Testing Chat Thread

[Questor]

I'd consider Geometry, or at least basic geometry a good standard to aim for as a bare minimum.

Trig would be great, but it's actually the least accessible of the "basic" maths. In terms of the concepts it uses, it really isn't complex enough to go where it does in the sequence. I've actually seen some courses that teach it where it makes sense, as part of circular geometry. They just do everything conceptually, without requiring an an actual numerical solution Sin(X) is a good enough answer.

[Dooey Jo]

(saw a blue whale today)

i dreamt about flying blue whales


holy shit

[Oxymoron]

So long and thanks for all the fish


So, I logged in today to discover that there was a good old BOARD DRAMA while I was sleeping ? What the hell, people :'(

[Oxymoron]

The Nostalgia Brigade strikes again :


http://youtube.com/watch?v=xhi-7lj7osI


consider me interested

[Agent Bert Macklin]

So to go all the way back to the math education thing for a minute...

I wonder what should be considered a good minimum standard for learning math. 'Cause I think saying "everyone should know Calculus or you're stupid" is aiming a little high.

But what of algebra, geometry or trig?

Well, basic algebra should be good enough. As much of a tool as aerius was with his post, he did have a point. Algebra can help with calculating compound interest and other financial-related issue. I am always using it for tax-related shit when I budget.

[adr-admin]

i hate people with poor grammar, poor spelling, and those who don't use the oxford comma

[Oxymoron]

says the man who never use punctuation in his posts, ever

[Agent Bert Macklin]

To you non-Americans: in grade school, are potential careers being pushed on students? Are students in secondary school being told to start looking for a viable career path and to begin taking classes related to that field? Are students learning trades that early in the game?

[Kryten]

Not really (here in the UK); there's a bit of that around the elective GCSEs, late in high school, but they're mostly irrelevant to actual career prospects.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

I wonder if pushing for trades during high school, even beginning freshman year, would help. My school had a machine shop/mechanic class, but it was just there to goof off and have fun. It didn't really seem to emphasize a career path in being a car mechanic. The same can be said for woodshop class.

[Oxymoron]

That's a really complex question.


What happens here is roughly the following :


We have an educational that isn't made to teach students, but to sort them. Roughly half of the people will have either left out school before the end of secondary or been put into a "professional" orientation, which will have them ready to enter into the active life right out of secondary education => these people are taught a job.

Then you have those like me, who have followed a "Technological" line of study during the last two years of secondary, which prepare them for a relatively narrow (I say relatively because it is still quite large) array of possible career ; but they still have to follow post-secondary education to have real chances of getting any kind of meaningful employment.

Then you have the people following the "general" path (which is in fact the "superior" path, or so people like to think... /bitter), with three different branches : Literature/Letters studies ; Social and Economic Sciences studies ; and Scientific studies

The thing is more than 50% of the people in the "General" path choose Scientific studies because it is the one which open the most doors.
The thing is also that you can go to university and start your first year there with any kind of diploma (professional, technological or general) without problem 95% of the time ; so the point of our system selecting people is, in the end, totally moot - apart from ensuring that the top 5% continue reproducing themselves in their own little world...


But to TL;DR : yeah, people are encouraged to put themselves on neat little tracks and find a work they'll do for the rest of their life

but it never works

not that I know of


basically, our Educational System is stuck in the 50's and the immediate post-war need for masses of standardized workers


Our ES like to treat students as if they were standardized goods, all with the same internal workings ; and treats those which do not CONFORM like damaged goods...



/internet rant

[Bounty]

Tracks and preparing students for vocations is a good thing. Not everybody is going to be able to, or want to, do the same job and getting people into the career path that best suits them is beneficial for everybody.

Where it all can break down is in the way students are assisted in making their choices, or in not properly recognizing when someone is in a track that doesn't actually suit him or her. But that's a different problem.

basically, our Educational System is stuck in the 50's and the immediate post-war need for masses of standardized workers

Fixed that for you.

[adr-admin]

you guys ever look at your mail carrier's legs?

walking gives them great strength

[Darth Fanboy]

My mailcarrier never gets out of his van, even if he drops someones mail in the street.

[Dooey Jo]

i looked at my mail carrier's legs once

turned out he was a walrus

a vampire of the sea

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Because I'm going to be on Kalmus, and that's on the wrong side of the 405. I'll take the five once I get there, but the horrible stretch of the 55 is between the 405 and the 5.

What about Red Hill? It shadows the freeway for a while. Or you can take Euclid north to the 22, and take that to the 55...? I don't know the traffic in that area as well because I avoid driving during that time of day if I can avoid it. The few times I've been on the 55 at rush hour have been nightmarish. And the 91 is even worse, unless you have fast pass.

