The Academics Thread

[Cancer]

"Ye-essss," murmurs the guy whose birthday was two days ago.

[L. Marcus]

... Blueberry pie with custard ...

[Cancer]

... coconut pie with chocolate ice cream ...

[L. Marcus]

Eaten academically.

[Cancer]

Without mayhem, though admittedly the pie might contend otherwise.

[L. Marcus]

Academic dining here demands punsch.

[Badger]

18 hours ago, Starlord said:

BAAADGEEERRRRR!!!!

 

 

I prefer it spelled with 4 r's

[Badger]

13 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Yah. The gakaxy is about 100,000 ly across, Andromeda's about 2.2Mly away ...

 

Road trip!

 

[Badger]

13 hours ago, Starlord said:

Bah.  Pie is the language of the universe.

 

Me like pie.

 

*steals the keylime and strawberry cheesecake and leave the others to discuss the gobbledygook*

[Old Man]

17 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Silly Earthling, math is universal!

 

Clearly you have never encountered Common Core. 

[L. Marcus]

Isn't that arithmetics?

[Bazza]

20 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Silly Earthling, math is universal!

 

Yes and no. 

[Cancer]

[Old Man]

10 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Isn't that arithmetics?

 

I wonder sometimes.

[Ternaugh]

12 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Clearly you have never encountered Common Core. 

 

Back in the 1960s, my Dad taught several high school math and science courses. He would frequently rail against the New Math, even a decade after he stopped teaching. Most of his complaints were similar to those raised most recently by Common Core. I learned to stop asking him for help with my math homework somewhere around second grade, as my school taught many New Math concepts (in the mid-1970s), and he just couldn't see how to work the problems.

 

Tom Lehrer's New Math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6OaYPVueW4

[Badger]

13 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Clearly you have never encountered Common Core. 

 

I don't know the nuances of it.  But, it seemed designed to make kids scared of math.

[Cancer]

Seattle went through an era with textbooks selected by math education types where a population of technonerds could not understand the pedagogy employed in their children's books, and the kids were graded on following the method, not reaching the correct answer.  There was all but open, violent revolt.  At the school my daughter attended, the prescribed books were never uncrated after the first year, as the PTA bought a supply of used books from someplace in Florida and issued those.  

[Badger]

1 hour ago, Ternaugh said:

 

Back in the 1960s, my Dad taught several high school math and science courses. He would frequently rail against the New Math, even a decade after he stopped teaching. Most of his complaints were similar to those raised most recently by Common Core. I learned to stop asking him for help with my math homework somewhere around second grade, as my school taught many New Math concepts (in the mid-1970s), and he just couldn't see how to work the problems.

 

Tom Lehrer's New Math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6OaYPVueW4

 

I tended to be exceptional in general math, and can figure out a lot of it in my head (in fact more easily than on paper, so I had trouble showing my work).

 

Of course, that didn't really translate to the higher maths.  I had to take Algebra I twice.  I may or may not have occasionally cheated to get through Geometry.  And my limited exposure to Calculus left me convinced it was the devil's work.

 

Note: I strangely did great in Algebra II, except for 1-2 parts

[Badger]

1 minute ago, Cancer said:

Seattle went through an era with textbooks selected by math education types where a population of technonerds could not understand the pedagogy employed in their children's books, and the kids were graded on following the method, not reaching the correct answer.  There was all but open, violent revolt.  At the school my daughter attended, the prescribed books were never uncrated after the first year, as the PTA bought a supply of used books from someplace in Florida and issued those.  

 

Heh, as someone who had trouble following methods..... (draw your own conclusions)

[Cancer]

Well, I put math education types on my list Hitler Redemption groups.

 

"Hitler would have been an all right guy if instead of non-Aryans he'd killed six million ____________."

 

I mean, rather than the garbage the math ed people chose, we chose to use books discarded by Florida.  You really cannot make a stronger statement than that.

