And that’s why I’ve been practicing my long division. Via email;
I am a university graduate with a bachelors of science in mathematics, and I am currently pursuing graduate studies. I do a lot of marking, tutoring and lecturing in the mathematical sciences so the following issue is something I care a lot about and have first hand experience with.
The current state of high school math education in the western Canadian provinces is deplorable. The standard algorithms used to add, subtract, multiply and divide have been replaced with a holistic approach that puts an emphasis on discovering one’s own understanding of math in order to solve problems.
While this idea may be a great idea for the already gifted and bright students, for the general populace this is absolutely useless.
Coupled with the poor level of teacher training, we have a grade school math education system that is categorically failing kids and parents.
The sad thing is that this is mostly a policy problem. Curricula are being revised in order to stop parental bitching. They remove all the difficult parts about math. Most importantly they remove the part where you are forced to follow instructions (gasp!) or be wrong and have your feelings hurt.
Because they learn in only this way, they come to university completely unprepared and ignorant of the skills needed to learn even basic calculus (ie. the backbone of engineering and physics) or computer science (ie. the backbone of modern society).
It has gotten to the point where certain western professors of mathematics are speaking out about this problem to the media. Parents and educators alike are finding frustration with the current curriculum. One professor has “gone public” with his thoughts on the issue, as highlighted in this CBC article.
This same professor, along with a number of our colleagues, has begun an campaign to try to call attention to this problem. Below my message is a forwarded email linking to their website. It includes a mission statement and a petition for people to sign. This has attracted the attention of professors across all western universities as this problem is prevalent from BC to Manitoba (except it might not be as bad in Alberta).
In a century where basic and advanced math skills are becoming increasingly important to both finding and keeping a job, we cannot ignore this problem. It will put western children at a competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of Canada, and the rest of the world.
As you can see there is already some coverage of this problem, but my concern is that the CBC will see this as just some “western problem” and shuffle it aside as some daily interest story and move on to more politically lucrative ventures. On the other hand, your readers are closely connected to western issues, and I believe that they care about things like math education and keeping our students nationally and globally competitive.
This issue NEEDS attention, kids are dumb…but they don’t have to be.
You can read more here:Western Initiative for Strengthening Education in Math, or WISE Math.
(John Gormley LIve is also covering the topic this morning at 11am Saskatchewan time)
There was a great YouTube video a while ago that walks you through the absolutely HORRIBLE way kids are now being taught to multiply and divide. I don’t think most adults understand how all the things we were taught as kids have been thrown out the window. If you want to see it for yourselves, check this out: http://youtu.be/Tr1qee-bTZI. It’s long, but it’s mesmerizing. Even if you only last through the first few minutes, it will make you really fear what our schools are creating.
It’s the same thing with basic grammar, spelling and punctuation. Time after time, it’s been shown that the only way to do it is at a young age and by rote. It’s boring and repetitive, but it works. Whole word comprehension has been a complete disaster for basic reading skills after phonics was purged out of the curriculum.
It’s the same with arithmetic. It only comes from drilling through the multiplication tables and learning the algorithms. Like basic reading skills it’s boring, repetitive and utterly essential.
Psychologists and sociologists should never have been allowed within a thousand miles of curriculum development.
Ever.
I’m somewhat relieved to hear the rot has only advanced this far. Judging by the public educated droids in the occupy protests, I’d have belived they were handing out math marks based in cross gender sensitivity quotients and affirmative action hiring percentages.
At least socialist revisionism still has them crunching numbers and not “feeling” the solution to math problems – although I’m sure it’s close.
No surprise to me. Way back in 1971 when I was in Grade 9 the Math teacher decided within days that 8 of the boys in the class should be moved to general math. Amazing after the first few days in the school year the teacher was able to make that determination. Needless to say those 8 had no hope of going to uni with general math.
I expect the MSM “professional” “journalists” to be all over this issue. Because “professional” “journalists” respect and value skills in mathematics – because they so excelled in mathematics in their own education.
