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Parent Questions Mandatory High School Chemistry
Ollabelle writes "David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., has two sons, ages 7 and 15. He has previously written about how schools fail students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Now he turns his attention to mandated curriculum in public schools, and argues that his sons shouldn't be forced to take any science class."
From the article: "There’s a concept in economics called 'opportunity costs,' which you may not have learned about because you were taking chemistry instead of economics. Opportunity costs are the sacrifices we make when we choose one alternative over another. ... When you force my son to take chemistry (and several other subjects, this is not only about chemistry), you are not allowing him that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML coding for websites."
Tell him he can use the knowledge to brew alcohol, make drugs and bombs. It really is taught in the most boring way possible. Learn the boring bits to make the exciting bits happen.
The summary here is saying the exact opposite of the article. He's saying the kid shouldn't be forced into Chemistry if he can survey OTHER science classes... Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
From the summary:
"... argues that his sons shouldn't be forced to take ANY science class."
From the article:
"Maybe kids can survey several science classes over the course of a year or two, and explore various options"
Yeah, I was going to say, you want your kid to take public speaking? Behold! Not everything needs to happen in school.
Besides, we don't need to cram every damn thing into high school. I took a public speaking course in high school. It was an elective. There were other electives I would have liked to take as well... I took them in (drumroll, please...) college! I also took a worthless Chemistry class in high school - but the teacher was horrible, not the subject (I think our class collectively scored a 40% on the state Chemistry test).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Although modded humorous, the acid base reaction often used to raise these is a well known chemical reaction. The CO2 is produced in a temperature dependent way in double acting backing powder. CO2 absorption in the liquid is also temperature dependent (more apparent in yeast risen foods though). The browning is a controlled oxidation process, and there is a balance in water soluble and fat soluble components that must be balanced. The properties of the proteins in the flour (gluten) and other ingredients are also important.
You might be joking, but chemistry is serious business in bread making. Check out this wizened tome; you can't traverse one page without chemistry. http://archive.org/details/cu31924003595802
I came across this while searching for the reference to another bread making tome my friend once showed me. The text was all in Chinese, but it didn't require knowing Chinese to see that every page had some chemical formula or table of chemical compositions or some chem eng processes. Hell, the first chapter was a primer on chemistry. I couldn't find the reference to the book because it had a very common name "Bread Making" and I didn't know the author or year, but the above link has a lot of the same flavor.
Maybe the father is some kind of religious loony^Wzealot or similar.
It's worse than that.
Dad is "a former philosophy major" who is "able to eke out a living" as "a nonprofit executive", per the article.
You are wrong on numerous levels. I'm guessing that you forgot that Pi is not a real number, it's an estimation. You seem to have forgotten what a "Theorem" is as well and hell, you used the word!. Wtf? There are numerous types of "Math" that we simply can not prove true or untrue. We still use them, because to the best of our knowledge things work in a specific way.
Since the above is true, Math "is" science. Your second statement in bold is a fallacy so just plain old wrong. No wonder you posted anonymously.
I don't think you understand math ...
"Pi is not a real number" -
Wrong, Pi is a real number, it is an irrational number, but it is a real number. It is not an estimation, but there are many different approximations for Pi that are used for the sake of convenience.
"There are numerous types of 'Math' that we simply can not prove true or untrue. We still use them, because to the best of our knowledge things work in a specific way."
I'm not sure what you are talking about here. There are many mathematical statements that we know are proven, others that we know are provable (but have no known documented proofs) and likewise many that we know are false, many that we have shown to be unprovable, and many that we do not yet know if they are provable or not. But pretty much any mathematical statement that is used in any mundane fashion (typical engineering or simpler discipline) is rooted in proven theorems (meaning proofs exist - the fact that the word "theorem" is used does not mean "unproven").
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"