Why a writer's widow should have better welfare cover than the widow of a mason?
Because the mason didn't work for free for months or even years building a building with the promise of being paid later. Copyright is effectively a kind of promise to the author that he will be able to be compensated for his time investment. A mason, on the other hand, is compensated every week or every month. If the mason had a deal that he'd only get a paycheck after he built an entire building, and he'd be then be paid a certain amount for X number of years, I'd expect the same to be paid to his estate if he died unexpectedly after completing the building.
How about I get paid... oh, I dunno... one half of one cent per minute of uptime for every computer that I keep running. How's that? And I think this should last for 98 years. WHY ARE YOU DEPRIVING MY FAMILY OF THIS INCOME THAT I EARNED? DON'T YOU CARE FOR MY FAMILY??!?!
If you had a contract saying that you were doing work for free (or for very limited income) with the expectations that future profits would go to you for X number of years, yes, I would in fact expect a company to honor such a contract to you or to your estate in the event you die.
Most people ask for payment up front for their labor, not hope for future profits by investing a year or two for free. If you did the latter for a company, I would expect such a company to honor that debt... whether to you or to your family in the event of your death.
First off, please note that I didn't intend to defend any particular position in my comment. I was mostly correcting the GP's assertion about why such things came into existence.
Nevertheless, let me try to respond to your primary question.
What makes the authors' families special?
Nothing makes authors' families special. The difference between your example of bricklayer, etc. is that in one case a person is paid for work done at a particular time. In the case of copyright law, the general idea seems to be that an author is granted a kind of deed to a sort of property for a limited term.
Again, I'm not saying this is the best way of doing things, but it's what copyright law is based on. The "intellectual property" analogy assumes that property is created, and property does not cease to exist after someone's death. It gets transferred, and the new owner can decide whether to keep it, rent it out, etc.
Now, at face value this may seem bizarre. But think about it -- an author might spend a year or two of his life hoping to create a book that will earn some money for his wife and kids. Given the state of copyright law, the family begins to hope and count on the possibility of this income, particularly once they are given a book deal by a publisher. Then, a day after the book comes out, the author is hit by a bus. This isn't just a matter of a husband unable to return to work to earn more money -- it's the prior investment of a year or two of his life. All the income with artistic creation often comes after the fact, so it makes sense that we might apply different principles from a situation where someone has to show up to work to earn money for that day.
It's as if your bricklayer was told he would earn profits for himself and his family if he just worked for free building a building for a couple years, but he dropped dead the moment the building was done. If he was promised income, shouldn't it go to someone?
One thing that might be workable to some extent would be a multi-user patronage system. Rather than relying on one wealthy person, get a few thousand regular joes.
This was commonly done historically -- it's often known as a subscription system. Today, we associate that idea with magazines, where it continues to work the same way -- a certain number of people sign up ahead of time and are guaranteed to receive a copy of the magazine. These subscribers guarantee that a publisher can at least make up the cost of the publication, even if newsstand sales aren't that great.
But historically this was often done with books, musical scores, etc. as well. Often it involved multi-volume projects, but sometimes it was used for one large work as well. I've even seen it recently used for projects like digitization of important old reference books that would only be important to a few scholars -- you sign up early, get a reduced price, and once they have enough subscribers to guarantee profitability, the project gets underway.
This could also work via serialization, similar to Dickens
Yes, exactly. Historically, many authors made money through serial publication, and again, a subscription base often allowed publishers to guarantee profitability.
It would all just be the cheap amateurish crap like shakespear and mozart.
Umm... Mozart did in fact publish music. It was in fact covered under copyright. So did Bach (just a few things), Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, etc., etc.
It wasn't until the 19th century that composers became more dependent on money from publication, though. Why? Not because of anything having to do with copyright. In the 18th century (and before), composers had day jobs or wealthy supporters. Bach was an organist, choir director, and teacher. Mozart was paid on commissions from wealthy patrons.
But please don't pretend that these composers weren't happy to make a few bucks off of some copyrighted publication they wrote.
No, because having copyright expire on death would provide a perverse incentive for murdering authors of famous works, like George Lucas for instance.
This is always quoted as the rationale for keeping copyright around after an author's death, but it's pretty preposterous and historically it isn't the reason why it exists.
If you take a look at 19th century activists for copyright, you see a lot of mention of widows and families of authors. That is the more realistic reason for keeping limited term copyright around. I'm not talking about rich people like Lucas (or setting up generations of descendants for wealth) -- I'm talking about an author who makes maybe a few thousand dollars off of his writings and uses that income to help support his family. Why should we deprive that family of that income because of the untimely death of the author?
Please stop spreading the crazy idea that people are going to go around murdering authors -- it was discussed historically, but it was never taken seriously. The real argument is about families.
Tell me again, how exactly copyright encourages creation of new works?
Since you asked, it's simple -- at least in the pre-internet age.
I spend a year or two writing a book. I get someone to publish it. But then, the publisher down the street starts selling cheap imitations of my book for 10% of the price. Everyone buys the cheaper version, so I get nothing for my years of time spent writing the book. So why would I (or anyone else) bother to spend time writing books? No one would. That's how copyright encourages the creation of new books.
Now, copyright laws originally tended to be granted to 7 years. So, I get to make profits for 7 years (and sue those who try to take them away from me), but after that I hopefully have recovered my investment... and others can now use the work freely.
That's how copyright is supposed to work. Eventually, a renewal was added after 7 years, so if you were still selling well, you could get 14. Then, it became 14 years, with an optional renewal for a total of 28. Personally, I think that's the maximum reasonable copyright term -- a significant chunk of an author's reasonable working timespan.
The problem is not copyright per se. The problem is that copyright terms have now been expanded to be ridiculously long. I think 7 years or 14 years (or maybe even 28 in some circumstances) is enough to allow someone to recoup their investment. But a century or more?? That's the problem.
Of course, how this all plays out in an age of the internet and ease of copying without the cost of actual publication is a separate question.
Email ALL of my freinds and family with a status update? Alright, not ALL freinds and family need to know that I've done some mundane little task - but maybe twelve of them are interested in my doctor's visit.
I think you miss the parent's point, just as you rightly point out that the parent misses something about what Facebook allows that email does not.
Facebook communication is sort of like "holding court" at the local bar or barbershop or whatever years ago. You ramble on about stuff to people who mostly don't really know much about you outside the bar or whatever. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they tune you out. Most of them don't really care most of the time, except for a general interest in the town gossip.
Email is actual targeted communication -- it should be sent to people who matter, just as a letter or a phone call might be.
Years ago, some people liked to ramble on to strangers and loose acquaintances at the local bar, while others preferred to focus time writing letters to family and friends. While I don't think there's anything wrong with hanging around the local gossip mill, and there is a great benefit to keeping in touch with more family and friends than it would be possible to write individual letters to, I do worry that Facebook might take away from the time we spend interacting in relationships that really matter... and that some of those interactions of true friends might fall by the wayside, being replaced with whatever random snippets of one's life might have been put up in the past hour when we happen to log on.
Thus, there's something to be said for targeted communication, and not just personal meetings. I periodically send handwritten snail-mail letters to friends who actually matter to me and live far away... I am repeated told by them how much such things mean to them when they receive them. An email seems like less effort, but for the people who might *truly* care about your doctor's visit (if it's serious or something), a personal message of any sort is better.
