Why Me?
Good luck. I used to tutor Calculus at community college, and that was bad enough. Your group can’t add 2 and 2, but I bet they could go on by the hour about Green Energy and How America Is Bad.
I used to use the Money Method to teach the less mathematical. “You want to buy something, it costs $8.50, but the tax on it is 8%. How much is the final bill?” People seem to be able to do numbers better when it’s less abstract, and cash money is as un-abstract as it gets.
Teacher’s unions, the federal Department of Education, “no child left behind”, “New Math”, politically correct teaching, colleges of education - need I go on?
Posted by Chuck Kuecker
10/20/2011 at 09:58 AM
Its the same here. I had some letter from a government agency which was gibberish. They can hardly read. Mind you with the levels of pc that pervade the UK government nowadays English is often not the first language of many of these half-wits.
They got through because in the 70s the education model became the ‘self-esteem’ model which let them pass no matter how little they learned and then in 1979 it became Federal which became the intentional dumbing down that results in the ‘Obama stash’ idiocracy that got Obama/Dems elected and taxpayers keeping those folks in their cell phones, plasma tv and healthcare.
Learning basic reading, writing and math is hard and the stupid variations to ‘teach’ have made basic education - even harder and a bigger failure.
Good luck. I used to tutor Calculus at community college
Good for you. Calculus was my downfall. Mind you, I understand the principles, I just never could solve an equation. I breezed through math until I hit calculus. First time I ever had to think about math.
Not to worry, I’m current taking a “Great Courses” Calculus made clear series. I’ve vowed to conquer calculus before I die.
i taught adult drop-outs in a vocational school[30 years ago] [live oaks WM4]. basic construction nomenclature, basic math was done with beer...he drank a 6-pack vs. he drank 1/2 case, he got 2 blowjobs vs. ......
was in a local bar to get some wings last week, ordered a half dozen...the 21? yr. old waitress said “i don’t know how many that is” i was stunned! good thing i didn’t ask for a bakers dozen!! ® rancinoTeacher’s unions, the federal Department of Education
Chuck, I graduated high school before there was a Department of Education. That was a Carter Administration bone thrown to the NEA.
Dept. Education was created in 1979.
I graduated in 1978.
1970 for me. Lane Technical High School in Chicago - an all-male school where you could get hands-on training in foundry, machine shop, aircraft and automotive mechanics, and heating and air conditioning.
In 1971, the Chicago Board of Education decided to make the school coed - the EAR was real big back then, and they had to be pro-active. In order to make the school women-friendly, the HVAC and aircraft shops were closed and replaced with home economics labs.
Not sure how they handled the fact that all the gyms had only one locker room, or the big swimming pool only had one locker room and traditionally Laneites swam in the nude…
New Math hit in the late 1960’s and almost ruined me for life. I barely passed first year algebra because I had no pre-algebra in grade school - it was more important to teach number lines and Venn diagrams. It wasn’t until I went to DeVry Tech and was taught differential calculus by an old-school instructor that I lost my hate of math.
Now I’ve got my BSEE, and make a living making computers do fancy tricks.
Posted by Chuck Kuecker
10/20/2011 at 12:45 PM
New Math hit in the late 1960’s and almost ruined me for life.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but ‘new math’ was basically set theory. Yes? At least, that’s what I came up against while in school. Frankly, set theory has been useful. Though I didn’t appreciate it at the time.
If so, I’ve found it very useful in my tutoring… oh, it was useful, therefore it’s not taught anymore. I ran into this in my class: We were discussing geometry: How quadrangles have subsets of rectangles and squares. (and don’t get me started about trapezoids and parallelograms.)
I had a hard time getting them to recognized that all of the above have four sides!
Seriously, geometry is hard. Especially if you’re an idiot.
(Note: I also tutor English. I know the difference between your, and you’re. But if I’m ever in doubt, I’ll just write you are instead of you’re.)
Pretty much. Number lines were big, algebra never mentioned in 8th grade. Venn diagrams were fun, but when I got into high school, they put me in Honors Advanced algebra, mainly because of my reading level. The first time I saw stuff like 3a + 4b = 7, and wondered how in hell I could add a and b...disaster. Only passed that course by begging the teacher for a chance to make up a test or two. Never saw another Venn diagram until college algebra.
Geometry was fun for me - because there was no “math” involved, just logic and drawing figures. But, then again, at Lane, “new math” had not been implemented yet.
I remember my 8th grade math teacher, Mrs. Gramer, a lady who went to our church, having puzzled expressions when she went through the “new” material with us for the very first time. I think she was as blindsided by it as we were. Probably was just handed those books on the first day of school.
