Math is Hard
Probably true, especially with regard to math and science. But it’s amazing how many clever people you find where you least expect it. They might have been something special except for public schooling.
Posted by Oink
01/23/2006 at 12:40 PM
My nieces and nephews tell me that they’ve never read a book outside of schoolwork. Be afraid, be very afraid…
I have said for years that we are becoming a nation of stupid people. Many parents are not willing to take the time to teach their children much of anything. “That’s the school’s job”. B.S. While my girls are in the public school system, my wife and I are taking a lot of time to help them learn to reason and think creatively. They certainly aren’t going to learn these skills in school, and these abilities are helping them be in the top 5% of their classes.
badge: How many books did we BMEWSers read last year? Do we take advantage of the internet as other that fun—and a masturbatory aid?
But I’m also discouraged at the prospects. An uneducated (NOT necessarily the same as un-schooled) person is a sucker looking for a scoundrel, or dictator.
Posted by Oink
01/23/2006 at 03:22 PM
First, what is this saying about the stupid tests that schools are requiring to graduate???? Next, I homeschooled my daughter for one year, brought her through 3 maths (Algebra 1, 2 and geometry) and two sciences (biology and chemistry) brought a d & f student (we had a traumatic family event or two or three - a couple of nasty years) up to a 3.05 gpa, she is back in public school, making As & Bs. Not tooting my own horn, just that involved parents do make a difference, even after disaster strikes. My hubby and I read, alot. The only one of my kids who was not a good student, was not a reader. But he was phenomeonal at math.
It is the basics, too many schools are teaching ‘garbage’ curriculum or pass on those who don’t get it [can’t bruise their fragile egos with a bad grade].Righto. All the kids at our family’s parochial school take the statewide Indiana achievement test, the ISTEP—“Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress”.
The kids there dubbed it, Incredible Stupid Test Everyone Passes. No so in public schools.
Posted by Oink
01/23/2006 at 03:52 PM
"Incredibly Stupid Test Everyone Passes.” If you’d ever taken one of those sort (like I have), you might get that idea.
But nope, the fact is, they are too hard for some ijits. Being from the People’s Republic of Kalifornia, I had to take the high school exit exam (and I just happened to be in the first class [2004] to do so). Easiest test I have ever taken in my life, in comparison to the skills I posessed. Literally. That was in my sophmore year. Still, it was too hard (the fail rate was very high, even considering everybody wasn’t going to graduate yet for two years), so they canceled the results, postponed the test for a year, and made it so my class didn’t have to take it to graduate. The next time they did it (for the class of ‘05), still the results sucked, so their results were canceled, and the test didn’t count towards their graduation, either. It may count for the class of ‘06; not too sure though. This after getting easier each year.
Actually, if you click the link to Kim’s site, and then go to the forum discussion, you will find an interesting discussion.
OCM: In my grammar school we had the “Redbirds” and the “Bluebirds’. Everyone knew which group was “Jerry’s Kids”.
Dac: An anonymous friend worked at an equally anonymous test-grading business. They graded “generously”—if results were too dismal, the State would shop around.
I read somewhere a story about a CCNY professor who quit. He didn’t think many of his students would know about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but his first question was “What’s a Cuba?”
Posted by Oink
01/23/2006 at 04:54 PM
If the taxpayers are paying $10,000 a year per child, give it to the parents so they can give it to a public or private school of their choice. Make everybody compete for the money.
Tax free Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) are the obvious answer, like in Belgium (EuroPeons).
Tax free Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) plus tax free Personal Savings Accounts (PSAs) (Saves Social Security, a ponzi scheme) plus tax free Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) equal = equal = equal = “The Ownership Society”
The PSA + the ESA are just a dream of President Bush. The tax free HSA is the Law of the Land. See the difference?
Posted by Z Woof
01/23/2006 at 05:08 PM
Point 1: I’ve tutored 4-5 kids (ages 7-12) at various times in the past 30 years, and every one of them went on to a science/tech interest and career. I say this not to brag but to point out that (in my opinion) ANY kid can learn to LOVE math if they are given the personal attention and encouragement necessary. As other post’ers have pointed out, it’s a matter of the parents putting in the time WITH THE CHILDREN THEY CONCEIVED AND BROUGHT INTO THIS WORLD!!!
