Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Can't Think of a Breaking Bad Pun For the Title: Let's Do Some Math!
bainidhe_dub:
How does it take more work to apply concepts you've already learned, rather than approaching everything as brand new? 9+6=15, yes, but kids have already been introduced to base-10, so it make sense to have them "find" the 10 that they're familiar with, and solve from there. I still solve 9+x by thinking of it as (x-1)teen. I don't try to pull the fact from my head fully-formed. I know perfectly well that I am stupid slow at basic arithmetic sometimes, so I use all the shortcuts I can.
Carl-E:
Fine, then homeschool while you're also trying to work two - three jobs to feed and house them.
Look, the foundng fathers were pretty clear (especially Jefferson) - an educated citizenry is in a democracy's best interest. They left it to the states initially (as with so many other things), but it's grown far from the community-based schoolhouses. The industrial revolution saw to that - automata need to be trained, after all!
There's little evidence that a market based educational system will deliver at all. You get what you pay for, and the poor will be left behind (again). An equal opportunity to education is absolutely necessary, and a foundation of our country's entire system of government.
As for your second point, this actually strengthens their ability to learn facts faster, remember them better, and extrapolate to do more than their parent's ever could. No, we're not going to get a pack of Art Benjamins, but at least they'll stop with the fucking "I hate math" crap, because they'll actually understand what they're being asked to do.
And Baindhe, you're far from stupid slow if you know and use the shortcuts!
GarandMarine:
--- Quote from: Carl-E on 06 Sep 2014, 11:21 ---
There's little evidence that a market based educational system will deliver at all.
--- End quote ---
Which is why private schools of any kind are consistently the bottom tier in all forms of testing me... oh wait. The free market can absolutely deliver better, cheaper and more efficiently then government. Hell any one could do better then the DOE that's been consistently failing American students for... is it three generations now?
I'm fine with some of my taxes (if we absolutely must be taxed) going to educating other people's larva. However I will be damned if I don't argue for that money to be used as efficiently and effectively as possible. Between that and my mother's career in education, I think it explains why I'm so anti-union.
Barmymoo:
Private fee-paying schools are vastly disproportionately populated by children of wealthy families, who are already at an advantage for achievement. Stick the same kids in a public school and they'd still do well. Stick them in a school where there aren't any poor kids whose lack of educational support at home, or distracting personal circumstances, or simply generations of poor academic achievement telling in their critical thinking skills are holding everyone's progress back, and they will do even better. That's not proof that the market works. It's proof that society is incredibly unequal.
I absolutely don't deny that the American public school system is failing. It's an abysmal system and only seems to be getting worse. Public schools in other countries don't seem to have the same issue though. I would like to invite one of our Scandinavian forumites to input their experience in this discussion. It seems to me that most of the issues of publicly-funded services in the USA stem from not getting enough taxation funding, not too much. Obviously someone who has a blanket opposition to the mere concept of taxation wouldn't agree with that though.
Loki:
Guys? We have moved into whole another kind of math entirely.
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