I also expect Teachers Unions to be all over this issue as well, essentially telling the “professional” “journalists” “we told you so”. These unions have demonstrated vector mathematics to us all – if you project a line through points of history, teachers will be “perpetually preparing” lessons, with occasional glances at their retirement funds, while children stay home. Home is where they will be able to play with dangerous objects, like soccer balls and the like.
The resulting mathematics-capable students graduating from public schools will be able to understand complex mathematical constructs such as how the unemployment rate is dropped by reducing the size of the workforce. They will be able to apply these skills to environmental issues. Applied in the automotive sector, they will succeed in attaining new miles per gallon standards by redefining the gallon.
The pliable graduates will make for excellent consumers going forward. They will understand how inflation will help them deal with the astronomical debt that rack up as they pursue the lifestyle and goodies that the sponsors advertise to them via the “professional” “journalist’s” media channels. They learn to believe that the “professional” “journalists” are conduits to Truth. And thus they will vote for empty suits like the Teleprompter of the United States.
Should we face a shortage of math skills domestically, not to worry. We have offshore resources aplenty.
Over my lifetime, I have watched the bullying public sector, weak opportunistic political class, and MSM slowly tighten the self-applied tourniquet to their (our) necks.
Vector math is a very helpful tool indeed. It helps us see the direction a thing is going. But many of the points in space through which the vectors have transversed are “probably nothing”. This is yet another. Back to sleep everyone. Relax. The “professional” “journalists” have our backs.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, hates math more than I do. I’m an American lawyer who didn’t take one math course after high school, aside from statistics, which nearly killed me.
That said, there is a serious need for people who know how to “do the math,” in the science and engineering fields. I know from helping my kids with their homework (both now in college) that the way they teach math nowadays is wacky and weird, but I forced myself to learn the new basics so I could help out. Luckily for them, and me, they soon surpassed me in math IQ, around 8th grade or so.
Read anything by John Taylor Gatto:
-Dumbing us down
-The underground history of American education
-Weapons of mass instruction
It is all explained.
being smart in todays “school world” is a sin
I think they have totally scrapped the Hi achievers classes like the one I attended, so they can orient towards those that get a prize for just showing up. My 40 year old kids tell stories of their school experience that just make me shake my head
I find my son gets forced to do a huge number of “word” problems in math at nine years old. Even though he is very capable he often cannot understand the word problems. Even I have to read some of the twice or three times to follow them, and I’m a university educated engineer.
When I was his age we spent far more time mastering the basic skills required to do well in math.
Has anyone else found the same thing with their kids. Is this prevalence of word problems just another way the left is shifting math to favour girls at the expense of boys?
As someone with an applied mathematics degree, who also taught secondary for a while, I concur with the emailer. In fact, the shift in curriculum and overall approach to student instruction and management are the primary reasons I went into business and IT.
>
This is just like in Nazi Germany, where infamous war-criminal, Josef Mengle, conducted experiments upon the minds of children.
Psychopathic monsters ruin children’s lives for the sheer pleasure of forcing their will upon the helpless.
I’m not denying that there is a problem with the system, etc., but I will say that the smartest kids I knew were those that received significant help from their parents at home. Maybe rather than just blaming the up and coming generation and the teachers, more of us should be turning off the t.v and sitting down with our kids and a math book.
At the highest level of decision making and policy this can only be construed as a deliberate goal, not an unintended consequence of good intention gone astray. As bob noted above Gatto is all over this problem; also worth reading on this file are Beverly Eakman (sp?) and Linda Shrock-Taylor (sp?)
True story. A friend of ours teaches high school. When grading science papers, she told us that she is not allowed to deduct marks for improper spelling and grammar, because parents complained that the paper was a science paper, not an English paper. This is apparently policy in Ontario.
Square Root….
About a decade ago, I realized I had forgotten how to do Square root with a pencil and paper….the prospect of being entirely dependant on a calculator was….disturbing.
I asked around and only got the responses:
What the hell is square root?
Why would you ever need it?
Finally my least sophistocated/educated associate asked his sister, who produced a textbook from the ’50s….
I photo-copied that and made extra copies….it was a study in sociology learning who was and who wasn’t interested in a copy….The Amish barn builders were the keenest….