Point 2: Again - in my opinion - a good way to gauge the intelligence of another person is to see how many books are laying around their home. If you don’t see ANY, or if they are all residing on a decorative bookshelf (with nicnacks in front of them)and appear to have been picked by size and color rather than content, then...well...don’t get your hope up for this person. I’ve done this for years when entering new friends’ homes for the first time and have never been wrong yet.
Bull Shit Cheese tensor, get real. My daughter is a bioligist with minors in chemistry and math. Your book BS wouldn’t work with her.
It’s the teachers unions, get real. If taxpayers are paying $10,000 per year give it to the child. Have free and open markets with competition. That’s American.
Silly science people can never figure out free and open markets, bunch of Socialists.
So wise up Cheese or I will have to throw a flag on you.
Posted by Z Woof
01/23/2006 at 05:59 PM
As a person who in the past 5 years went back to school and earned an A.A., B.A. and am working on my M.A., I can verify that the many U.S. colleges have a priority system that works something like this:
1st - Get the $$$
2nd - Take care of the executive board and upper administration
3rd - Actually educate peopleI’ve met a hell of a lot of idiots that have managed to get the degree. What makes it even worse is that I worked this past semester as a TA. I had the (un)fortunate honor to teach college freshmen and grade their work. Let me just say I was simply stunned at how many of them B.S. their way through a paper, plagiarize, and simply don’t know how to write. I swear to you that a good number of these papers could have been written better by my daughters in the 7th and 8th grade!
Personally, I tutor my kids at least 2 hours a day after school on school days. I wish I had the time and financial resources to homeschool my kids. I have very little confidence in the abilities of some teachers as well as the products of “higher education” - which would be many of today’s newest teachers. Its a shame that so many parents are too wrapped in themselves and our society’s more shallower pursuits to pay attention to ALL aspects of their child’s education. All I know is that when my kids hit 18, they’ll be MORE THAN READY to face college and life in general.
Sorry Z Woof, I agree with CT. Everyone shakes their heads in our house as we have enough books to be a small public library (1350 at last full count - which was ‘98). As I said, my husband and I love to read; I keep children oriented and readable by books for kids and grandkids who come by. Three out of the 4 kids I have are avid readers, the fourth is just under avid - he’ll do it but a lot was school oriented. Money isn’t god or even close. It is not the be all end all. Parents who care about their kids (and others - I’ve been a scout mom, PTA, done the soccer mom and put up with all my kids friends; who think I’m cool while my kids think I’m hopelessly old fashioned).
I agree with any kid can learn anything - if they get the opportunity, exposure and encouragement. But not everyone is an artist, singer, jock or science or math whiz, we all have to find our place on this sphere and learn to accept that we aren’t all Clark Gable or Michael Jordan or Enya - even if we dream it.
I recall that reading seemed natural to me. Math had to be pounded into my head; and it eventually was. Now I’m one of the few people who has language and math (read ‘science’)skills. Language is still much better & easier. The expression for me learning math was “like pounding butter up a wildcat’s ass with a hot poker”.
My parents had books, many magazines, and subscribed to both the morning and evening newspapers. I’m certain that some kids have a condition with math analagous to dyslexia. But most math failures, unfortunately, are made math-phobic by lousy teachers.
P.S. Dyslexia is absolutely real. I’ve known smart people who cannot read worth a damn. For one I had to read the subtitles on a foreign movie DVD aloud.
Posted by Oink
01/23/2006 at 07:03 PM
What would you think of birds that mangled the wings of their babies before throwing them out of the nest?
So much for our so-called “public education system.” Scrap the lot, scrap the NEA, scrap tenure, and start all over, this time under COMPLETELY private auspices.
Hell, “Z"ero, don’t mince words. Tell me how you really feel.
Can’t say I’ve met your sis - If I had I might have had to modify my rule of thumb with “Always works except with that strange bio-babe with the loud-mouthed doggy-Bro”.