Thank you. This is one of the few insightful posts in this entire thread.
But the point is that there is no one "right" approach to managing your children's computer use. Children are individuals, every one is unique and must be treated as such.
To which any actual parent who has thought a bit should say, "Duh." And any Slashdotter who argues about how kids need to find their own way should also say, "Duh," once they realize what that implicitly requires in terms of recognizing individuality.
I learned this before my first kid was even a year old. Even then, babies have personalities, and advice is never "one-size-fits-all." Some parents are horrified by those who would let a child cry for even a minute; others are horrified by parents who supposedly "spoil" their kids by carrying them around constantly and respond to their every need. I could easily look around to friends who had young babies and see how different behavior and personality might require different management strategy, and at that moment, I decided that as long as a parent isn't actually abusing a kid, I'm not in a position to judge parenting style or to dictate what should work for everyone.
The fact is -- different strategies work for different kids. And that is certainly as true when they are teenagers as it is when they are infants. Some kids lack maturity, emotional stability, or even basic intelligence to figure things out about internet issues by the time they are (pick an age). Others can manage things fine and need little oversight from a much earlier age.
Being a good parent and supporting your child's individuality and development in part requires attention and adaptation to help your child as an individual. Many here seem to have their opinion over how to raise the perfect kid -- but no strategy is perfect and will be successful with every individual kid or in every parent-child relationship. So, I'm not willing to say it's okay to set up a keylogger for every kid in every circumstance, nor am I willing to say it violates a kid's privacy a priori. It depends on the kid, it depends on the parent, and it depends on the circumstances.
I would have thought that should be obvious to anyone who is a parent of multiple kids or has even observed different kids and different parent-child relationships.
Put in more quarters for more time. Want to stay 30 minutes? No problem. Want to stay an hour? Reconsider your options.
While I too get annoyed at those who would spend four hours typing away at a laptop after buying a small coffee, your suggestion seems rather extreme to me.
I never go to a coffee shop to stay less than 30 minutes, except if I have a random block of time between two other scheduled events. I rarely go by myself for any length of time, and I would NEVER work on my laptop for more than a minute or two. Most of the time, I go with other people and plan to have a conversation lasting anywhere from about 45 minutes to 2 hours or so, over which time I may purchase two, sometimes three drinks.
Most of the people I know use coffee shops in similar ways. They are for social gatherings or lingering for an hour or so while reading or watching the world go by. They aren't simply a seating area for efficiently consuming beverages in the minimum amount of time.
I think you may have missed the point of coffee shops, at least those that existed before WiFi.
No one wants to go sit in a coffee shop and when you get there, there are no seats because people have 'set up shop' and are there for the long haul.
I'm with you so far -- if I want to go to a coffee shop and sit down, I'd actually like to be able to sit in a seat.
They want you to enjoy your coffee, and LEAVE
Who are "they"? Coffee shops have historically been about being social or sitting and watching the world go by. In days gone by, even before the dreaded wireless, people didn't go to coffee shops to chug their coffee and leave. They went to hang out -- have a conversation with friends (or even strangers), read a newspaper or a book, or simply look out the window at the weather or the people in the street... and often (back in the day or still in many parts of Europe) smoke a cigarette or three with your coffee.
The next thing you're going to be saying is we should kick people out of the neighborhood bar after 30 minutes if they don't buy another drink.
Some coffee shops are busy and often full. But a traditional coffee shop is supposed to be different from a Dunkin Donuts or a fast-food restaurant. You're supposed to linger.
On the other hand, I do agree with you to some extent -- it's one thing to spend an hour or two sipping down a couple lattes while reading a book or chatting with a friend. It's a different thing to nurse your small coffee for four or five hours while working and typing furiously on your laptop. And to that extent, WiFi probably isn't the best thing for a coffee shop, in my opinion (though I have no problem if someone wants to go to such a coffee shop).
But please don't pretend that coffee shops were ever places where people went to efficiently consume beverages. Loitering a bit is part of culture.
but presenting science as a developing process instead of a fixed structure is a good thing
I absolutely agree with you. Nevertheless, having spent a few years teaching high school science, I'm well aware of the limitations on time in the classroom. At some point, you have to make a choice about whether it's better for students to know something, but without a lot of nuance, or know nothing but have a methodological perspective that could help them think critically about things they will encounter in the future. I, like you, think the latter is ultimately more important, but most students need at least some framework of basic knowledge they can build on first.
The atomic theory you are talking about actually ISN'T as certain as you might think.
I don't think it's certain at all. It's a terrible model that gets in the way when you try to understand quantum mechanics. But it works well for the 99.99% of high school students that might need to understand something about basic chemistry at some point in their lives, but will never take a class in quantum mechanics. This is a very good example of what I'm talking about -- in this case, I'd say the task of the high school teacher is better served with most students to convey a simple model that will help most students (with a few disclaimers) rather than present them with nothing because they don't have the proper math skills.
I think that all of science should be introduced as an attempt to conceptually approximate reality through observation.
Again, I absolutely agree. But at some level, you need to give them some concepts, not just methodology. And I think that means leaving out a lot of the fuzziness when you first introduce a lot of topics. Believe me, I've made the mistake sometimes of telling a class of high-school physics students that "this is only a model" at the wrong time, and I had some students in that class who didn't believe a word I said for the rest of the school year, because they thought science was "just one way of understanding things." At some philosophical level, it is... but for the most part, it's a better model than just about anything else. The question is how mature you need to be as a high-school student to get that point and not dismiss science as "one way of knowing." Clearly, given the current evolutionary debate and the OP talking about how it's "just a theory," many adults haven't yet made that conceptual leap themselves.
I don't think you're getting the point, you can't really hand most kids a 1000 page evolutionary textbook and expect them to get anything out of it.
I never said they should be able to. Here's what the OP asked for:
An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this seems to imply something exhaustive. I'm assuming the OP wanted this to help him find all this information, not that he would hand it off to a kid directly.
What would probably be immensely helpful is a 20-30 page supplemental packet in every HS biology textbook
Sure, I absolutely agree with you.
[teachers] typically spend more time explaining the end process rather than examining the scientific processes behind it [. ..] [the packet] goes through the process of evolution and how it affects our daily lives
From your description, I'm not sure what you want either. You complain that teachers spend too much time on the end processes of evolution, but then you want a packet that summarizes evolution in "our daily lives," which is certainly an end-process approach. I'm not trying to be confrontational -- but I think your points here make clear that it's hard to figure out how to compress more information into a subject that probably gets a few days in a high school curriculum. That's simply not enough time to convince anyone of something that their religion tells them is wrong, so I absolutely agree with you that some summary in a textbook could be a good way to give more info for the kids who are open-minded and curious at least.
Effectively the slow progression the car industry makes in response to market forces is analogous to the evolution of life in response to changing environmental pressure.
Not to be negative about a car analogy... but this is a terrible demonstration to argue with fundamentalist Christians. (I'm not arguing against evolutionary theory, just saying this analogy is likely to get most people in more trouble.)
Why? Because all of these responses in the car industry are caused by intelligent beings (or, well, corporate executives, so maybe not that intelligent...) making choices to respond to economic factors in order to make more money. This is actually an analogy that argues in favor of Intelligent Design, rather than Darwinian evolution.
