RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (Full Version)

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Kedikat -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 10:57:16 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: fullofgrace

i mostly taught myself. i just learned how to read and i didn't stop reading, and i didn't take the somewhat substandard secondary education at face value; i used the resources i had and made it up as i went along, pretty much. and it's gotten me this far, and i've been doing okay, so...i'll probably continue with that method and teach it to my kids if i ever have any :)



Very similar to the way I went. In my early 30's I finally specialised and am in that field now. It can all come down to the individual desire to learn things. School can't pound it into your brain if you are being willfully lazy. Maybe the state of it now is due to them trying to find a way to teach everybody. But that isn't always possible. sometimes you just have to leave some behind. Maybe have the better options for them to catchup later when life has shown them the need.




litleone8620 -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 10:59:50 PM)

Not everyone has parents who cared like yours did.

My parents didn't. Half the time, they didn't even know if i went to class, or even school that day.

Also, by the time i was in 7th grade, they couldn't help me with a lot of my homework, so i was on my own.

It eases my mind to know that there are parents out there doing something to make their child's education worth something.



BlkTallFullfig -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:02:11 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kedikat
I take this particular opinion with consideration of the protonic hydrogen whatsit post you also made.

You are living in a house with a lot of glass. Careful........

Stick with your mastery of basic math.

A more cruel , blunt post than I usually make.....
I for one enjoyed reading your response Kedikat, because something smelled fowl toward the end of the original post.

As for schools being horrible and people not learning basic math, I agree with...   The answers to the problem I don't exactly know yet.   I'm considering putting my lil one into private school (by increasing my work hours to afford it) since I don't feel I have the patience and know how to teach lil ones. 
I did the typical girl thing with math; I did very well until my mid-late teens, than got dumb or found mediocre teachers...  Nevertheless, I am pretty good about basic math, and about 1/3 of the time I tell people how much the change is supposed to be (because I gave them extra dollars/change), they believe me.    M



Emperor1956 -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:17:22 PM)

I'll chime in with BlkTallFullfig, MistressLorelei and Kedikat -- the OP and some of the following posts smack a bit of --gee...what do we call it?  OH, yah..RACISM.  

There, I said it.  Tell me again, please, what the meaning of the Spanish at the end of that little tale was?  Give me a legitimate rationale, and I'll withdraw the comment.  But it seems to Me that any legitimate point about educational quality was lost right about the time that nasty dislike of little brown people crept in.

And just for "the record": 

1.  According to the UN, we today have a better educated population, based on legitimate testing (and NO "no child left behind" is NOT legitimate) than 87% of the rest of the world (the Japanese, the Irish and the Scandanavian countries tend to best us). 

2.  We pay teachers more poorly than 60% of the Western or "First" world...so those lazy, uncaring teachers are doing a pretty good job and it isn't for the money.

3.  When did education become the obligation of anyone other than the parents?  I appreciate good schools, I support them, but the ultimate responsibility of a family unit is to educate its own.  And that's damn hard when you work at a "middle class" job, and can't earn enough to put food on the table and fill your gas tank in the same week.

"You gotta stand for something, or you'll fall for anything."



Kedikat -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:22:48 PM)

It's destroying our country and culture to have other languages learned and used here. But it is civilizing the other countries when they learn english.
Xenophobia is a greek word though, nothing to do with us.




IrishMist -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:24:38 PM)

Actually, I will be honest. The reason I took my daughter OUT of the public schools and put her in private was because they told her and me that learning Spanish was mandatory. She was not given a choice in the matter. As far as I am concerned, that's bull shit.



Kedikat -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:32:03 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: IrishMist

Actually, I will be honest. The reason I took my daughter OUT of the public schools and put her in private was because they told her and me that learning Spanish was mandatory. She was not given a choice in the matter. As far as I am concerned, that's bull shit.

I had to take french in elementary school. I found it to be just one more challenge. Now I am sorry I did not keep on learning it. And learning spanish as well.
It has been shown that multilingual learning in the earlier stages is an overall benifit. But that is of course some study. It seems to me a gut feeling that learning a more structured language than english, might be a good thing.
Why would learning spanish be such a deal breaker?
Do you feel the same way about learning evolution?
Do you feel other things should be more optional in education?

I ask these things in a way to illustrate what the overall system has to deal with to educate all. A very difficult proposition in a very free society.



fullofgrace -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:33:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: IrishMist

Actually, I will be honest. The reason I took my daughter OUT of the public schools and put her in private was because they told her and me that learning Spanish was mandatory. She was not given a choice in the matter. As far as I am concerned, that's bull shit.


in most european schools - at least british ones that i know of - students are required to take at least one foreign language, often more than one. the requirement to take a foreign language, imho, is a GREAT thing.

i went to private school from kindergarten through eighth grade. we were required to take spanish, starting in kindergarten, and going all the way through eighth grade. we weren't allowed to choose our foreign language; spanish was it. florida also requires high school students to take two years of a foreign language, and my options were spanish and latin (i went to public high school), so i chose spanish. none of my prior spanish experience counted towards credit for my high school spanish requirements.

in MOST (if not all) public schools in leon county, at least, taking a foreign language for some part of your elementary/middle school career is required, and i believe it is pretty much required in all of our private schools here as well.

eta: learning other languages is a really good thing for improving your english and your communication skills in general, the fact that spanish is becoming more commonly spoken in america completely aside. also, part of the reason a lot of schools make you start learning it really early is to keep you from having a terrible accent. i usually don't have an american accent when i speak spanish, though i don't speak it very well (i really want to go back to it and become fluent - i can read it well but not speak it) and the kids i went to high school with had awful pronunciation problems because they didn't have much spanish training before the age of 12 (which is generally considered to be the drop-off age as far as having an accent goes).

but yes, all else aside, learning a language has been known to improve grammar skills, communication skills, etc.