As for the math thing, I've seen students in calculus who still couldn't "do" word problems. Clearly word problem skills are necessary, since they involve using math for everyday things, but there isn't really a course in word problems. Most of the kids I've taught have been pretty short-changed by the elementary school system: they understand the mechanics of algebra (mostly), but have no idea how to multiply or add fractions or deal with negative numbers, let alone how to turn a word problem into an arithmetic statement. Some of them can't even do embarrassingly simple subtraction.

[Darth Fanboy]

The 91 not going to Riverside though isn't that bad, which is why if you get on at the 57 its not that far to Slaters. I don't like the 405 that time of day though at all especially this time of year.

Bob good to see you my man.

[Questor]

EDIT: Read Thread, Then Post.

[Dooey Jo]

i wonder if i would remember any advanced math i learned in school if i didn't use it when doing programming stuff

maybe it's better to develop people's general problem solving skills and teach them how they can teach themselves new math when they need it

then maybe maths would be seen as relevant rather than a chore most people are happy to forget

[Zod]

Pretty much the only time I used Algebra whatsoever is when working in Excel. Even then nothing terribly advanced or complicated..

[Bakustra]

baks post details on those comics

well i mostly know them secondhand from somethingawful, but nielsg.com has most of the ones people view as racist and i don't know the url of the fetishistic ones, but here are samples (click to read):

work-safe fetish


not work-safe fetish

http://imgur.com/WR8ZV

kinda racist or uncomfortably close:

[Bakustra]

my cousins in michigan came out of your education system just fine sir

system?

hahahaha you poor goddamn fool

you've been hoaxed

How many times will there be a thread on that place where someone asks "If people do things that are immoral, isn't that a problem with them and not the moral system they used?" and they have to have it painstakingly explained that no, it is in fact a problem with both them and the moral system they use.

Fucking fatty nerds who think morality can be boiled down to complex algebra (and what better way to keep it out of the hands of the masses?).

I'm guessing that what's going on here is that people tend to assume that there are no such things as bad systems- you can see this in "communism would work fine if people were angels" as well- people simply don't want to admit that there can be such a thing as a bad system, so even systems that they ultimately feel are wrong get this caveat to say that, well, it might work if not for the people.

I don't know where this comes from, though.

In any case I wish I was still in a position where I could respond to Surlethe's babble about the free mobility of capital (not really so free as some would like to think) with "So, revolutionary socialism is the only way to have a sane society, then. " or similar. Certainly would be a better way to get banned than over mindless minutiae.

[Zod]

i don't know what you're talking about

a free market with well informed perfectly spherical consumers would remove the possibility of corrupt monopolies holding onto power and gaming the system in their favor

[Bakustra]

i don't know what you're talking about

a free market with well informed perfectly spherical consumers would remove the possibility of corrupt monopolies holding onto power and gaming the system in their favor

it's not that- it's that in saying that multinationals cannot be effectively taxed in the US because they could and would pull up roots for burundi, this isn't the 1960s, we're globularized now, the spear-carriers of capital end up advocating revolutionary overthrow of the current order because they endorse the inability of reform to change the current system

which is downright delicious

[dar]

So to go all the way back to the math education thing for a minute...

I wonder what should be considered a good minimum standard for learning math. 'Cause I think saying "everyone should know Calculus or you're stupid" is aiming a little high.

But what of algebra, geometry or trig?

When people say things like "mathematics is the language of nature and the universe," they mean predominantly calculus and differential equations. Calculus is how we deal with change, and everything is always changing. If you can make a mathematical model of a phenomenon, then you're one step closer to understanding it and predicting the future. Having a grasp of the intuitive notions of calculus is good enough. This lets you understand why it's a problem if population grows exponentially while food supply grows linearly, or just the difference between constant speed and constant acceleration.

Mathematical modeling is just coming up with equations or whatever that explain the system you're looking at. It's problem solving by framing the problem in a logical, simplified manner. It's far more important than the various derivative and integration techniques.

So what's the minimum standard for learning math? Depends on how much you want the next generation to understand the universe. I think calculus is a reasonable goal, as it's the first time in mathematics that its applications are readily apparent. The education system needs a major overhaul before that will happen, though. "Mathematics" isn't taught in many schools in the US. No one learns how to solve problems. And I don't mean bullshit word problems. There's no discovery, motivation, or beauty. Memorizing the quadratic formula isn't mathematics. Seeing that there is such a formula (and one for cubics and quartics, but not for quintics!) for finding zeroes of an equation is. Using these tools to solve problems is important too, but there are more interesting ways to do that than with worksheets with a hundred "Solve for x" exercises.