True evolution occurs as the result of random processes. If these corporate executives were just randomly making variations on cars for no apparent reason ("Let's try putting the gas tank directly in front of the windshield!" "Let's put the wheels on TOP of the car and see if people will buy it!"...), and then responding to whether they sold well, the analogy would work a little better. But the evolution of cars is not primarily the result of random mutation.
I think the point is more that if a science teacher can't stand behind the findings of science (i.e. that evolution is correct) then their students are more likely to have less respect for science and/or not pay as much attention to it as a subject.
No offense, but how is a student less likely to respect science because of a theory they don't know about much because they weren't taught it?
I find this debate ridiculous too, for a number of reasons. And I understand that it's a polemical issue that generates a lot of media attention. But I don't think that neglect of a topic that takes up maybe a couple weeks of the high-school science curriculum is resulting in underperforming science students in general.
I'm sure it exists, but I've never been able to find it; there's something that would really help: An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.
You can't find it because it would be a massive encyclopedia. There are dozens of scientific journals devoted to evolutionary theory, churning out thousands of pages each year. But if you're looking for a basic summary, try a textbook on evolutionary theory -- there are a number of college-level textbooks (500-1000 pages long) on evolutionary theory that should give you what you want, as well as having a bibliography to track down more information.
Observations of microevolution in the lab, sequences of fossils and how they were dated and how we're certain that they're from the same lineage, numerous clear examples, multiple convergent lines of evidence (fossils vs. dna), etc. In science class, they don't teach this.
Of course not, anymore than they teach a complete history of Newtonian physics in high school or go into the methodology of meteorology or vulcanology before giving basic concepts of cloud formation or the dynamics of volcanoes. I agree that it would be good for middle school or high school students to see more scientific methodology that is critically evaluated, rather than just results. But evolutionary theory is not unique here -- you could ask the same for almost any topic presented in a science class.
They teach the end results of the science as though it were FACT, but it's NOT. It is a fact that it's a good theory, but the theory itself cannot be deemed fact.
It's all theory. What's an example of a "fact" to you? Are there scientific "facts"? Almost any collection of information that combines raw data in any way is an interpretation of that data. In essence, it is a "theory." Whether that theory is expressed in equations or collections of artifacts or accounts of historical events, they all require someone to put the data together, and in my view (and in the view of most scientists), no interpretation is ever final. Beyond raw data, there are no "facts" -- there are only "theories," so don't get hung up on terminology.
Evolutionary fact observed in the lab is true.
No, data we observe in the lab may support an interpretation consistent with evolutionary theory. For every such experiment observed in the lab, I'm sure some creationist or other scientist could come up with a different explanation that interprets the data in a different way, which might conflict with or complement evolutionary theory but not require it.
Evolutionary theory is a MODEL that we STRIVE to MAKE true and is the best model we currently have. If it were TRUE, we'd be done. No more to discover. Rather, it is a gradually improving approximation.
Again, one could say the same for EVERY area of science. Would you require physicists to summarize all the evidence for theories of mechanics, optics, electromagnetism, etc. before they present it as well? What about this atom theory, with electrons buzzing around? "Where's the EVIDENCE?" you say. We should teach students to think critically, but we can't introduce every idea of elementary science like this. Why is evolution special, except for political reasons, rather than scientific ones?
I'm all for teaching evolution well in the classroom, but this article greatly exaggerates the scope of this problem.
From TFA:
Teachers who are unable or unwilling to teach the theory of evolution in biology might be one reason U.S. students are falling behind in science, according to new research. [. ..] The findings come at a time when the national Center for Education Statistics, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, released findings that said only 21 percent of students in grade 12 scored at or above "proficient" in 2009, with 60 percent reaching the level of "basic."
First off, bad reporting -- what are those statistics referring to? When we go to the NCES website, we find this is referring to science performance in general. This trend in biology teachers is distressing, but I'm not sure bad teaching of evolutionary teaching is resulting in 88% of students not achieving high marks in, say, physical sciences, earth sciences, etc. NCES itself notes immediately after the statistic in its own report:
Twelfth-graders who reported taking biology, chemistry, and physics scored higher than students taking less advanced science coursework.
In other words, students who take more science and harder science do better on science tests. Duh. I'm not sure the teaching of evolutionary theory is even on the map compared to problems like students not taking science, not being interested in science, and probably poor science teaching in general, particularly in the low-level science electives for students not taking real bio, chem, or physics. I taught high school math and science for a few years, and I can definitely say that the teachers assigned to teach these dumbed-down science courses were some of the worst in the school -- often coaches or people with science degrees or related degrees who weren't able to find a job doing anything else because their skills were so poor.
Is the teaching of evolution a problem? Sure. But I'm not willing to believe it is even in the top 20 causes for these students performing poorly on tests of scientific knowledge in general.
"Religion is politics, unfortunately. It never had any other purpose."
What a cynical view, not to mention a distortion of history. Religion has been highly involved in politics for most of history, but that doesn't mean that religion hasn't served other purposes for the vast majority of its followers.
Most people I know who are involved in religious activities are mainly in it for things like the social community it offers, as well as the ritual aspects. Lots of people like communities -- whether it's your bridge club or your fraternity -- and lots of people like ritual -- whether it's watching a TV show at a particular time or buying season tickets to go see your favorite sports team every week.
Not to trivialize anyone's religious experience, but at its heart, religion provides things that many people want in their lives. If they don't get those things there, they often get it through other venues -- entertainment, other social groups, etc. They go to psychotherapy instead of confession. Who am I to judge what works for different people?
My point is that most people who associate themselves with a religion aren't on the news screaming about it. They aren't wielding it in holy wars and crusades. Has religion been used as a tool of politics? Of course. Is it often such a tool among the powerful? Sure. But lots of common people find meaning in it for their own individual lives, divorced from any political agenda.
Well, except for the rich people and large corporations who will have to pay more in the progressive taxes.
Don't get me wrong -- I agree with your idea. But the reason it doesn't happen in most states is that (1) people don't understand progressive vs. regressive taxes so well, and (2) for some bizarre reason many middle-class and even some lower-class voters are convinced that any tax increase for anyone is bad. Tax increases, even for the rich, are broadcast in politics and the media as if they were tax increases for all.
Hence, we end up in some states with the more common scenario of no income tax and high other taxes (usually sales and property) which are generally regressive. I understand the moral and legal objections to taxing income (and I actually agree with it in part), but that's mostly a fringe view in the electorate. Somehow, the vast majority of the population in such states keep voting for politicians that protect the money-making interests of the top 5% or 1% or whatever.
For most people, I'd guess it boils down to the fact that income taxes require that you file an annual report where you see all the thousands of dollars flowing out of your pocket. You don't see that huge lump sum everywhere leaking out of your wallet with sales taxes... but of course a couple cents here, a couple dollars there adds up.
So what's the point in staying at school past age 10?
Good question. Is there one for most people?
Seriously. I might push up the age to 12 or so.
After that, most people would probably be served better by taking part in some sort of apprentice program. If they can read, write, and do basic arithmetic, what else does secondary school provide that is of any practical use to most people in their lives? Wouldn't they be better off learning some practical skills?
