Posted on 05/01/2016 11:46:48 AM PDT by JimSEA
Mathematician Edward Frenkel was promoting his New York Times bestseller “Love and Math.”
Social scientist Andrew Hacker, on the other hand, caught my attention immediately after the New York Times published his article arguing for the elimination of algebra from our education system. We don’t need it anymore, he claimed,. It does us far more bad than good.
Hacker is a hit now. His anti-math book, “The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions” is holding its own against “Love and Math,” despite Frenkel’s book being translated into more than a dozen languages and Frenkel’s indefatigable popularization of the power, passion, and beauty of math.
Is Hacker a doublethinking Orwellian demonizer, or does have a point?
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One of the biggest problems for math is that very few us get shown the big picture by master mentors when we’re young the way Edward Frenkel was. Demonstrating an innate talent and passion for mathematics early on, Frenkel recounts in his book how world-class mathematician Israel Gelfand took him in. Every Monday night for nearly 50 years on the 14th floor of the Moscow university building Gelfand “would welcome all undergraduates, talented graduate students and brilliant professors… These meetings, which often lasted well into the night, were more like a social event than a traditional seminar, where a speaker would go to a blackboard and talk for an hour. He [Gelfand] would walk the aisles, stop and chat with people, interrupt and ask questions, pull a member of the audience to the blackboard and ask them to repeat what had just been said or to find a mistake in it. His interest was always in the development of the next generation of mathematicians." Not surprisingly, many of Gelfand’s former students and seminar participants are now prominent mathematicians.
(Excerpt) Read more at science20.com ...
I thought the same thing when our kids were being taught imaginary numbers in sixth grade. What good is that? I am quite sure that the teacher didn’t understand it.
Think that is more of a geometry problem than one of algebra.
In geometry you learn the difference between a square and a circle. Algebra teaches you to figure out how big they are.
Spent a lot of time in geometry class figuring areas of various geometric figures, less so in algebra class.
Yes you did, you just tuned it out.
Everyone but a slug sooner or later needs to find the center of a circle.
Or better yet, the center of a large partial arc of a circle.
Anyone can do it, once it's explained.
>>I can’t imagine any education omitting algebra. That is equivalent to omitting learning to read.
Innumeracy is rampant, particularly so among the journalist class.
It’s the pizza with the coupon.
I also use it to draw perfect ovals once I determine the major and minor axes.
I use a mental Cartesian graph when drawing. I choose a dimension ( for example the size of the head) then everything is measure “Y heads Up” and “ X head over” to find other key points in the drawing. Just as with triangulation, when drawing I use this **all** the** time***! Drawing accurate figures and likenesses would be impossible without this mathematical tool ( for me, at least).
Algebra like calculus is good mind training whether you use it or not. What about solid geometry and trig?
I simply tell the young ‘uns that the more math they know, the less that people will be able to trick them.
More importantly, find the kids with aptitude or talent and remove them from the herd. Put them in ‘special’ schools where they can actually learn something while they are fed a steady diet of elitist crap as future rulers.
The dummies come out happy and the elitists maintain their grip on the technocracy.
Hey kids! If you want a good (mediocre) job where you can wear Dockers and go casual on Friday, go to the moron college of your choice and sign on for a 30 year liability in exchange for the neat class ring. The rest of you dummies, get into line at public assistance and we'll take care of everything!
Solid geometry and trig have immediate applications in a number of craft jobs and carpentry. As I said earlier, the stupidity of a number, not all, of those in education astounds me.
“That would certainly keep the population as stupid as possible so that socialism becomes easier. And with the freed up time in school kids could learn more about socialism and homosexuality.”
How would they ever know whether or not the chocolate rations had increased or decreased, then. Brilliant.
Actually, without any math skills, government economic figures would then actually become plausible (they have to deal with all of these crackpot naysayers now).
“The students with IQs of 80-90 who go to high school every day and are enrolled in math and science classes where they don’t belong and in which they cannot achieve are not the cause of systemic failure - they are the victims of a failing social experiment which, since it cannot be modified is taking all American schools down with it. “
I’ve wondered about this too. I went to high school with a mechanically brilliant kid. He was building and repairing very high-end European bicycles when he was in high school - and beyond arithmetic, he was completely hopeless. I’m sure he achieved success with an automotive career after his dad sent him to a trade school after high school. What if he was “forced” to do things that he stunk at in college. For that matter, what if I was actually “graded” in PE. That would have been auto-flunk.
Teachers pale in comparison to the disaster of a functional moron as leader of 320 million people and control of nuclear weapons.
I wince every time I hear the First Moron say, "Employment has increased by 70% in the last year, (after personally causing a 50% loss.)
Most people don't have a clue why that is embarrassing.
Thanks then I'm yer slug. The only center I needed to find was on a target and I didn't need no geometry to find it..........
As far as pies, pies are round, not square.............
Find your nearest LBGT Studies department and write the good people there a message starting with "I feel that 'same-sex marriage' is morally wrong." Expect to receive lots of absolutist fun, without any hint of nuance, shades of gray, or appreciation of your "feelings."
In other words, I can't think of too many people who genuinely don't believe in absolutes, even if they profess not to believe in them. Even if we momentarily disregard the idea that "there are no absolutes" is itself an absolute, I have yet to find the leftist who embraces all kinds of "shades of gray" or "feelings" as valid. I've never seen one who uses such concepts to be conciliatory towards those evil, evil conservatives who dare to disagree with them.
(As it so happens, there's another current thread named "Education Dept. Releases 'Shame List' of Faith-Based Colleges Seeking Title IX Exemption"--here, "Shame List" isn't the wording of christianpost.com, the source of this article, but of organizations that wanted this list in order to shame these colleges. Celebrate diversity!)
I agree, though, that algebra is harder to corrupt with "feelings" than other subjects are.
Lest anyone misunderstand...”Social Scientist” is the mother of all oxymorons.
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