Then he, my least sophistocated/educated associate, (a machinist) asked for the purpose…I explained how it was the key to such things as Pythagorean numbers…
For example, I recounted how with my summer help shingled the roof of my many gabled house….and how we estimated the amount of materials necessary…with only 1/2 bundle surplus.
He scoffed and said he would just go and get a load of shingles….if short he would get more or return any surplus. He thought my method was stupid to which I responded….”At least I’m not going back for more shingles.”
As a metal fabricator, I found it is usually needed to produce something to do a purpose rather than just fabricate from a blueprint….if you want the extra trade. That involves square root.
And to start the next great debate, which method was in the text book? š
But apparently there is a push to make Aboriginal Studies compulsory in the k-12 system in SK. That’s right, let take more time from an already crowded curriculum to study the fantasy history of Aboriginals in Canada.
So instead of focusing on real skills that will actually produce real results we will learn about the mysteries of the medicine wheel (and how it makes everything better), traditional lore (which only some actually of proven to be beneficial) and of course the grievance industry about how badly we have treated aboriginals.
Free, high quality education that also illuminates a third of your property tax costs.
Khan Academy
http://www.khanacademy.org/
DONāT get me started! Iām an elementary school teacher. Just about everything about the math curriculum, the textbooks, the workbooks, the instruction, and expectations makes me sick.
CURRICULUM: shallow and way too wide (most often, not even developmentally/pedagogically appropriate), when it should be narrow and deep. The kids have no time to learn the basics to mastery. E.g., Primary students spend an inordinate amount of time on things like probability when they donāt know their number facts. IMO, the majority of their time should be spent on numeracy. Once the basics are hard wired, add the other areas. In their defence, teachers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the curriculum: that alone seriously undermines their ability to provide what their students really need.
Our ministries, boards, and administrators need to smarten up. Fat chance.
TEXTBOOKS: Two things, among many: badly set up and thereās never enough practice. Badly set up: it seems that the writers have no idea about how to help kids organize their responses. Templates (or suggestions for answer format) should be providedāthe published workbooks fail on this one tooāboth to cue the kids about the steps theyāll need to take, and to teach them how to present their work.
Re numbering: a student I tutorāa very careless oneāleft out all kinds of answers in her homework from school because, instead of, letās say #1. a), b), c), etc. each having one task involved, each had multiple tasks. E.g., b) required making a graphāthat took the student about ten minutes. Then, also at b), the student was to explain why she chose the kind of graph she did and how she decided on the vertical scale. After ten minutes making the graph, the studentāvery carelessly, but somewhat understandably!āmoved on to d). Why not provide one task per number/letter?
WORKBOOKS: The published onesāeven JUMPādonāt provide either enough room for properly answering questions: space for both oneās work and presenting the answer. During a long career, I spent a lot of time devising templates for my students so they could do their best job at both organizing the task and presenting their results. Published workbooks work against the students doing this.
STUDENT WORKBOOKS: Many jurisdictions now provide grid pagesāthe scale is often way too smallāand there are no margins. Few teachers bother to teach how to set up a pageādate, page and question numbers of the assignment, and how to space questions in an orderly way and leave room for calculations. The kids also form their numbers any old way and size. (Many of todayās teachers were never taught these essentials themselves!) Imagine the mess of most notebooks! Questions are not only randomly sprawled, un-numbered across the page (columns not lined up), the work is also scrunched up, and, usually, very untidily presented. English conventions? What are they? Capitals and periods are missing and multiple wordsāeven those in the textāare misspelled. And the teachers allow this!
INSTRUCTION AND EXPECTATIONS: Most teachers seem to have no idea about how to use a blackboard/chart paper, and charts, colour coding, etc. to set up a lesson that visually presents both the concepts and the expected presentationāas I said, neither do the textbooks/published workbooksāwhich can be left on display for future student reference. This has worked for me and my students for decades! (Itās not all that hard to do.)