Those with the ability or the desire to stay in school should be held to much higher standards than we have now. If there is any kind of standard secondary curriculum, it should serve to expand students' minds, not put them in a controlled penitentiary-like environment for six hours most days of the week to satisfy the real goals of compulsory education -- to stop gangs and to stop free-thinking political dissidents who can sway young minds more easily.
Nah. That claim was once made for teaching Latin in public schools. It's still made for teaching Euclidean plane geometry.
Ask most high school English teachers whether students who take Latin do better with English grammar and writing. It's probably not the most efficient way to teach such things, but it clearly works. The fact that it's primarily a dead language is actually a benefit to some degree, since it requires a level of advanced linguistic analysis that is rarely done to one's native language.
As for geometry, it's useless if it's taught as a simple collection of useless geometric facts, like side-angle-side congruence criteria and random theorems about secants and circles. If it requires students to work their way through logical arguments to construct proofs, however, it does actually require a certain rigor of thought that is important in both math and argumentation in general.
I'm not saying these are the best approaches, but they do actually work.
Without the engineers, you would have no venue for your art, no studio to work in and no house to rest in.
I think you're only thinking of literature and music in the modern "artistic" sense.
This was as true for Homer and Sophocles as it is for you.
Without storytellers (which Homer effectively was, possibly even a wandering bard with no studio to work in or house to rest in) and music for ceremonial purposes and such, many societies would not have developed into a culture where people could stop and think about science or math, let alone abstract art or music. I'm not at all arguing against the importance of math in historical development, but to move beyond small clans of hunter/gatherers or small agrarian communities among chieftains in a perpetual state of war, most societies needed a sense of culture -- of their history (told in oral literary traditions), of their ceremonies (which often historically have involved music), and of their power structure, which was generally created out of these ceremonial roles, cultural artifacts, etc.
Before you build the temple or the academy, you need a power structure that allows some people to stop having to worry about gathering food every day and making it through the winter. The creation of those power structures emerges through technology of a rudimentary kind (requiring no math or engineering in any modern sense) and cultural practices that are usually put in place through ceremony, "art," and politics.
How does literature or music get labeled as essential and not math?
I agree with you this far -- literature and music are not necessarily anymore "essential" than math. But I think it depends on your perspective.
We learn math so we can build things that let us have time to create literature and music. Sure not everyone needs it (though probability would certainly help), but no one *needs* literature or music, its just the sort of thing we *want*.
It depends on how you define "need" and "want." What do humans actually need when it comes down to it to survive? We need food. In most parts of the world, we need shelter and we need clothing.
Last time I checked, hunting or growing basic food doesn't require a lot of math (though being able to count and knowing something about astronomy will allow you to track growing seasons), building a basic hut doesn't require math, and making clothing from animal skins or even weaving cloth doesn't require math again beyond perhaps basic counting.
So what do we need math for? If you want to move beyond basic hunter/gatherer societies or small agrarian societies, math is generally required -- and in the modern world, our planet couldn't sustain us using such primitive things. But we probably wouldn't have grown to our current population level without advances allowed by mathematics and technology.
On the other hand, literature (or at least oral traditions) and music have played a role in almost every culture since ancient times. Math, in contrast, gradually developed to be a part of human culture, and it's really only in the past century or two that anyone thought the general population needed more than basic math. Whereas no one would dispute the role of oral/written literature and music going back millennia.
On some basic human level, one could conclude that human societies seem to "need" literature and music. Why would the iPod be so successful if this weren't true? Yet great than 95% of the people who buy iPods don't use anything more than basic arithmetic in their lives.
We only need math more than the arts if we have certain ideas of what societies are supposed to be and how they are supposed to progress. As humans, we clearly have a greater social need for art than for math.
And finance. I don't care if someone can't do derivatives but everyone should understand the implications of credit card interest.
I absolutely agree with this. Basic financial education is absolutely essential in the modern world. Except for those with the desire and potential to go into science/engineering/etc., I'd prefer to see the entire secondary math curriculum blown up and replaced with practical math, rather than the current mess we have for most students.
A few years back, I taught algebra II at a high school in a lower-middle class community where it would be the final math course for most students. (Those who were going on to higher math would have taken a different version of the course.)
Due to state curriculum bureaucracy and the ridiculous idea that the abstract concepts of algebra II would be useful to anyone beyond the maybe 10% of the U.S. population who goes into a technical field, I was forced to -- for example -- spend about six weeks on conic sections. Given the poor background of these students (many of whom had a substitute teacher for most of algebra I), the best I could do with them was exercises in getting conic section equations in standard form and graphing them, which were the minimum state standards. The state standards didn't care so much about application problems, so I wasted six weeks of these students' lives doing something none of them will ever use.
On the other hand, when we got to exponential equations, I tried to do some basic financial problems involving compound interest. None of them had any idea what I was talking about. These were graduating seniors, who supposedly had at least 8 years of preparatory math, a year of algebra, and a year of geometry, and they had no idea what compound interest even was, let alone how to calculate its practical implications in credit cards, mortgages and loans, saving for retirement, etc.
I did the best I could, but the state standards didn't allow me much time for practical math. Another algebra II teacher had quit at that school mid-year because she refused to pretend to teach the state curriculum to students who couldn't even understand algebra I, and she ended up battling the administration daily. She was an experienced teacher -- this was my first time at it, so I just did what I was told. That's what most teachers do.
Want to know why we had a mortgage crisis, why the country is drowning in credit card debt? Ask those who design our secondary math curricula.
I can't speak for calc classes designed for non science and engineering majors, but calc for technical and scientific degrees at a reputable school is not any easier now than it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago.
Perhaps some old-timers here will contradict me, but I do think calculus -- even for technical and (particularly soft) science degrees has been, shall we say, "distilled" in the past 50 years.
Post WWII, calculus was still an upper-level course for most undergraduates, perhaps taught over two years for juniors and seniors for technical degrees. Advanced math, like analysis, advanced courses in probability/statistics, topology, linear and abstract algebra, and even anything beyond basic differential equations were mostly the subject of graduate school, except perhaps among precocious math and physics majors or at truly elite technical colleges.
Then, in the 1960s with the Space Race and such, there was a push to turn calculus into a two-semester class taken by college freshmen (or perhaps sophomores who needed remedial math). Obviously some things were lost from the older system -- it wasn't necessarily "easier," but perhaps "distilled" a bit, with many of the hairier details left out.
Then by the late 1980s, there was concern that freshman calculus was weeding out too many potential scientists or engineers who didn't come prepared from high school and couldn't complete the calculus requirement early enough. Thus, there was an even bigger push than there was already for the AP Calculus curriculum in high schools, which further "distilled" things.
It was inevitable that the "distilled" version of AP calculus then began to trickle back up to influence the way calculus was taught at universities, since AP courses were supposed to count for college credit.
I'm not sure the newer courses are necessarily "easier," but they are probably "simpler" than the calculus experience of 50 years ago, even for technical degrees.
I haven't taught the high school AP curriculum myself, but I did teach the calculus-based physics AP course in high school, which was obviously dependent on what students learned in AP calc. The rigor of the AP physics curriculum is atrocious, mostly (I think) due to the poverty of the mathematical tools available to high school students. Occasionally you'd hit upon an interesting rotation problem in the mechanics section.
The electromagnetism curriculum is particularly bad, where I could effectively predict the basic problem types on the exam each year, which were usually limited to ridiculously simple symmetrical problems again due to lack of a proper understanding of calculus (particularly multivariable, but you could do even more with single variable).