Blaming teachers unions is mindless stupidity - else (by your own argument) NO KID would get/have a decent education. Yet a bunch or ‘em seem to do just fine irrespective of the quality of the teacher.
Grow up “Z"ero: An adult would have just ignored my so-called “BS” if they disagreed with it. You had to threaten me with a flag(?).
A flag?
I’ve ever been threatened with a flag before. Could cause quite a flap. I’d respond more fully and in-kind - i.e. at your apparent intellectual level - , but the Skipper would “correct” me. That I AM afraid of. Deeply.
Thanks, WardM - we are perhaps kindred spirits.
Read all of the posts............I have 2 sons - the oldest barely made it out of high school, failed out of a college geared towards underachievers, took several years to “find himself”, finally graduated from a tech school & is happily employed with 84 Lumber Company with many home-builder clients who will deal only with him - in contractor sales he has the potential to make a great living.................My second son went through Jesuit schools - high school & university - he has now been in the Navy for 10 years as he was unable to find employment after University with a history major - he has been going to college to work on a masters in Information Technology & has re-upped for another ten years..............2 totally different children but each succeeding in their own way...............
My grandaughter is 3 years old & she amazes me with her language skills and her reasoning...........I don’t remember my boys being as smart as she is at this age - she has been in daycare since she was baby - enjoys meeting people & can converse with people of all ages................and she is so funny - Last week when she was with me my S.O. called - after I hung up the phone she asked “Who was that?” When I answered “My boyfriend” she cocked her head, had a smile on her face & said “Un Ahhh” .......Then she said “Are you a girlfriend?”.......I said “Yes” & she said “You can’t be a girlfriend. You are to old”........this from a 3 year old!!!!!!!!!!!Posted by Dottie
01/23/2006 at 09:56 PM
Ahhh, Mr. Christian, you nailed it; just be sure to also throw lots more money at it too.
School choice and home schooling may be the only viable retreats from the current school mess at the moment. In my coming up (40’s - 50’s), big city public school systems were the place to go for a good education, but not today for the most part. I dated a high school teacher in the 70’s and in helping her grade her exams and papers was stunned by the ignorance of her students, and it’s apparently worse now.
The biggest change I see is offering too many electives rather than emphasizing basic skills (3R’s) and citizenship (civics, history, culture) in grades K-12, no longer grouping by ability so slower learners now hold back faster learners, (mustn’t hurt anybody’s feelings you know), not disciplining students for fear of lawsuits or worse, looking for panaceas to the problem (new math, give every student an i-book), burgeoning bureaucracy which drains resources and dilutes authority (my high school of 3,000 had a principal, vice principal, secretary, two councellors and a librarian; our local high school of 2,200 has a principal, four vice-principals, eight councellors, a social worker, a psychologist, several secretaries, and no library) and a growing chunk of parents who believe because they pay taxes to “The Government” that they don’t have to do anything to raise kids but park them in front of the TV or give them money to go away.
In doing this, we’ve managed to undo about 500 years of learning how to learn and teach in only 35 years.
Congratulations to university schools of education, tort lawyers, race pimps, feminists and the social engineeresses of the NEA for this stunning achievement.And just think, nobody has their self esteem bruised until they try to make a living and find out their choices are cold-calling in a telemarketing phone bank or swabbing out the restrooms at McDonalds. It doesn’t bode well for our future as a nation.
Guys, guys, of all the groups around, I thought that you’d understand it the best and quickest. Oink & Wardmama understood it pretty well. NO ONE WANTS THE KIDS TO BE ABLE TO THINK! Where do you think liberals come from?
I taught 1st quarter drafting and mech. design for a few years at a trade school in East Los Angeles. The kids in my class were the bottom of the barrel. Mostly gang bangers from the local barrios. No one had ever given them credit for being anything but dumb and dangerous. When I got them, I used very old teaching methods - no calculators, respect given and expected, standards of work and dress, lots of questions asked and answered. It worked. Those guys were neither lazy nor stupid. They wanted to work and to achieve. They’d just never before been treated as if they were intelligent, responsible human beings. I like to think that I let about 200 tiger cubs loose on the world. That was about 15 years ago. Pretty soon now, I expect to start finding some of them emerging as local movers and shakers.