Formulas: I was once subbing in a grade 6 class in a āplatinumā school. I assigned a page of perimeter and area questions. The results were abysmal. With the studentsā input and mineāhow about using labelled diagrams and formulas?āwe redid the assignment. I put on chart paper our consensus for top level answers. Then I required the students to copy the high level answers from the chart. Rebellion on the part of some snippy upstarts: āOur teacher doesnāt make us use diagrams and a formula!ā M: āNeither would I, if your answers without them had been correct by whatever method you both used and could show me.ā Their teacher had ill served themābut thatās what the system wantsāby letting them ādiscoverā learn: did these students effectively āreinvent the wheelā? They did not, and their attempts to calculate area and perimeter were atrociously substandard. Sheesh!
On another occasion, a student was required to find the mean (new word for what I knew as āaverageā). She gave only the answer. I said, āWhereās your work so I can see if you know how to do the taskāand to give part marks if you miscalculate?ā āMy teacher says I donāt have to show my work.ā (Really. . .) My āgood teacherā genes rebel!!
Iād love to design and write a set of math textbooks and workbooks using the tried and true methods Iāve used for decades. But itās virtually impossible to break into such an endeavour because the āin groupā already has it sewn upāfirst of all, because they buy into the ministriesā ridiculous curricula. (Credit where creditās due: JUMP doesnāt seem to have done thisābut their workbook format still needs a lot of improvement.)
To start with, until our āeducationā ministries smarten up and design realistic, need-to-know math curricula at the elementary school level, instead of the overstuffed, BLING-like atrocities now on tap, the math problems higher up the ladder will continue apace.
Thanks for this post about a very serious deficit in our educational systems. And I wish WISE Math all the best!
Custom 10…
I went to a school of almost 3000 1972.
There were 12 students out of 8 grade 9 classes, who needed upgrading of their math skills.
I was one of those twelve, when it came to math we were far behind the other 240 grade 9`rs.
The head of the electrical studies course was assigned our re-education, he was VERY good and strict.
Russel Thwaits the best teacher I ever had.
Within one year all of us had re-joined our original math classmates.
My point is, only 12 out of 240 lacking the skills back in 1972, I would like to know what the percentages are today.
In my day learning was more or less rote. I learned historical facts in school and based my opinions on facts. Today kids are taught to think without facts. We call those socialists.
I took way more math than considered healthy simply by learning to do problems. I did not understand math but when I ran into a business problem which needed a solution, I could apply math to solve it.
I didn’t do too well in math when I went to school. But as an adult something strange and worderful happened. I began to understand math much better when they started putting a $ sign in front of the numbers.
IOW – it was with the practical application of math that it started to make sense to me. This concept of front number estimating is just plain dumb. Its like saying I have $4.98 in my pocket but for estimating purposes I only have $4.00. If you really believe that I will gladly take your .98 cents since you don’t believe it exists anyhow. Dumber than dumb and the Ass’t Deputy Minister on Gormley, in trying to explain and justify it, spewed a bunch of bull that I’m sure even he did not buy.
True Story:
I went to Canadian Tire for 80 feet of rope. Nice young guy (recent HS grad) took the rope in his hands and stretched it out on a one foot square floor tile – one foot at a time. He was counting to eighty one foot at a time !!
After watching him get to about 5 feet or so, I suggested: Why not count out 10 squares(10 feet) and then lay out 8 strands (8 X 10 ft). He did not understand what I mean so I showed him. He was amazed and thankful.
As he was writing out the tag, I asked him what they teach you kids in school. He looked right at me and said: They teach us f**k all.
But I bet all students are required to sit through David Suzuki’s brain wash sessions.
This scandal in math instruction is repeated in language instruction, and in the instruction of reasoning in general. Large numbers of students now arrive at universities unable to read, write and think at anything beyond the grade-school level (there are, of course, exceptions). And these are students for whom English is, allegedly, a first language. Not surprisingly, this makes teaching robust, demanding, university-level courses nigh impossible without failing more than half the class. The difficulty is compounded by increasing numbers of foreign students in our classrooms who have little to no English. The pressure to pass them, never overt, of course, is considerable, since they pay twice to three-times the tuition of our own students, just as the pressure on the pass our own students, despite their near illiteracy. ‘Cause they pay for it, don’t you know.
