Slashdot Mirror
Algebra As A Gateway Subject
Spock the Baptist writes: "The Washington Post started a two article series Sunday, and Monday August 18 and 19 2002. The articles deal with something that the math, engineering, and physics faculties at colleges, and universities have long known. Algebra is a 'gateway subject' for math, science, and technology, and secondary schools in general are not doing a good job teaching algebra."
I was blessed here in Tallahassee, FL, with some really great math teachers, as well as the option to take a "real" algebra course as "early" as the 7th grade. And we're not talking "algebraic concepts" here - I was required to derive the quadratic formula w/o completing the square, which is TOUGH when you're 12 or 13.
It disappoints me to see schools lowering their standards to raise average test scores. I'm one of the minority who believes that D should be passing, but that a C truly should be an "average" grade (just like it says on the report card). My H.S. has an average GPA of something like 3.4! That's just silly - there's nothing differentiating the truly exceptional from those who could either kiss a lot of arse or slough through it and do all the extra credit.
I also see a very disturbing trend of schools offering classes that, in essence, "teach the test", be it the SAT, ACT, or the FCAT (in FL's case). Doesn't this skew the results? I'd like to hear some others' opinions on this...
Just my $0.02 worth of incoherent rambling...
Brandon
Well I can't imagine what school's must be teaching these days cause the younger generation I do run into seems to be completely clueless for many things.
//.
Math, science. But also literature, geography, world events. But no couth is one of the biggest problems.
I admin from home. Sit in my underwear, drink beer, do not shave. See me in public like that? Hell no. I go on an interview for a possible client and I look like the man from IBM in the 80's. The orginal Men in Black
I am 32 and not that old(or at least I dont think so). Here is what I know.
Late 80's schools had gotten so horrid they had to administer tests that had to be taken before graduation. Basic skills tests. You might have passed your exams but still had to take this one. I never took it but I saw one and it was frightfully easy. Along the lines of the ASVAB for the military.
Schools dropped physics and trig to go to things like Alebgra 1,2 and geometry and that was it in math.
Anyone have that physics teacher who used the overhead for the notes? And he had written the notes originally back in 63 and over the years had made corrections to them? But sill used them. Probably still teaching.
TENURE - stay here long enough and we will give you a free cushion for your ass.
I went to a boarding school for my formative years and while I did recieve a fair amount of ass whuppins I did get some great teachers who really got me into science and math and literature. We built a Heathkit Hero in the dorm and fiddled with ham radios, and even had a unix box in '83. A DEC. And I owned your ass playing miner 2049er and Lode Runner on the Apple
I then switched to a local school and bam. I saw the wonders of a regular high school. Sure I got girls and booze and had quite a bit of fun, but I did not learn near as much or the teachers did nothing to generate my interest in things. Well, methane soap bubble torches were fun.
Teachers aren't paid enough. Private schools do tend to get the better ones. I graduated in the end from a public school, and had good teachers, but my private school experience was by far superior. And when I choose to lay my eggs I will make the sacrifice and send my little geeks to a private school. For them.
Teachers also need to be recertified every couple of years, just like people in the tech industry. "I had a TRS-80 back in the day so I don't ever need to take a computer class". Teachers get complacent, light a fire under their asses.
Bit of a rant here, but we do need to do something about it. Our world ya know.
And I do not care if you are 18 and can write a script that will control the weather, make Bill Gates give it all to charity, or even make Slashdotters a more level-headed bunch. Education is the the real fucking deal.
Take the time. I had to do it at 32 and it sucks.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Thats rather silly. You're basically implicitly conceding that there is no intrinsic importance to mathematics, and it is only "useful" as a means for solving scientific problems. Of course, as far as most students in middle/high school are concerned, what is being taught in science classes is "useless" also, and simply saying "learning X is important so you can do Y" is not a sound argument in the view of a student who sees no reason to understand either X or Y.
I would suggest that this attitude is the main problem, and based on my own experience, it is something that the educational system in general seems to promote. After all, instructors are not necessarily encouraged to promote a real appreciation for and understanding of a given subject, but rather meeting various "standards", increasingly codified very strictly in terms of various new state standardized tests. This environment leaves a student no goal but passing these tests, which whether they reject it or accept it does not enhance their long-term understanding.
Personally, I would rather have seen the intrinsic logic and beauty first, and the "real-world" applications later.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Pardon if this is a repeat.
I remember reading somewhere, and, after much thinking, agreeing with it, that science is currently taught in backward order.
That is, instead of biology-chemistry-physics, we should teach physics-chemistry-biology.
The reason for this is that to really get chemistry, you need a strong grounding in why all those little particles do what they do. To really understand biology, you need to have a strong grasp of chem.
Students today have a very hard time with math - and that's crazy. They shouldn't.
One way to make math more "real" to students is to apply it to science - perhaps if they aren't math-nuts, they'll be science nerds, and the connection will draw them into both.
The problem with this, of course, is that physics is classically taught as a calculus-based course, (although it's perfectly possible to do it with trig and algebra - my AP test 5 can vouch for that)
Chemistry "needs" algebra - at least it works a lot better with it.
Biology (at least at the high- and middle-school level) needs very little math at all.
Therefore, we teach them in reverse order.
As to not teaching algebra, there is no excuse.
I explained the basic principle behind algebra to a bunch of fifth-graders and had them doing "x+59 = 226" in about fifteen minutes.
Everything else is derivitive of that - if the textbooks can't get that across, blame them.
(Note - I would not suggest blaming teachers in the slightest - teaching from books works, even bad books, and teachers, at least in my district, are required to teach from a book - they were good teachers with bad material)
So damn the torpedoes and shut down Houghton-Mifflin!
~Mac~
Comment removed based on user account deletion
all through middle school and high school i had a ~40% homework average in algebra through calc 2. i also had a ~97% test average to make my B- or C+... i got the whole "you aren't applying yourself speil" but i DID know the material. i was just a lazy fuck and didn't do homework. then i go on to college... homework isn't graded and suddenly i have straight A's.
can not grading homework WORK for a middle school student? or will they all just not do homework and fail?
i have always hated the learning process in math for that very reason...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E