My sister is a long-time conservative, old-school math teacher. The stories she tells from “behind the lines” are astonishing and scary, but not surprising. The intelligence drop in our kids has been happening a LONG time. Students in the USA used be #1 in global math ability. Now we are #37. A slide from first place to THIRTY-SEVENTH place??? And we cannot arrest that slide.
Guess who is #1?
“ My sister is a long-time conservative, old-school math teacher.”
I believe it is intentional. When my friend’s kid was in high school, I used to tutor him in algebra. When he was struggling with new concepts like graphing rational expressions where the main goal is to find where function crosses the x axis where by solving for the numerator equals zero, and then solving for where the function goes asymptotic to infinity by solving to where the denominator equals zero, the first thing I would have him do is explain to me in detail how the teacher explained how to do it.
The explanations for every concept were unintelligible, and baffling and either the teacher had zero understanding of what he was teaching (highly likely), but the book always mirrored what the teacher was saying. They would always have some recipe of multiple nonsensical steps that had little to no correlation to what they were trying to achieve nor provide adequate explanation of the whys or whats or any practical examples with the real world.
I cannot believe how many times I would use patience and logic to ram down the mental barriers erected out of fear of the complexity, followed by the inevitable deer in the headlight look, followed by an almost audible click and spark or enlightenment in their eyes, followed by the inevitable words “it can’t possibly be that simple”. I then would make them do it over and over again to prove it is indeed that simple, then finally I would have him teach it to 3 of his friends to solidify it. Generally, it would take about half an afternoon to undo weeks worth of escalating confusion. Also with the logical explanations and scientific approach, they gradually learned to approach other kinds of problems using a measured logical approach which I find sorely lacking these days, which is why so many people are in a perpetual state of hysteria about nearly everything
You know what else has been happening for a LONG time? Republican politicians pretending to be Conservatives, paying nothing but lip service to standing up for old fashioned American values.
If they were really on our side, they would have been imploring parents to get involved in their local school board decades ago to nip this stuff in the bud. If they were really on our side, Republican politicians at the local
and State level would be leading the charge.
In the end, Republican voters are to blame for not demanding better candidates at all levels of government. We have been hoodwinked into believing that defeating Democrats in the general election is the only thing that matters.