How have things become this gad? Teachers unions run grade-school education; and teaching well is hard work; it’s not something that just anyone can do; certainly not something that can be done well by those who were incapable of earning a bachelors degree in Arts or Science, and so migrated to “Education” as a last resort.
Moreover, there are, apparently, far more important things to teach our youngsters than reading, writing and reasoning; namely, how to ge good little neo-Marxist liberals. Gramsci’s long march through the institutions of education is almost compete. You can see the results in the OWS crowd. Hold on to your hats.
TJ @ 11:30
Yes lots of word problems. I dont mind word problems as they force the kids to problem out the question…..that being said, they dont teach them the framework for word problems and they dont drill the core on deep enough.
Yes word problems are being used for discovery work but the process leaves everyone frustrated. When that is the only tool used or the primary tool used you run into problems.
Simple example. My daughter got a couple of questions wrong on a math test because they had word probelms that included concepts she hadnt seen before, not math concepts but words, like stock and bond. Some kids can abstract and black box the “thing” to boil it back to a interest equation. Some cant. She was hung up on what this thing was and since they had never done a problem like that before she balked like horse at an unfamiliar fence.
History, now surprisingly they are teachng somewhat more sophisticated history now at an earlier age. But my complaint is they dont give them a framework for it.
But like many here my biggest complaint is the lack of rote work at an early age in math. We supplemented, it caused too much heartache when we didnt.
TJ @ 11:30
Yes lots of word problems. I dont mind word problems as they force the kids to problem out the question…..that being said, they dont teach them the framework for word problems and they dont drill the core on deep enough.
Yes word problems are being used for discovery work but the process leaves everyone frustrated. When that is the only tool used or the primary tool used you run into problems.
Simple example. My daughter got a couple of questions wrong on a math test because they had word probelms that included concepts she hadnt seen before, not math concepts but words, like stock and bond. Some kids can abstract and black box the “thing” to boil it back to a interest equation. Some cant. She was hung up on what this thing was and since they had never done a problem like that before she balked like horse at an unfamiliar fence.
History, now surprisingly they are teachng somewhat more sophisticated history now at an earlier age. But my complaint is they dont give them a framework for it.
But like many here my biggest complaint is the lack of rote work at an early age in math. We supplemented, it caused too much heartache when we didnt.
lookout, it’s one thing not to teach the kids the difference between “average” and arithmetic mean. They’ll get that when they do statistics later in school.
If you don’t know the difference between arithmetic mean, median, mode, and the various averages, the problem’s not entirely with the education system.
“this problem is prevalent from BC to Manitoba.”
Didn’t the U of Manitoba solve the problem by granting PhD’s without requiring math exams for those suffering from exam anxiety?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/015482.html
School standards? I watched a learning handicapped schoolmate of one of my kids get an award for receiving honours or merit. She received this for being a well groomed kiss-ass mentally handicapped girl. Now what was that all about? She got the same high school diploma as everyone else.
@TJ: I think word problems are a vitally important part of applied math, but the kids have to have the verbal skills to be able to understand what the word problems are saying, and I don’t think at the age of 9 that’s likely to be true.
“average and arithmetic mean”
They are synonyms.
You know, I recognize almost every anecdote in the comment thread.
Yeah, the system sucks and kids aren’t forced to learn the guzinta’s, yada, yada, yada.
I’ve have three kids. Two of which came to Canada from elsewhere and English was their second language.
They both speak english better than their friends.
They all have excellent math skills.
We did it and continue to do it with our youngest by reviewing the rote arithmetic skills and basic math skills at home on Saturdays as well as including each of them in basic budgeting and shopping, basic handyman work (cutting weatherstripping (God no! I’m not a closet Suzuki!), fitting in the Christmas tree etc.
Include your children in your life – it’s a wonder what they will learn and retain!
Take the time to show them how to analyse a situation and to figure out an approach to solve it.
Then work with them as they try their solution and see with their own eyes their success and help them see where their approach failed.
Today’s schools are for having fun – not for serious learning.
