, and that it was superior because it was American.
It sort of looked past the devastation visited on most of the world by World War II, certainly all of the "first world" was affected, with the exception of North America. From a commercial point of view the United States benefitted greatly, its competition from foreign activities was literally destroyed. The universities benefitted from the emigration of the ousted European intelligentsia, and the fact that these universities were intact and functioning served as a beacon for the world.
In this greatly tilted playing field the United States somehow thought that that exceptional quality was something else...
...now, with a world recovered, the United States faces stiff competition from abroad, and is searching to find out what happened, why don't our assumption of "American exceptionalism" work any more? Did we loose some essential "American" quality?
Oddly, the rather enlightened post-war policies, to help rebuild the world after the devastation of war, helped put the international partners on a footing to be able to compete with the United States. It was thought, and probably correctly, that binding the international community in mutual dependence would prevent the types of conflict that resulted in world war.
Yet we now bemoan the lost domination of the United States competitive edge. The response should be to take up the challenge and to become more competitive. Upping our educational standards is part of the response.
It's either that or learn Chinese...
|
|
raymond phule
climber
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 01:04pm PT
|
At first I also found the huffington post problem confusing but then I realized that the handwritten text were not included in the problem.
I really don't see any problem with that exercise. It shouldn't really be that difficult to understand and solve for someone that know how to subtract numbers with the help of a number line.
|
|
raymond phule
climber
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 01:32pm PT
|
I can't solve many of those problems because I don't know what for example a number disc is (but I can guess).
But is that really a problem? I am sure that the kids learn about those concepts in school and that it shouldn't take a parent much time to learn them.
I don't know if this way of teaching math (arithmetic) is good or bad but it clearly is about trying to learn the kids the basics of math. So that the kids don't need to use a computer to do calculations or use a basic rule that they don't understand.
Should this not be allowed because the parents learned it in another way?
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2014 - 01:32pm PT
|
This was the EXACT same premise that got American industry in such trouble, and pushed the Japanese to the front.
not what I think... the premise was that "American industry" was some how exceptional, and that it was superior because it was American.
Comrade Ed, I didn't mean to imply that what I'd cited was the only wrong premise....as you point out, this is somewhat complex.
However, I have been a believer in American Exceptionalism. Just not in the way most people mean it. I do not believe there is anything exceptional about Americans. I'm not positive of what it is. I have thought that it might be the nature of our higher education.
BTW, I've attended a number of lectures about the progress of the Chinese, and am now fairly convinced that they are a very long way from competing with us on the creative level. The requirement of uniformity and non-deflection from the mean, greatly limits creativity, which I think underlies exceptionalism.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 11:54am PT
|
I would not underestimate the creative ability of any people...
...the cultural connections that prevent moving into the future are not limited to the Chinese, they are alive and well in our very own country, and on this same topic, math education, in fact, all education...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html
interestingly, the NYTimes magazine today stole wbw's thread...
an excellent if depressing article.
We are the innovators, and we are also the most resistant to our own innovations.
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 12:10pm PT
|
So true, Ed. Deming was the perfect example of that rejection. Bill Gates another.
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 01:19pm PT
|
Thinking back to math class (I SUCKED at math in elementary school, wiped the floor with the remedial stuff in high school, and now hold a B.S. in maths), it was most definitely the context of the classroom that did it for me, but not in the sense of the lesson being "boring" because the kids who were good at math clearly LOVED math. I think math is the kind of thing where different people are "ready" to learn different things about math at different times. As a result, most kids have the experience at some point of being presented with math they are not "ready" to learn yet, so they don't get it, and they are told it is a problem with them, that they just "don't get it". This just makes their brains turn off when it's math time. At least that is how it was for me.
My experience as well jammer.
I was reluctant to join this convo until you posted that.
I sucked at math in school. As soon as I could stop taking those classes, I did.
In fact, as soon as I could stop taking any classes at all, I did. I have no post HS education, save a few writing and ethics classes at a community college.
I now find myself in a math intensive career.
I'm amazed by math! I'm learning.
I realize now that I didn't suck at math, I sucked at school.
|
|
Festus
Social climber
Enron by the Sea
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 02:01pm PT
|
"I realize now that I didn't suck at math, I sucked at school."