I actually feel a little sorry for students who get E&M college credit for that exam. You really haven't learned much about the subject matter even if you get a 5 on the AP physics test, but I'm sure many college curricula have been influenced by its level.
Slashdot Mirror
Why a writer's widow should have better welfare cover than the widow of a mason?
Because the mason didn't work for free for months or even years building a building with the promise of being paid later. Copyright is effectively a kind of promise to the author that he will be able to be compensated for his time investment. A mason, on the other hand, is compensated every week or every month. If the mason had a deal that he'd only get a paycheck after he built an entire building, and he'd be then be paid a certain amount for X number of years, I'd expect the same to be paid to his estate if he died unexpectedly after completing the building.
How about I get paid... oh, I dunno... one half of one cent per minute of uptime for every computer that I keep running. How's that? And I think this should last for 98 years. WHY ARE YOU DEPRIVING MY FAMILY OF THIS INCOME THAT I EARNED? DON'T YOU CARE FOR MY FAMILY??!?!
If you had a contract saying that you were doing work for free (or for very limited income) with the expectations that future profits would go to you for X number of years, yes, I would in fact expect a company to honor such a contract to you or to your estate in the event you die.
Most people ask for payment up front for their labor, not hope for future profits by investing a year or two for free. If you did the latter for a company, I would expect such a company to honor that debt... whether to you or to your family in the event of your death.
Nevertheless, let me try to respond to your primary question.
What makes the authors' families special?
Nothing makes authors' families special. The difference between your example of bricklayer, etc. is that in one case a person is paid for work done at a particular time. In the case of copyright law, the general idea seems to be that an author is granted a kind of deed to a sort of property for a limited term.
Again, I'm not saying this is the best way of doing things, but it's what copyright law is based on. The "intellectual property" analogy assumes that property is created, and property does not cease to exist after someone's death. It gets transferred, and the new owner can decide whether to keep it, rent it out, etc.
Now, at face value this may seem bizarre. But think about it -- an author might spend a year or two of his life hoping to create a book that will earn some money for his wife and kids. Given the state of copyright law, the family begins to hope and count on the possibility of this income, particularly once they are given a book deal by a publisher. Then, a day after the book comes out, the author is hit by a bus. This isn't just a matter of a husband unable to return to work to earn more money -- it's the prior investment of a year or two of his life. All the income with artistic creation often comes after the fact, so it makes sense that we might apply different principles from a situation where someone has to show up to work to earn money for that day.
It's as if your bricklayer was told he would earn profits for himself and his family if he just worked for free building a building for a couple years, but he dropped dead the moment the building was done. If he was promised income, shouldn't it go to someone?
One thing that might be workable to some extent would be a multi-user patronage system. Rather than relying on one wealthy person, get a few thousand regular joes.
This was commonly done historically -- it's often known as a subscription system. Today, we associate that idea with magazines, where it continues to work the same way -- a certain number of people sign up ahead of time and are guaranteed to receive a copy of the magazine. These subscribers guarantee that a publisher can at least make up the cost of the publication, even if newsstand sales aren't that great.
But historically this was often done with books, musical scores, etc. as well. Often it involved multi-volume projects, but sometimes it was used for one large work as well. I've even seen it recently used for projects like digitization of important old reference books that would only be important to a few scholars -- you sign up early, get a reduced price, and once they have enough subscribers to guarantee profitability, the project gets underway.
This could also work via serialization, similar to Dickens
Yes, exactly. Historically, many authors made money through serial publication, and again, a subscription base often allowed publishers to guarantee profitability.
It would all just be the cheap amateurish crap like shakespear and mozart.
Umm... Mozart did in fact publish music. It was in fact covered under copyright. So did Bach (just a few things), Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, etc., etc.
It wasn't until the 19th century that composers became more dependent on money from publication, though. Why? Not because of anything having to do with copyright. In the 18th century (and before), composers had day jobs or wealthy supporters. Bach was an organist, choir director, and teacher. Mozart was paid on commissions from wealthy patrons.
But please don't pretend that these composers weren't happy to make a few bucks off of some copyrighted publication they wrote.
No, because having copyright expire on death would provide a perverse incentive for murdering authors of famous works, like George Lucas for instance.
This is always quoted as the rationale for keeping copyright around after an author's death, but it's pretty preposterous and historically it isn't the reason why it exists.
If you take a look at 19th century activists for copyright, you see a lot of mention of widows and families of authors. That is the more realistic reason for keeping limited term copyright around. I'm not talking about rich people like Lucas (or setting up generations of descendants for wealth) -- I'm talking about an author who makes maybe a few thousand dollars off of his writings and uses that income to help support his family. Why should we deprive that family of that income because of the untimely death of the author?
Please stop spreading the crazy idea that people are going to go around murdering authors -- it was discussed historically, but it was never taken seriously. The real argument is about families.
Tell me again, how exactly copyright encourages creation of new works?
Since you asked, it's simple -- at least in the pre-internet age.
I spend a year or two writing a book. I get someone to publish it. But then, the publisher down the street starts selling cheap imitations of my book for 10% of the price. Everyone buys the cheaper version, so I get nothing for my years of time spent writing the book. So why would I (or anyone else) bother to spend time writing books? No one would. That's how copyright encourages the creation of new books.
Now, copyright laws originally tended to be granted to 7 years. So, I get to make profits for 7 years (and sue those who try to take them away from me), but after that I hopefully have recovered my investment... and others can now use the work freely.
That's how copyright is supposed to work. Eventually, a renewal was added after 7 years, so if you were still selling well, you could get 14. Then, it became 14 years, with an optional renewal for a total of 28. Personally, I think that's the maximum reasonable copyright term -- a significant chunk of an author's reasonable working timespan.
The problem is not copyright per se. The problem is that copyright terms have now been expanded to be ridiculously long. I think 7 years or 14 years (or maybe even 28 in some circumstances) is enough to allow someone to recoup their investment. But a century or more?? That's the problem.
Of course, how this all plays out in an age of the internet and ease of copying without the cost of actual publication is a separate question.
Email ALL of my freinds and family with a status update? Alright, not ALL freinds and family need to know that I've done some mundane little task - but maybe twelve of them are interested in my doctor's visit.
I think you miss the parent's point, just as you rightly point out that the parent misses something about what Facebook allows that email does not.
Facebook communication is sort of like "holding court" at the local bar or barbershop or whatever years ago. You ramble on about stuff to people who mostly don't really know much about you outside the bar or whatever. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they tune you out. Most of them don't really care most of the time, except for a general interest in the town gossip.
Email is actual targeted communication -- it should be sent to people who matter, just as a letter or a phone call might be.
Years ago, some people liked to ramble on to strangers and loose acquaintances at the local bar, while others preferred to focus time writing letters to family and friends. While I don't think there's anything wrong with hanging around the local gossip mill, and there is a great benefit to keeping in touch with more family and friends than it would be possible to write individual letters to, I do worry that Facebook might take away from the time we spend interacting in relationships that really matter... and that some of those interactions of true friends might fall by the wayside, being replaced with whatever random snippets of one's life might have been put up in the past hour when we happen to log on.