Most prairie homesteaders would have said the same.
I had to live through the new Math that wrecked my whole understanding of Math. Its important because this is how people are fooled by junk science.
Math is a fundamental way to inoculative Logic, with thinking skills.
It leads to logic & reasoning skills. No wonder they want to abandon it in this day of emotiveism. Where feelings are paramount.
Its now become more important to force children to learn pseudo-psychology (Read Oprah)along with “sexualaization” of the fringe gay & pedophile movements. Multiculturalism at the expense of real thinking. Revised history rather than reality to not hurt “feelings.
Math is essential to understanding our World. Even the ancients knew this enough to built monoliths to calculate times & seasons.
Math is the atom of learning.
Calculators cannot shape a minds way operate. Its like trying to produce a computer without its code, with a BUS system that has no order.
“discovering one’s own understanding of math in order to solve problems.”
I taught math to Grades 7 and 8 using this method during a student teacher placement. It’s more confusing than the plain old by rote method we used. Students who dislike math are willing to swallow it like medicine in order to get it over with – even at their age they understand it’s necessary, until some educational bureaucrat convinces them otherwise.
My main point on the word problems is that it turns math into a reading comprehension lesson. These aren’t word problems such as “John gave mike $5 for a book that cost $2, how much change did John get”.
These are more like “John gave Mike $5 to buy a book that cost $2. Mike did not have sufficient change so he gave John $2 plus one apple and one candy bar. If the candy bar and apple are worth equal amounts, then how much is each worth?”
To me that is an utter BS problem to be giving a 9-year old boy in math class when they still have not taught him the basic multiplication table!
Pierce, parents can help, but if we’re depending on them, what’s the use of school?
My parents never even looked at my homework, from public school through university. Looking back, my dad (grade 4 dropout, but self-taught and well read) did give me lots of math questions as we went about work on the farm to make sure I was indeed learning. I had two good teachers in public school and two excellent/good math teachers in high school.
We only have ourselves to blame as we have permitted the ‘elitists’ among ourselves to formulate and dictate the society that has evolved. The liberal progressives that have been in charge for the last few decades are now firmly entrenched and nothing short of a revolution will unseat them, and I’m not talking about the politicians. As the communists learned in the 20’s the Halls of Academia are easier and less costly to attain victory than are the Halls of Montezuma. We are now seeing the results in our daily lives, store clerks that can’t make change without a calculator, electrical tradesmen that can’t read a three line schematic, carpenters that only know how to hammer 2×4’s and 2×6’s together, auto-mechanics that only know specific parts of car repairs, the examples are endless and yet we still allow the progressives to dictate to us how we should live. They have dumbed down the system to the point that the greater majority of the voting public are dependent upon them and that is perhaps the greatest crime against our society and maybe humanity.
“This is just like in Nazi Germany, where infamous war-criminal, Josef Mengle, conducted experiments upon the minds of children.
Psychopathic monsters ruin children’s lives for the sheer pleasure of forcing their will upon the helpless.
Posted by: Dystopian Optimist at December 6, 2011 11:35 AM”
Ah, so that’s what the science teachers’ endorsement of commitment circles and “two-spirit” sexual identity is all about. I figured as much.
Wacky times, we’re living in.
@walterf:
“Didn’t the U of Manitoba solve the problem by granting PhD’s without requiring math exams for those suffering from exam anxiety?”
Yep, and Lukacs (the whiz-kid complainant math prof) has now left.
Teach your own kids folks. Our schools are moron factories, and day cares at best. The best person to teach your kids is you.
@Scar: No. No, they are not.
But that just illustrates my point.
My experience has been a bit different. I was an honours math major and a TA. I admit guilty pleasure in reading books about mathematics–I still enjoy reading through Apostle’s Calculus, Rubin’s Analysis, as well as more general reader books on areas of mathematics, by authors such as Berlinski and Derbyshire.
One fact I have learned is, no drill no skill. Doing math (rather than just talking about math), requires doing math–just as one gets no better at basketball discussing concepts of basketball. Of course being a mathematician involves much more creativity than drill, but no drill and no creativity. there is a world of difference between creativity (which is productively generative) and imagination. As Guass is reported to have said, he always derived a guilty pleasure in writing out calculation tables. Even Guass drilled, throughout his career.