[Old Man]

27 minutes ago, Cancer said:

Seattle went through an era with textbooks selected by math education types where a population of technonerds could not understand the pedagogy employed in their children's books, and the kids were graded on following the method, not reaching the correct answer.  There was all but open, violent revolt.  At the school my daughter attended, the prescribed books were never uncrated after the first year, as the PTA bought a supply of used books from someplace in Florida and issued those.  

 

This sounds almost exactly like Common Core, and I almost did slaughter older boy's 7th grade math teacher because (among other things) she gave him an F on a homework assignment that I helped him with that had all the correct answers.  I have degrees in physics and computer science.  Oh, my rage was unholy.

 

Mrs. S's life was saved by several of my friends, who also happen to be public school teachers, who patiently explained that she was doing her job as dictated by the state DoE, which has adopted Common Core and grades on the method, not the answer.  They elaborated that CC is meant to homogenize math education (as well as other subjects), which means:

• An emphasis on rote mechanics rather than understanding concepts;
• The class moves at the speed of the slowest students;
• There is no flexibility for students' diverse interests or learning styles;
• Disadvantaged students will still learn to functionally do math;
• It is almost impossible for teachers to play favorites or pass failing students, e.g. athletes.

Oldest boy had real trouble with Common Core because he's not organized, focused, or neat, and CC demands that you write--each--step--exactly--like--this.  And it took a while to convey to him (and me) the importance of writing the numbers in two columns, and then drawing the crisscrossing lines between the numbers in the columns, and adding the ones digits, like so, et cetera.  We sent him to study hall for additional math tutoring, but as the year wore on he complained that half of every math class was in study hall trying to get additional math tutoring.  His grades improved in the second semester, but I'm not sure if it's because he got better, or because Mrs. S. just quit giving exams.

 

Anyway, there's a scene in Incredibles 2 that hit really, really close to home.

 

tl;dr: COMMON CORE IS SATAN

[Ternaugh]

53 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

I tended to be exceptional in general math, and can figure out a lot of it in my head (in fact more easily than on paper, so I had trouble showing my work).

 

Of course, that didn't really translate to the higher maths.  I had to take Algebra I twice.  I may or may not have occasionally cheated to get through Geometry.  And my limited exposure to Calculus left me convinced it was the devil's work.

 

Note: I strangely did great in Algebra II, except for 1-2 parts

 

I started consistently making the Dean's List in college when I was taking my upper-level Math and Computer Science courses*. And I absolutely loved writing mathematical proofs.

 

 

*A CS degree at that time essentially required a minor in Mathematics

Edited July 15, 2018 by Ternaugh
footnote

[Badger]

I can see in today's education, I would be a dropout.   (no wonder America is crap in education)

 

 

Note: And on my last day of school attendance I would be led to the loony bin yelling "the correct answer is all, damn the mechanics!"

 

 

[Badger]

1 minute ago, Ternaugh said:

 

I started consistently making the Dean's List in college when I was taking my upper-level Math and Computer Science courses*. And I absolutely loved writing mathematical proofs.

 

Heh, well our brains all work in different ways.    (congrats on that achievement by the way)

 

One of my regrets is I didn't really do as well as I could have in college.  Even though, I was a community college guy, my first couple of years I was a lazy student,  high school was an oppressive environment in nearly every way for me.  So, I let myself get drunk on the freedom.  And between 4 years of high school, and the first 2 of college my study habits had eroded badly. I did my best to get back on track and by the end, I hadn't done too bad overall,  but I could have done better.  (unfortunately this is 40+ year old looking at himself at half that age)  

[Old Man]

8 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

 

I started consistently making the Dean's List in college when I was taking my upper-level Math and Computer Science courses*. And I absolutely loved writing mathematical proofs.

 

 

*A CS degree at that time essentially required a minor in Mathematics

 

My CS degree only really required Discrete Math and Logic.  Had I not already been a CS major, I'd have taken a Math minor or major along with the Physics one, because Physics already required Calc IV, linear algebra, differential equations (ordinary and partial), and some really Lovecraftian stuff.  It only took another semester or so of Math to qualify for the degree, and some of my Physics classmates were Physics/Math double majors for that reason.