Thus, there's something to be said for targeted communication, and not just personal meetings. I periodically send handwritten snail-mail letters to friends who actually matter to me and live far away... I am repeated told by them how much such things mean to them when they receive them. An email seems like less effort, but for the people who might *truly* care about your doctor's visit (if it's serious or something), a personal message of any sort is better.
But the point is that there is no one "right" approach to managing your children's computer use. Children are individuals, every one is unique and must be treated as such.
To which any actual parent who has thought a bit should say, "Duh." And any Slashdotter who argues about how kids need to find their own way should also say, "Duh," once they realize what that implicitly requires in terms of recognizing individuality.
I learned this before my first kid was even a year old. Even then, babies have personalities, and advice is never "one-size-fits-all." Some parents are horrified by those who would let a child cry for even a minute; others are horrified by parents who supposedly "spoil" their kids by carrying them around constantly and respond to their every need. I could easily look around to friends who had young babies and see how different behavior and personality might require different management strategy, and at that moment, I decided that as long as a parent isn't actually abusing a kid, I'm not in a position to judge parenting style or to dictate what should work for everyone.
The fact is -- different strategies work for different kids. And that is certainly as true when they are teenagers as it is when they are infants. Some kids lack maturity, emotional stability, or even basic intelligence to figure things out about internet issues by the time they are (pick an age). Others can manage things fine and need little oversight from a much earlier age.
Being a good parent and supporting your child's individuality and development in part requires attention and adaptation to help your child as an individual. Many here seem to have their opinion over how to raise the perfect kid -- but no strategy is perfect and will be successful with every individual kid or in every parent-child relationship. So, I'm not willing to say it's okay to set up a keylogger for every kid in every circumstance, nor am I willing to say it violates a kid's privacy a priori. It depends on the kid, it depends on the parent, and it depends on the circumstances.
I would have thought that should be obvious to anyone who is a parent of multiple kids or has even observed different kids and different parent-child relationships.
Put in more quarters for more time. Want to stay 30 minutes? No problem. Want to stay an hour? Reconsider your options.
While I too get annoyed at those who would spend four hours typing away at a laptop after buying a small coffee, your suggestion seems rather extreme to me.
I never go to a coffee shop to stay less than 30 minutes, except if I have a random block of time between two other scheduled events. I rarely go by myself for any length of time, and I would NEVER work on my laptop for more than a minute or two. Most of the time, I go with other people and plan to have a conversation lasting anywhere from about 45 minutes to 2 hours or so, over which time I may purchase two, sometimes three drinks.
Most of the people I know use coffee shops in similar ways. They are for social gatherings or lingering for an hour or so while reading or watching the world go by. They aren't simply a seating area for efficiently consuming beverages in the minimum amount of time.
No one wants to go sit in a coffee shop and when you get there, there are no seats because people have 'set up shop' and are there for the long haul.
I'm with you so far -- if I want to go to a coffee shop and sit down, I'd actually like to be able to sit in a seat.
They want you to enjoy your coffee, and LEAVE
Who are "they"? Coffee shops have historically been about being social or sitting and watching the world go by. In days gone by, even before the dreaded wireless, people didn't go to coffee shops to chug their coffee and leave. They went to hang out -- have a conversation with friends (or even strangers), read a newspaper or a book, or simply look out the window at the weather or the people in the street... and often (back in the day or still in many parts of Europe) smoke a cigarette or three with your coffee.
The next thing you're going to be saying is we should kick people out of the neighborhood bar after 30 minutes if they don't buy another drink.
Some coffee shops are busy and often full. But a traditional coffee shop is supposed to be different from a Dunkin Donuts or a fast-food restaurant. You're supposed to linger.
On the other hand, I do agree with you to some extent -- it's one thing to spend an hour or two sipping down a couple lattes while reading a book or chatting with a friend. It's a different thing to nurse your small coffee for four or five hours while working and typing furiously on your laptop. And to that extent, WiFi probably isn't the best thing for a coffee shop, in my opinion (though I have no problem if someone wants to go to such a coffee shop).
But please don't pretend that coffee shops were ever places where people went to efficiently consume beverages. Loitering a bit is part of culture.
but presenting science as a developing process instead of a fixed structure is a good thing
I absolutely agree with you. Nevertheless, having spent a few years teaching high school science, I'm well aware of the limitations on time in the classroom. At some point, you have to make a choice about whether it's better for students to know something, but without a lot of nuance, or know nothing but have a methodological perspective that could help them think critically about things they will encounter in the future. I, like you, think the latter is ultimately more important, but most students need at least some framework of basic knowledge they can build on first.
The atomic theory you are talking about actually ISN'T as certain as you might think.
I don't think it's certain at all. It's a terrible model that gets in the way when you try to understand quantum mechanics. But it works well for the 99.99% of high school students that might need to understand something about basic chemistry at some point in their lives, but will never take a class in quantum mechanics. This is a very good example of what I'm talking about -- in this case, I'd say the task of the high school teacher is better served with most students to convey a simple model that will help most students (with a few disclaimers) rather than present them with nothing because they don't have the proper math skills.
I think that all of science should be introduced as an attempt to conceptually approximate reality through observation.
Again, I absolutely agree. But at some level, you need to give them some concepts, not just methodology. And I think that means leaving out a lot of the fuzziness when you first introduce a lot of topics. Believe me, I've made the mistake sometimes of telling a class of high-school physics students that "this is only a model" at the wrong time, and I had some students in that class who didn't believe a word I said for the rest of the school year, because they thought science was "just one way of understanding things." At some philosophical level, it is... but for the most part, it's a better model than just about anything else. The question is how mature you need to be as a high-school student to get that point and not dismiss science as "one way of knowing." Clearly, given the current evolutionary debate and the OP talking about how it's "just a theory," many adults haven't yet made that conceptual leap themselves.
I don't think you're getting the point, you can't really hand most kids a 1000 page evolutionary textbook and expect them to get anything out of it.
I never said they should be able to. Here's what the OP asked for:
An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this seems to imply something exhaustive. I'm assuming the OP wanted this to help him find all this information, not that he would hand it off to a kid directly.
What would probably be immensely helpful is a 20-30 page supplemental packet in every HS biology textbook
Sure, I absolutely agree with you.
[teachers] typically spend more time explaining the end process rather than examining the scientific processes behind it [. . .] [the packet] goes through the process of evolution and how it affects our daily lives
From your description, I'm not sure what you want either. You complain that teachers spend too much time on the end processes of evolution, but then you want a packet that summarizes evolution in "our daily lives," which is certainly an end-process approach. I'm not trying to be confrontational -- but I think your points here make clear that it's hard to figure out how to compress more information into a subject that probably gets a few days in a high school curriculum. That's simply not enough time to convince anyone of something that their religion tells them is wrong, so I absolutely agree with you that some summary in a textbook could be a good way to give more info for the kids who are open-minded and curious at least.
Effectively the slow progression the car industry makes in response to market forces is analogous to the evolution of life in response to changing environmental pressure.
Not to be negative about a car analogy... but this is a terrible demonstration to argue with fundamentalist Christians. (I'm not arguing against evolutionary theory, just saying this analogy is likely to get most people in more trouble.)
Why? Because all of these responses in the car industry are caused by intelligent beings (or, well, corporate executives, so maybe not that intelligent...) making choices to respond to economic factors in order to make more money. This is actually an analogy that argues in favor of Intelligent Design, rather than Darwinian evolution.