Aware of the failings of the public school approach, we immunized our daughter. There is an excellent program called Spirit of Math, which our daughter has been in now for ten years. They emphasize drill, skill and cummulative knowledge. These kids are good. Really good. I can say my daughter is way ahead of where I was at her age, and there are many like her. So I have to conclude that what is different now is that the distance from top to bottom among high school students is much, much greater than previously. Ironically, the “democratizing” sentiment of the teaching establishment has had the opposite effect, to establish a clear bifurcation between elites and the general, by debasing the skills of the general.
Pity.
All this griping about New Math, and not one of you has mentioned the great Tom Lehrer? Not one of you?
Time to fix that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIWaJ0sy03g
Now before you go home you must write “Tom Lehrer” 100 times on the blackboard. That’s a column of 10, repeated to the right 11 times.
Daniel Ream
“@Scar: No. No, they are not.
But that just illustrates my point.”
I took 5 math courses at university and missed the distinction. I’ll play. What is the difference between average and arithmetic mean? I trust the difference is suitably inane.
Daniel Ream writes, āIf you don’t know the difference between arithmetic mean, median, mode, and the various averages, the problem’s not entirely with the education system.ā Huh? (Thatās the most important non-fact you processed from my post?)
I simply pointed out that āaverageā, which is the vocabulary I was taught, is now termed āmeanā, which, as Scar points out, is a synonym for āarithmetic meanā.
Actually, I donāt know why kids need to know about āmean, median, and modeā, especially as early as grade 5. āArithmetic meanāāas in the old fashioned āaverageāāis the only one of the three Iāve practically needed to use. I took math until grade 12 and didnāt encounter either āmedianā or āmodeā: many of my elementary school and high school classmates, who went on to become doctors and scientists, didnāt learn about them either, until they needed to.
As I said, in case Daniel missed it, the front loading of the math curriculum with unnecessary informationāmuch of which is developmentally inappropriateātakes away from our students VAST amounts of valuable instruction and practice time from skills, such as knowing their number facts automatically, that are needed as a base for the higher level concepts theyāll be much better equipped to learn later, if they have a firm foundation. Itās the firm foundation thatās largely being overlooked these days. And, at the age of 10, not knowing about āmode and medianā (which BTW, I do) is not a necessary part of that foundation.
TJ, you make a good point about the language skills that are stressed in math these days (not altogether a bad thing!) but I understand that math is a language on its own. Many kids, who are mathematically inclined, will do the calculations needed to arrive at the correct answer. Then the instructions continue: āExplain how you arrived at your answer.ā Many excellent MATH students, especially those who are very young or ESL, have difficulty expressing their ideas in English. (Even with my excellent, adult, English skills, I’ve sometimes had trouble explaining the obvious!) A lot of the kids do the math beautifully and then fail on the āexplanationā part. Itās crazy!
While in practical usage “average” could refer to any central tendency, if one was asked to calculate an average grade, in 100% of cases they would calculate the arithmetic mean.
Being averse to poker, please explain this comment. Which math principles govern this poker thing? Is the 15 minutes crucial?
“Another rule of thumb: If after 15 minutes in a poker game you donāt know who the sucker is, itās you.”
It worsens: “Bad news, your calculator is dead and the trader from Cantor Fitzgerald is readying to signal his buy. What to do?”
A: Buy Euros, right?
Business Math is hard.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2816794/posts
Being averse to *****, please explain this comment. Which math principles govern this ***** thing? Is the 15 minutes crucial?
“Another rule of thumb: If after 15 minutes in a ***** game you donāt know who the sucker is, itās you.”
It worsens: “Bad news, your calculator is dead and the trader from Cantor Fitzgerald is readying to signal his buy. What to do?”
A: Buy Euros, right?
Business Math is hard.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2816794/posts
It’s equally bad in Ontario, and, I fear, in the whole western world (except possibly Finland).
Off Topic: I like this blog