Disturbing info from Charlotte Iserbyt http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu4Sr2gTMlA#t=33
At 20:30 she begins to explain how 1+1=3 in this CC bullshit.
Communist Core
Moderator: Dux
Re: Communist Core
The main problems with math education are bad personnel policies, and the fact that we let people who majored in education decide how math should be taught. (Replace "math" with any other subject and that sentence still works.) The math section of the common core might be stupid, but it's no more or less stupid than the status quo. It's just more uniform. Good teachers will work around it, just as they've been working around the stupidity of state and local authorities for ages.
"The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all."
Re: Communist Core
Jeezus, can't they just put shit up on the webpage?D66 wrote:Disturbing info from Charlotte Iserbyt http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu4Sr2gTMlA#t=33
At 20:30 she begins to explain how 1+1=3 in this CC bullshit.
What's she saying?
Don’t believe everything you think.
Re: Communist Core
The main problem with math education - and education in other subject, IMO, is how teaching programs have changed in the last few decades. About a year ago I had to go to the school meeting with my daughter, it was about the subject selection for years 11 and 12. Each teacher gave a presentation of his subject. I remembered a little incident at Ancient History presentation. The teacher explained that they are going to learn four periods that involved four historical figures (Agrippina, Alexander the Great and two more). For me it was fucked up: I believe you learn history from the beginning to the end: dates, names, wars etc. One of the parents raised his hand and asked, how can you learn Ancient History without learning the history of Ancient Egypt? For me - case closed. BTW, none of my kids - both went to prestigious private schools - can tell meaningful story about Napoleon (not Dynamite) or other significant historical figures. I see the same trend among my registrars: learn the bare minimum to become a specialist, don't waste time for the rest. And then you get questions: whatever happened to medicine...
The whole emphasis in education is from hard work and into shortcuts. You cannot learn literature by reading abridged versions of the classics. Neither can you learn math without memorizing multiplication tables and lots of calculations by hand. Ask an old school engineer what's the cube root of 1600 is - he will give you an approximate answer without problems; their younger colleagues will struggle without a calculator. Bloody hell, in South Africa I impressed the school master by managing to calculate the fees I owed them without a calculator: it was something like $615 for this month, $492 for the last one and you had a credit of $380 from earlier pay. And I suck at math!
Couple of years ago it struck me that my kids never have to learn poetry by heart. When I asked teachers about it the answer was, education is not about mechanical memorization, it's about creativity. Which is stupid. Creative or not, in order to become a better runner you run, mechanically. To develop better memory you have to memorize lots of things. In order to be creative you have to have a database in your head to build creative ideas on.
Education has become too pragmatic, too result oriented. Just like many other areas of life. This, IMO, makes the world less interesting place, and a dumber one. It's all about passing exams now: this assignment for 30%, this for 10% and so on.
The whole emphasis in education is from hard work and into shortcuts. You cannot learn literature by reading abridged versions of the classics. Neither can you learn math without memorizing multiplication tables and lots of calculations by hand. Ask an old school engineer what's the cube root of 1600 is - he will give you an approximate answer without problems; their younger colleagues will struggle without a calculator. Bloody hell, in South Africa I impressed the school master by managing to calculate the fees I owed them without a calculator: it was something like $615 for this month, $492 for the last one and you had a credit of $380 from earlier pay. And I suck at math!
Couple of years ago it struck me that my kids never have to learn poetry by heart. When I asked teachers about it the answer was, education is not about mechanical memorization, it's about creativity. Which is stupid. Creative or not, in order to become a better runner you run, mechanically. To develop better memory you have to memorize lots of things. In order to be creative you have to have a database in your head to build creative ideas on.
Education has become too pragmatic, too result oriented. Just like many other areas of life. This, IMO, makes the world less interesting place, and a dumber one. It's all about passing exams now: this assignment for 30%, this for 10% and so on.