BlkTallFullfig -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/9/2006 11:49:39 PM)

Yes I wish that the only public school problem I had was in making my unmentionable learn more than one language; granting I don't want the school forcing which language that should be.    M



Rule -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 12:20:36 AM)

People differ in their abilities. Often when someone lacks one ability he or she excells at another. This girl may excell in wisdom or caring and not get any recognition for that because people mistakenly think that someone who cannot subtract cannot be wise.
 
An elephant may consider all animals without a trunk pathetic, inferior beings, but if so he would be wrong.



litleone8620 -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 12:24:16 AM)

Very well put....



SavageFaerie -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 12:28:09 AM)

I'm with you there Rule, I don't consider myself to be unintelligent but simple math is often difficult to figure out.



fullofgrace -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 1:08:54 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SavageFaerie

I'm with you there Rule, I don't consider myself to be unintelligent but simple math is often difficult to figure out.


amen. i'm pretty awful at math.



irishbynature -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 2:00:18 AM)

I believe this is a direct result of allowing computers and calculators to do the math for kids in class these days. Most states even allow calculators on standardized tests. [&:]



irishbynature -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 2:02:53 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: IrishMist

Actually, I will be honest. The reason I took my daughter OUT of the public schools and put her in private was because they told her and me that learning Spanish was mandatory. She was not given a choice in the matter. As far as I am concerned, that's bull shit.


When I attended school, a requirement to graduate was to take up to 1 year of a foreign language...I took German. If I had known what the  future would hold, I would have taken Spanish. German hasn't helped me a bit...LOL



ShiftedJewel -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 3:59:36 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

Funny, my son's math isn't dumbed down like this, and we live in California (scratches head)


Not something I would brag about julia... my kids went to school in Cali too... for a while. My son skipped two grades in elementary school. I was talking to the teacher about their tests... you know the ones? They tell the school where your child is as far as learning level? I found out that if they tell you that your 4th grade child is reading or doing math at the 4th grade level, it's figured on a state average... in other words, a child in the 4th grade reading or doing math at the "4th grade level" in reality is working at the national 2nd grade level. When I moved back here my kids were in for one hellova shock... my son, the boy genius that skip two grades in Cali had to struggle to keep up here, my daughter, who was in the High School Book of Who's Who... also had to struggle to keep up.
 
I went to high school in Cali.... 11 grade actually. Talk about uneducated? I had just moved there from Indiana and was shocked at how many people didn't have a clue about how many states there are in the US let alone where they are!! Most didn't even know the Great Lakes existed. I help tutor high school kids in basic math, most couldn't even do long division.
 
What did I do to insure that my kids got a decent education... first I took them out of the California School system... then I took away the calculators, handed them dictionaries and encyclopedias, and quizzed them at home.
 
How do you teach kids fractions? I had them organize my tool box... put the sockets in order according to size, same with the wrenches... they figured out fractions. To get them to memorize times tables.. I made a chart with the times table on it and hung it in their room... they did their homework in the kitchen, I counted on a childs natural laziness... it didn't take long for them to get tired of running back to their room to get the answer and they started memorizing it.
 
I went to grandparents day at my grand nestlings school... the english teacher was talking to the little ones about reading... and she said... and I quote "yous guys"... I left.
 
Now to get way out there in left feild... Cheating the schools, cheating the young people out of a decent education is simply breeding sheep... an uneducated society is an easy society to lead... of course that's just my opinion. It won't be long before being illiterate is the norm. We don't need to be able to read complicated documents.. our government wouldn't do anything to harm us.... right?
 
Jewel



Level -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 4:02:40 AM)

Here's a link to a very good story on education:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060220/20leaders_5.htm



cuddleheart50 -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 4:04:58 AM)

I never was very good at math.  Sorry to say, I'm still not very good at it.



Level -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 4:10:18 AM)

I'm absolutely horrible at math. My calculator is my friend [;)].



feastie -> RE: Basic Math = A Sad Comentary (7/10/2006 4:49:52 AM)

I stink at math.  I work for a mechanical engineer.  He often comments, you really are bad at math.  LOL.  Yes, yes, I am.  I'm glad my older child can help my younger one with math homework.  Of course, they don't teach things the way I learned them, I'd have to go to class to get what they're doing.  It's not like they keep the parents apprised of the methods they use now.  They don't even bring home a math book these days, just worksheets.  How am I supposed to figure out how to help him if I don't have the book to read?

My Dad always says you can do anything you want as long as you can read.  I think he's right.



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