Really teaching IS a subversive activity. Of course, that depends on what your definition of subversive is. An active mind can be very dangerous to entrenched interests.
Power to the People!
I’ll just bet you that they can put condoms on bananas though....
Posted by yatalli
01/24/2006 at 03:33 AM
Oink thanks for the great wildcat analogy!! That will keep me chuckling for days.
Sadly the decline in education standards is not limited to the US. In my part of the country we have selective schools where kids take an exam (an IQ test) at 10-11 and depending on results they go to different schools. The socialists have always hated this and in most of the country they have abolished it in favour of a “one size fits all” approach. In my view this and the new trendy teaching methods have led to a marked decline in education. To get around this parents spend a small fortune on private education(don’t ask me why but they are called “public schools” think of Tom Browns Schooldays and you get the idea) The Labour (socialist) government is starting to see that the education system is in the crapper. They would like to reform it, but Blair has a smaller majority now and the socialist dinosaurs are lurking just waiting to give Blair a bloody nose if he tries to reform the system.
Cheese_tensor don’t worry about the Woof man he like to howl every now and then. I just wish he wouldn’t keep banging on about HSA’s
Oink:
I go through 20 - 25 books(non-fiction, fiction, bios, reference, etc.) per year. Also numerous magizines and tons of on-line reading as well. The damn schools and too many parents just let the kids skate on this subject.
Speaking of math skills.
Being that I’ll be 36 this year I’m hoping to get my associates degree in history by the time I’m 38. I’ve got most of my “academics’ done-except for math.
In the end I may be left with only the 4 math classes-3 remedial and one ‘for real’.
I hate math. Give me a historical timeline but keep that nonsensical algebra away from me
I’ve threatened to play the ‘disablity’ card if the only thing hold up my graduation are those classes.
It would be a shame not to graduate just because I can’t master math.
Right now I’ve got a 3.2 GPA.
I’m not stupid.
When math enters the ‘equation’, I’m lucky if I have a C average.Posted by Annoying Little Twerp
01/24/2006 at 03:05 PM
Barb My Love: What you got there is math phobia. Stop giving yourself negative messages!
Think “Maybe it’s a little tougher for me, but I can do this”
Action: Study some every day. Talk to your teacher when you get confused.
Email me for conceptual help. Talk to someone better than me for specifics.Posted by Oink
01/24/2006 at 03:51 PM
Barb - I know how you feel...........In high school I barely passed Algebra 1, did honors in Geometry but then failed Algebra 2 - was put into remedial math in order to graduate........now today I am able to calculate the medicines I must give as a nurse & keep my checkbook balanced to the penny..............Does one need Algebra to succeed in life ..........not!!!!!!!!
Posted by Dottie
01/24/2006 at 10:38 PM
We all sound so Middle Class—worrying about our kids’ educations.
I’ve heard that some school districts are supportive of home schoolers. They mail the kids condoms.
Posted by Oink
01/25/2006 at 07:32 AM
Ah, how could we have forgotten the 3rd leg of bureaucratic (unholy) trinity:
1) Money [always more]
2) Study [never provide a solution, just study]
3) Create a new bureauacracy [see leg 1 and of course that means a new study by our new buracracy which means more money is needed to investigate what the problem is and what (to suck more money out of the tax payers) would be the MOST ineffectual way to not solve this problem while appearing to do something and oh yes, don’t forget to see leg 1 again]
And keep this in mind - all those morons with their new laws, bureauacracies, and ‘solutions’ do NOT pay into/survive on Social Security, use a HMO/civilian hospital, send their kids to PS 13 nor pay their fair share of taxes - since they don’t report their real incomes.
And we wonder why America has so many problems
JimT: Yea? Then why do whole schools of them wear T-shirts that say, “I’M WITH STUPID”.
Posted by Oink
01/29/2006 at 09:09 AM
01/24/2006 at 04:11 AM