Great point. It wasn't my experience, but it was damn sure the experience of a couple of my friends and my sister in law. All very bright, just not good at K-12 school, all in careers now that require an extensive amount of math, which they learned on the job. For them, the school environment didn't trigger their inherent abilities but something about the workplace opportunities did. I see kids that don't do that well in school but who have an excellent work ethic otherwise. I don't worry about those kids (not that you can't develop the solid work ethic after your school years), but I do worry about the kid who is good in school but lacks that work ethic.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 02:41pm PT
|
I think math is the kind of thing where different people are "ready" to learn different things about math at different times (jammer)
I can't seem to find a reference, but I once read (Piaget?) that the concepts of calculus were not appropriate for most children until after the age of fifteen. There are, of course, spectacular exceptions.
I first encountered and taught the "new math" to freshmen at Murray State in Kentucky during the mid 1960s. The first chapter in the college algebra text we used was more an introduction to mathematical thought, describing the axiomatic structure of the subject, providing examples, then requiring students to develop several common features of algebra. The top ten percent or so of my classes - those students who were blessed with a native mathematical and reasoning talent - seemed to enjoy the exercises, but the remainder of the class lost interest quickly and found this systematic, theoretical approach both incomprehensible and repellent. I like to think I did my best and that I was not an inferior teacher, but perhaps I didn't use appropriate strategies and tactics. My fellow instructors had similar experiences, however.
My own secondary education was deeply influenced by what was then called "the new math." It had a profound effect on many in our class, which now includes a bunch of Ph.D. scientists and mathematicians (rgold)
I seem to recall you went to a very elite high school, Rich. Am I remembering correctly?
|
|
nah000
climber
canuckistan
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 02:47pm PT
|
Ed H: really interesting ideas regarding post world war 2 american exceptionalism...
thanks.
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 02:54pm PT
|
JefeI now find myself in a math intensive career.
I'm amazed by math! I'm learning.
I realize now that I didn't suck at math, I sucked at school.
nice comment!
I didn't have any problem with getting an A in all kinda math.
I have a problem with time, so that's the schools fault.
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 07:07pm PT
|
I seem to recall you went to a very elite high school, Rich. Am I remembering correctly?
A well-regarded NYC private high school, yes.
The kids in my class where more than ready for something beyond a diet of unexamined recipes for how to do things without any real explanations for why anything did or did not work and how various aspects of the curriculum were related.
Whether this diet was only for an "elite," or whether it held out the promise of finding the hidden elite in less selective environments, or whether in fact it would have benefited all students is something I don't think we know, because as I suggested, the national teaching corps may not have been up to the task and of course even then there was resistance from parents who couldn't do their kid's homework. I personally was fortunate to have marvelous teachers, people who set me on my life's course, and parents who celebrated their inability to do my homework as a sign of the kind of progress they fervently hoped for their children.
As for your experience with the large spectrum of approaches labeled "new math" John, I think that there was at least one problem with some of those curricula, and it was that the people who designed the curriculum confused the mathematical concept of "proof" with the developmental notion of "understanding." They thought that if you developed the subject on a strictly logical basis, the way it might be done in a book on the foundations of mathematics, then you would have conveyed an understanding of the field.
Since those days, developmental psychologists have fleshed out a much more nuanced model for understanding, one in which strictly logical justification plays a far less central role---something mathematicians have known probably since Euclid started the whole axiomatic business.
With young children, as you mentioned, work started by Piaget (who, as it turns out, was not exactly right about a number of things) suggests that kids go through various stages of logical development (Piaget made these stages analogous to the acquisition of the axioms for a group). Children don't reach his version of full logical maturity until their teenage years, which would mean that approaches based on at least certain aspects of logical reasoning would be doomed to failure with younger learners, who Piaget showed are capable of accepting contradictory observations without any sense that something is amiss.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 07:55pm PT
|
When I started out as an assistant professor at the U of So Colo in 1971 we used a similar text, to my annoyance. However, there was a humorous aspect to that experience: we had three retired army colonels on staff who taught beginning courses and one day early in the semester one of them stormed into my office and said "What the hell is this stuff!?"
;>)
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 08:07pm PT
|
Samuel Butler is reported to have said in debate, "Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."