True evolution occurs as the result of random processes. If these corporate executives were just randomly making variations on cars for no apparent reason ("Let's try putting the gas tank directly in front of the windshield!" "Let's put the wheels on TOP of the car and see if people will buy it!"...), and then responding to whether they sold well, the analogy would work a little better. But the evolution of cars is not primarily the result of random mutation.
I think the point is more that if a science teacher can't stand behind the findings of science (i.e. that evolution is correct) then their students are more likely to have less respect for science and/or not pay as much attention to it as a subject.
No offense, but how is a student less likely to respect science because of a theory they don't know about much because they weren't taught it?
I find this debate ridiculous too, for a number of reasons. And I understand that it's a polemical issue that generates a lot of media attention. But I don't think that neglect of a topic that takes up maybe a couple weeks of the high-school science curriculum is resulting in underperforming science students in general.
I'm sure it exists, but I've never been able to find it; there's something that would really help: An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.
You can't find it because it would be a massive encyclopedia. There are dozens of scientific journals devoted to evolutionary theory, churning out thousands of pages each year. But if you're looking for a basic summary, try a textbook on evolutionary theory -- there are a number of college-level textbooks (500-1000 pages long) on evolutionary theory that should give you what you want, as well as having a bibliography to track down more information.
Observations of microevolution in the lab, sequences of fossils and how they were dated and how we're certain that they're from the same lineage, numerous clear examples, multiple convergent lines of evidence (fossils vs. dna), etc. In science class, they don't teach this.
Of course not, anymore than they teach a complete history of Newtonian physics in high school or go into the methodology of meteorology or vulcanology before giving basic concepts of cloud formation or the dynamics of volcanoes. I agree that it would be good for middle school or high school students to see more scientific methodology that is critically evaluated, rather than just results. But evolutionary theory is not unique here -- you could ask the same for almost any topic presented in a science class.
They teach the end results of the science as though it were FACT, but it's NOT. It is a fact that it's a good theory, but the theory itself cannot be deemed fact.
It's all theory. What's an example of a "fact" to you? Are there scientific "facts"? Almost any collection of information that combines raw data in any way is an interpretation of that data. In essence, it is a "theory." Whether that theory is expressed in equations or collections of artifacts or accounts of historical events, they all require someone to put the data together, and in my view (and in the view of most scientists), no interpretation is ever final. Beyond raw data, there are no "facts" -- there are only "theories," so don't get hung up on terminology.
Evolutionary fact observed in the lab is true.
No, data we observe in the lab may support an interpretation consistent with evolutionary theory. For every such experiment observed in the lab, I'm sure some creationist or other scientist could come up with a different explanation that interprets the data in a different way, which might conflict with or complement evolutionary theory but not require it.
Evolutionary theory is a MODEL that we STRIVE to MAKE true and is the best model we currently have. If it were TRUE, we'd be done. No more to discover. Rather, it is a gradually improving approximation.
Again, one could say the same for EVERY area of science. Would you require physicists to summarize all the evidence for theories of mechanics, optics, electromagnetism, etc. before they present it as well? What about this atom theory, with electrons buzzing around? "Where's the EVIDENCE?" you say. We should teach students to think critically, but we can't introduce every idea of elementary science like this. Why is evolution special, except for political reasons, rather than scientific ones?
From TFA:
Teachers who are unable or unwilling to teach the theory of evolution in biology might be one reason U.S. students are falling behind in science, according to new research. [. . .] The findings come at a time when the national Center for Education Statistics, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, released findings that said only 21 percent of students in grade 12 scored at or above "proficient" in 2009, with 60 percent reaching the level of "basic."
First off, bad reporting -- what are those statistics referring to? When we go to the NCES website, we find this is referring to science performance in general. This trend in biology teachers is distressing, but I'm not sure bad teaching of evolutionary teaching is resulting in 88% of students not achieving high marks in, say, physical sciences, earth sciences, etc. NCES itself notes immediately after the statistic in its own report:
Twelfth-graders who reported taking biology, chemistry, and physics scored higher than students taking less advanced science coursework.
In other words, students who take more science and harder science do better on science tests. Duh. I'm not sure the teaching of evolutionary theory is even on the map compared to problems like students not taking science, not being interested in science, and probably poor science teaching in general, particularly in the low-level science electives for students not taking real bio, chem, or physics. I taught high school math and science for a few years, and I can definitely say that the teachers assigned to teach these dumbed-down science courses were some of the worst in the school -- often coaches or people with science degrees or related degrees who weren't able to find a job doing anything else because their skills were so poor.
Is the teaching of evolution a problem? Sure. But I'm not willing to believe it is even in the top 20 causes for these students performing poorly on tests of scientific knowledge in general.
Most people I know who are involved in religious activities are mainly in it for things like the social community it offers, as well as the ritual aspects. Lots of people like communities -- whether it's your bridge club or your fraternity -- and lots of people like ritual -- whether it's watching a TV show at a particular time or buying season tickets to go see your favorite sports team every week.
Not to trivialize anyone's religious experience, but at its heart, religion provides things that many people want in their lives. If they don't get those things there, they often get it through other venues -- entertainment, other social groups, etc. They go to psychotherapy instead of confession. Who am I to judge what works for different people?
My point is that most people who associate themselves with a religion aren't on the news screaming about it. They aren't wielding it in holy wars and crusades. Has religion been used as a tool of politics? Of course. Is it often such a tool among the powerful? Sure. But lots of common people find meaning in it for their own individual lives, divorced from any political agenda.
That to me sounds like a good deal for everyone.
Well, except for the rich people and large corporations who will have to pay more in the progressive taxes.
Don't get me wrong -- I agree with your idea. But the reason it doesn't happen in most states is that (1) people don't understand progressive vs. regressive taxes so well, and (2) for some bizarre reason many middle-class and even some lower-class voters are convinced that any tax increase for anyone is bad. Tax increases, even for the rich, are broadcast in politics and the media as if they were tax increases for all.
Hence, we end up in some states with the more common scenario of no income tax and high other taxes (usually sales and property) which are generally regressive. I understand the moral and legal objections to taxing income (and I actually agree with it in part), but that's mostly a fringe view in the electorate. Somehow, the vast majority of the population in such states keep voting for politicians that protect the money-making interests of the top 5% or 1% or whatever.
For most people, I'd guess it boils down to the fact that income taxes require that you file an annual report where you see all the thousands of dollars flowing out of your pocket. You don't see that huge lump sum everywhere leaking out of your wallet with sales taxes... but of course a couple cents here, a couple dollars there adds up.
So what's the point in staying at school past age 10?
Good question. Is there one for most people?
Seriously. I might push up the age to 12 or so.
After that, most people would probably be served better by taking part in some sort of apprentice program. If they can read, write, and do basic arithmetic, what else does secondary school provide that is of any practical use to most people in their lives? Wouldn't they be better off learning some practical skills?
Those with the ability or the desire to stay in school should be held to much higher standards than we have now. If there is any kind of standard secondary curriculum, it should serve to expand students' minds, not put them in a controlled penitentiary-like environment for six hours most days of the week to satisfy the real goals of compulsory education -- to stop gangs and to stop free-thinking political dissidents who can sway young minds more easily.
Nah. That claim was once made for teaching Latin in public schools. It's still made for teaching Euclidean plane geometry.