English was fun for me - except the teachers who kept trying to make me read “in my own grade level”. I remember getting the “Oh, you won’t like THAT” speech when I went right to the 8th grade science fiction section of the Oriole Park library the first time we were allowed in there in third grade.
Posted by Chuck Kuecker
10/20/2011 at 03:02 PM
My father taught the Pratt & Whitney apprenticeship machinist program. He trained new recruits and frequently had to teach rudimentary math skills such as fractions, percentages, how to use a ruler, etc. Then he had to bring them up to speed on Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and some Calculus. This was back in the 70’s and 80’s before personal computers and calculators when slide rules were the norm! There were no fancy CNC milling machines, you moved the tool by hand with an assortment of cranks. You made one cut, then adjusted the work table and made the next cut, etc. You had to be accurate to within <10,000th of an inch!
I dropped off a copy of his ring bound examples book with the head of my high school math department. She was floored with all the practical applications found within. It had all sorts of common problems a machinist would come across and exercised the student in calculating the answers. This is one of the big problems with a public eduction in the USA. They don’t teach you practical application. You spend years learning math and passing all the courses with straight A’s and never have any idea how this would be useful in real life. It isn’t until college where you might have some idea of how all this stuff is used. Then again, it might just be a more advanced form of what you did in high school. Unless you take engineering or sciences you won’t be exposed to the applications.
I think it would be smart to fire these Union teachers and tenor’d professors and replace them with retired volunteers who enjoy teaching what they learned throughout their careers. Real craftsman and women. Engineers, Scientists, Carpenters, etc. Those who can’t do, teach…
Posted by MJS
10/20/2011 at 09:16 PM
MJS, what memories you bring back. Prior to 1972 I used a slide rule. Wish I still had it. I found the exact same model on ebay once–they were asking $100–didn’t want it that bad. In ‘72 Dad–who worked at an office supply store at the time–brought home one of the first 4-function calculators. Remember those? Had the little green diode display? Took it to school a few times to show off, but only four functions? I could take a square root on my slide rule, and I really was able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide without even the rule.
There’s actually a bill before the Ohio legislature that would waive teaching credentials for just such people you mention: retired craftsmen, engineers, etc, so that they could be hired in the schools. Don’t know if it’s going anywhere. I hope it passes. I’m certain that Governor Kasich would sign it if it does. Predictably, the OEA is opposing it.
Still got my Post Versalog from DeVry, 1970. Also still have my HP 41C I bought at Motorola.
Got my BSEE at Midwest College of Engineering in Lombard, Illinois - founded by Dr. Alva Todd formerly of IIT. His philosophy was to only hire teachers who were full-time practical engineers. He had no problem firing instructors who couldn’t teach.
My wife and I went to a summer picnic at MCE once, and had a nice talk with Dr. Todd about politics, guns and hunting. I’m sure if Illinois had not had the sick gun laws they still suffer under that Dr. Todd and a good number of my classmates would have been packing in class.
Dr. White, a “good ‘ol boy” mechanical engineer from down South who worked on nuclear reactors, taught numerical analysis. The first day in class, he held up the assigned textbook and said “See this?” and then dropped it in the trash. He proceeded to show us how to do curve fitting, integration and other neat tricks using a calculator and tables of data - no calculus. Still have the notes I took. The other numerical analysis class, taught by a nuclear physicist from Argonne Labs who had a horrible teaching method got absorbed into Dr. White’s class, and the other teacher got canned.
After Dr. Todd’s death, MCE has been absorbed into IIT, so I’m an honorary IIT alumnus now.
Some bright spots in the present educational murk are vouchers and charter schools. We won’t get them here in Beloit next year because of union complaints, but Milwaukee will benefit. When teachers have to produce results or risk losing their jobs, the students learn - and that’s all that matters.
Posted by Chuck Kuecker
10/21/2011 at 06:42 AM
That pretty much sums up my thoughts about government schools. This editorial cartoon is over thirty years old now. Still relevant. Pat Bagley was the cartoonist for the Daily Universe, the BYU campus newspaper, when I attended BYU.
Ha, good one! Notice that the graffiti writes “the principle is a dip” instead of “the principal is a dip”. Too right.
That may not be a misprint Drew. Both the principle and principal could be dips. We can’t see what the ‘dip’ is pointing at.
Just goes to show you that all along, the administrators of said skrewels are Dips too!
10/20/2011 at 10:01 AM