It seems to me that mathematical proof has, in many cases, this quality. The logic, written so that it is verifiable, tells you that the conclusion is valid. Whether even carefully following the prover's logical steps confers an understanding of the result is an open question, one that some of the new math curricula begged.
Of course part of the difficulty has to do with understanding what is meant by understanding.
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 08:21pm PT
|
It is amazing that we have gotten this far without the following classic take on the subject by Tom Lehrer in 1959. Sadly, I couldn't find a video that actually showed the performance, but the voice is his.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 08:27pm PT
|
I went to Claremont High School, while remarkable in some respects, a public high school in a college town, perhaps the most remarkable aspect when I atended was the "college scheduling" of classes... our only attendance requirement was to be on campus from the time of our first class to the end of our last... and we didn't have a day's worth of solid classes...
that left a lot of time to talk to each other, students, and teachers when you could find them... our days were not totally structured, and certainly not totally in class, so we had time to explore various interests, to discuss "stuff" with each other, and to pursue various academic interests.
But I would not generalize from my own education. First, my parents somehow put in my mind that my education was largely my own responsibility, and second that I was to respect my teachers, they were an important resource to my education.
All aspect of math were fun to me, and an exploration, an adventure, into some really strange place. But that didn't mean I found math easy, it was a difficulty I was willing to endure because of the amazing things that came from mastering it...
I can't attribute my interest to an individual teacher, or even my parents (my mother had a high school education and my father wasn't really any help, for some reason last time I recall asking for help on homework the 3rd grade).
The point is that you have to work at it to get it, it's not easy. I can't imagine that I'd have had any motivation to even try if my parents hadn't supported my teachers, and supported me. There was some vague belief that education was a key to a future career, but even that was oddly abstract and indefinite. I did want to be a physicist, and I did become one... but all that has happened in that journey was totally unanticipated.
Probably not a good example... so I don't hold myself up as one.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
|
But that didn't mean I found math easy, it was a difficulty I was willing to endure because of the amazing things that came from mastering it...
It never flowed serenely into my head, either. That made it an attractive challenge all the way from elementary school to PhD. During my career at USC (asst prof 1971, prof 1980, retired 2000) I tried to keep that fascinating challenge functional by always having a modest research project to balance with teaching. I still have little projects in my dotage.
I was hired as the analyst and almost immediately given responsibility for the dreaded senior year advanced calculus two-semester course, then other courses: intro to complex variables and intro to topology, plus any analysis courses required in a master's program shared with the physical sciences. The first few years there were a small number of NSF-sponsored math ed majors required to take advanced calculus; they were excellent students and received A's. As time passed this funding expired and the quality of math ed (ME) majors declined to the point that for much of my tenure there were ongoing arguments for and against these majors being required to take this course, with one of my colleagues with a PhD in ME from Michigan pushing for the requirement, while another with an EdD trying to reduce difficulty levels for an undergraduate degree. In general ME majors were weaker, sometimes dramatically so, than regular math majors. There were a few, however, who were quite proficient and were very successful as HS math teachers. One became superintendent for the whole district. We also had some good physics majors taking these senior-level courses - one heads up a lab somewhere in CA.
Just idle thoughts . . .
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2014 - 11:29pm PT
|
Nobody who pursues math far enough finds it easy, any more than anyone who is serious about bouldering, sport climbing, trad climbing, alpine climbing, etc. finds them easy.
Math isn't easy, and I think that it can only be made "easy" by obscuring from the students' view all the things that are really there that make it hard. At which point, one could argue we aren't teaching math, we are just programming the audience, who, as it turns out, will need to be deprogrammed later on if they are to successfully pursue advanced studies.
The fact of the matter is that humans don't seem to be interested in things that are easy. If they were, the baskets in basketball would be five feet off the ground and three feet in diameter, and I could go on through every sport and game, changing things so that all of them were easy, in which case almost no one would be interested. The Owen-Spaulding route would be the only route on the Grand Teton, and there would be no routes on El Cap.
I suspect that one of the deep problems with elementary math instruction is that many parents and teachers think it is supposed to be easy when it isn't, probably by mistaking familiarity for simplicity.
When people learn to climb, they learn an expanding collection of strategies for dealing with difficulty. We don't seem to have managed very well in doing the analogous thing in math and science education.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!