Ask most high school English teachers whether students who take Latin do better with English grammar and writing. It's probably not the most efficient way to teach such things, but it clearly works. The fact that it's primarily a dead language is actually a benefit to some degree, since it requires a level of advanced linguistic analysis that is rarely done to one's native language.
As for geometry, it's useless if it's taught as a simple collection of useless geometric facts, like side-angle-side congruence criteria and random theorems about secants and circles. If it requires students to work their way through logical arguments to construct proofs, however, it does actually require a certain rigor of thought that is important in both math and argumentation in general.
I'm not saying these are the best approaches, but they do actually work.
Without the engineers, you would have no venue for your art, no studio to work in and no house to rest in.
I think you're only thinking of literature and music in the modern "artistic" sense.
This was as true for Homer and Sophocles as it is for you.
Without storytellers (which Homer effectively was, possibly even a wandering bard with no studio to work in or house to rest in) and music for ceremonial purposes and such, many societies would not have developed into a culture where people could stop and think about science or math, let alone abstract art or music. I'm not at all arguing against the importance of math in historical development, but to move beyond small clans of hunter/gatherers or small agrarian communities among chieftains in a perpetual state of war, most societies needed a sense of culture -- of their history (told in oral literary traditions), of their ceremonies (which often historically have involved music), and of their power structure, which was generally created out of these ceremonial roles, cultural artifacts, etc.
Before you build the temple or the academy, you need a power structure that allows some people to stop having to worry about gathering food every day and making it through the winter. The creation of those power structures emerges through technology of a rudimentary kind (requiring no math or engineering in any modern sense) and cultural practices that are usually put in place through ceremony, "art," and politics.
How does literature or music get labeled as essential and not math?
I agree with you this far -- literature and music are not necessarily anymore "essential" than math. But I think it depends on your perspective.
We learn math so we can build things that let us have time to create literature and music. Sure not everyone needs it (though probability would certainly help), but no one *needs* literature or music, its just the sort of thing we *want*.
It depends on how you define "need" and "want." What do humans actually need when it comes down to it to survive? We need food. In most parts of the world, we need shelter and we need clothing.
Last time I checked, hunting or growing basic food doesn't require a lot of math (though being able to count and knowing something about astronomy will allow you to track growing seasons), building a basic hut doesn't require math, and making clothing from animal skins or even weaving cloth doesn't require math again beyond perhaps basic counting.
So what do we need math for? If you want to move beyond basic hunter/gatherer societies or small agrarian societies, math is generally required -- and in the modern world, our planet couldn't sustain us using such primitive things. But we probably wouldn't have grown to our current population level without advances allowed by mathematics and technology.
On the other hand, literature (or at least oral traditions) and music have played a role in almost every culture since ancient times. Math, in contrast, gradually developed to be a part of human culture, and it's really only in the past century or two that anyone thought the general population needed more than basic math. Whereas no one would dispute the role of oral/written literature and music going back millennia.
On some basic human level, one could conclude that human societies seem to "need" literature and music. Why would the iPod be so successful if this weren't true? Yet great than 95% of the people who buy iPods don't use anything more than basic arithmetic in their lives.
We only need math more than the arts if we have certain ideas of what societies are supposed to be and how they are supposed to progress. As humans, we clearly have a greater social need for art than for math.
And finance. I don't care if someone can't do derivatives but everyone should understand the implications of credit card interest.
I absolutely agree with this. Basic financial education is absolutely essential in the modern world. Except for those with the desire and potential to go into science/engineering/etc., I'd prefer to see the entire secondary math curriculum blown up and replaced with practical math, rather than the current mess we have for most students.
A few years back, I taught algebra II at a high school in a lower-middle class community where it would be the final math course for most students. (Those who were going on to higher math would have taken a different version of the course.)
Due to state curriculum bureaucracy and the ridiculous idea that the abstract concepts of algebra II would be useful to anyone beyond the maybe 10% of the U.S. population who goes into a technical field, I was forced to -- for example -- spend about six weeks on conic sections. Given the poor background of these students (many of whom had a substitute teacher for most of algebra I), the best I could do with them was exercises in getting conic section equations in standard form and graphing them, which were the minimum state standards. The state standards didn't care so much about application problems, so I wasted six weeks of these students' lives doing something none of them will ever use.
On the other hand, when we got to exponential equations, I tried to do some basic financial problems involving compound interest. None of them had any idea what I was talking about. These were graduating seniors, who supposedly had at least 8 years of preparatory math, a year of algebra, and a year of geometry, and they had no idea what compound interest even was, let alone how to calculate its practical implications in credit cards, mortgages and loans, saving for retirement, etc.
I did the best I could, but the state standards didn't allow me much time for practical math. Another algebra II teacher had quit at that school mid-year because she refused to pretend to teach the state curriculum to students who couldn't even understand algebra I, and she ended up battling the administration daily. She was an experienced teacher -- this was my first time at it, so I just did what I was told. That's what most teachers do.
Want to know why we had a mortgage crisis, why the country is drowning in credit card debt? Ask those who design our secondary math curricula.
I can't speak for calc classes designed for non science and engineering majors, but calc for technical and scientific degrees at a reputable school is not any easier now than it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago.
Perhaps some old-timers here will contradict me, but I do think calculus -- even for technical and (particularly soft) science degrees has been, shall we say, "distilled" in the past 50 years.
Post WWII, calculus was still an upper-level course for most undergraduates, perhaps taught over two years for juniors and seniors for technical degrees. Advanced math, like analysis, advanced courses in probability/statistics, topology, linear and abstract algebra, and even anything beyond basic differential equations were mostly the subject of graduate school, except perhaps among precocious math and physics majors or at truly elite technical colleges.
Then, in the 1960s with the Space Race and such, there was a push to turn calculus into a two-semester class taken by college freshmen (or perhaps sophomores who needed remedial math). Obviously some things were lost from the older system -- it wasn't necessarily "easier," but perhaps "distilled" a bit, with many of the hairier details left out.
Then by the late 1980s, there was concern that freshman calculus was weeding out too many potential scientists or engineers who didn't come prepared from high school and couldn't complete the calculus requirement early enough. Thus, there was an even bigger push than there was already for the AP Calculus curriculum in high schools, which further "distilled" things.
It was inevitable that the "distilled" version of AP calculus then began to trickle back up to influence the way calculus was taught at universities, since AP courses were supposed to count for college credit.
I'm not sure the newer courses are necessarily "easier," but they are probably "simpler" than the calculus experience of 50 years ago, even for technical degrees.
I haven't taught the high school AP curriculum myself, but I did teach the calculus-based physics AP course in high school, which was obviously dependent on what students learned in AP calc. The rigor of the AP physics curriculum is atrocious, mostly (I think) due to the poverty of the mathematical tools available to high school students. Occasionally you'd hit upon an interesting rotation problem in the mechanics section. The electromagnetism curriculum is particularly bad, where I could effectively predict the basic problem types on the exam each year, which were usually limited to ridiculously simple symmetrical problems again due to lack of a proper understanding of calculus (particularly multivariable, but you could do even more with single variable).
I actually feel a little sorry for students who get E&M college credit for that exam. You really haven't learned much about the subject matter even if you get a 5 on the AP physics test, but I'm sure many college curricula have been influenced by its level.