Evolution of Math Teaching

Heh, blame the education system all you want, kids that want to learn can get a first class education anywhere. Parents need to start instilling that desire to learn, as well as something resembling respect for authority and the rights of others. Our education system (inside and outside of school) is our own fault, and the only way to fix it is to work on the next generation of good men and women.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ May 10 2006, 05:29 PM) [snapback]253193[/snapback]</div>

:lol: Now there's a evolution I can believe in? Sad Sad Sad. . .

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ May 10 2006, 05:43 PM) [snapback]253204[/snapback]</div>

Not only sad, but completely untrue! I'm sure Priusguy04 was joking, but I'd like to see any approved K-12 math textbook with a story problem nearly that inflammatory.

If you're going to get mad at something, get mad at something real.

Oh, and when I was in Jr. High and High School (1980's), taking at least one year of a foreign language was required, and we did do some story problems in the foreign language. (I took Spanish and German. Did not become fluent, now can't understand much of either.)

- Bob R.

PS... Don't take German from a Swiss immigrant who also teaches French. My German relatives all told me they couldn't understand the dialect, so I completely lost an incentive to learn. :-(

 

It is a sad state of affairs, I agree, when someone can't figure out the amount of change to be given. I remember going through exercises in tenth grade for some kinda business class that made us figure out differing amounts of change for different transactions...and how to do it with the least amount of coins possible. The thing that struck me (and I remember this almost 21 years later) was the number of people who struggled with this exercise in class while I (and a few others) flew through it.

There are always people who are quicker or slower at counting, and the ones who can't figure it out amaze me, just as when people don't use commas correctly (ahem), Priusguy04.

Let's not blame the system. Computers and calculators are allowed in classrooms today...no more slide rules for you! The use of technology as a crutch is easily identified as the problem, as that poor girl demonstrated.

Hell, we don't even have to know how to write checks any more. Debit cards and self-printing check-outs are the modus operandi today.

The world changes, and not always for the better.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ May 10 2006, 08:29 PM) [snapback]253193[/snapback]</div>

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

PRICELESS!!!

 

1. people at mcdonalds are there for a reason and it's not because they were particularly successful in school...

2. so apparently teaching of spelling has drastically improved since you were in school, eh priusguy?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ May 11 2006, 09:38 AM) [snapback]253414[/snapback]</div>

Ouch galaxee! I want to teach someday! You have to have had at least one teacher that was positively brilliant and taught just because he/she wanted to pass that fire along... I was lucky - I had probably a dozen teachers from kindergarten to high school that were STUNNING and made me feel like I was the reason they came in that day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ May 11 2006, 10:03 AM) [snapback]253420[/snapback]</div>

oh crap... :mellow: i meant the girl working at mcdonalds... should have been more clear on that... sorry

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ May 11 2006, 10:12 AM) [snapback]253427[/snapback]</div>

LOL - no, that was obviously me thinking of ll the sub-par teachers I've had alongside my golden dozen =)


PS - I worked at Burger king all through high school, and a couple summers in college =) The store manager was the mayor of my small town, uncle of my best friend from elementary school, and I was good enough (lol, what an accomplishment!) to get to pick my schedule, and I for some ungodly reason liked it.

I have to say, my strong feelings about certain parts of education came from that job - I trained a lot of young dumb kids, and it being a small town, I knew their teachers, I'd had their teachers. We all went to the same schools, we all lived in the same subdivision. Parenting (or in some cases, any individual attention) was the largest variable. You can try giving more or taking away or better qualified teachers or standardized testing requirements, but you either need better parenting or some darn good substitute. whoops! ::endrant:: =P

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ May 11 2006, 07:03 AM) [snapback]253420[/snapback]</div>

That's probably cause you're cute and brilliant.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ May 11 2006, 11:14 AM) [snapback]253467[/snapback]</div>

it is largely a factor of individual development, which is dependent on parental influence, i wholeheartedly agree. i think individual motivation also plays a role here, as well as natural variance in ability- some of us are visual learners, some experience learners, etc. there's no way a teacher can cater to all that, and that's where the parent should step in and help with homework on terms the child can understand if they're struggling.

(i must still be in academic writing mode... i really don't talk so formally in casual conversation :blink

a little dose of tough love never hurt either, but that seems to be against american moral principle nowadays...

i worked at mcd's for 3 weeks or so... i quit because they treated everyone like children and i was surrounded by high school dropouts. i didn't want to deal with that kind of crap. :lol:

 

The bill: $16.09.

I hand over a $20 bill, a $1 bill, and a dime.

She hands back the $1.10 and says, “the $20 is enough and I can make better change with just the twenty.â€

She then hands me back a TEN, four ONES, and ninety-one cents.

She was so right - it did make for better change. :lol:

If store managers and owners are not willing to pay a high enough wage to get someone qualified to do the job . . . the least they can do is pay us customers for having to deal with that quality of employee. :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ May 11 2006, 12:54 PM) [snapback]253557[/snapback]</div>

hee! I was the person they'd come to and ask when someone would do something like that! You people made my Friday nights =P


And I was hardly a cute kid, they don't make them annoying like I was very often. I think it just turned out that the easiest way to shut me up was to give me a book on the subject, and it worked out pretty well for me =)

 

As a teacher, I have a couple requests/bits of advice for prospective parents;

1) Turn off the TV frequently, put your kids on your lap, and READ to them, pointing out letters and words as you go. There is NO age too early to start.

2) Have a variety of age appropriate reading materials easily accessible at all times.

3) Insist that they, too, turn the TV off frequently.

I can always tell on Day One which kids came from reading families, and I can teach them ANYTHING.

 

HOLY THREAD RESURECTION...

But YES, if you don't put in the time to teach em from home first, there is a far greater probability of failure when they come of age to have to depend on themselves to get by... even things as simple as addition.