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According to Howard, he was studying chemical engineering at New York's Pratt Institute when he had a disagreement with a professor over a complex mathematical problem: 1 x 1. We are not joking. Howard strongly believes that one times one equals two, and the media is lying to you about it equaling one. As he put it on a Rolling Stone profile on him: "How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a troubling impact on the reading skills of school kids in the youngest grades. A series of new studies indicate that roughly one-third of the youngest school kids are behind on reading benchmarks, appreciably higher than before the pandemic. For kindergarten students nationwide, the percentage of students at highest risk for not learning to read rose 8 percent during the pandemic, from 29 percent in the middle of the 2019-20 school year to 37 percent in the middle of the 2021-22 school year, according to a study conducted by Amplify, a curriculum and assessment company....

"Kids reportedly have no difficulty with the train problem, but adults aren't faring so well. The puzzle was designed for the fresh eyes of 6 and 7 year olds, so maybe all of us grownups are just overcomplicating things! "Check out the problem below, and let us know if you were able to solve it!" There were some people on a train. 19 people get off the train at the first stop. 17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has deemed math proficiency tests for teachers “unconstitutional” due to “racial disparities.” The court ruled that because non-white teachers are less likely to pass the math test, it should no longer be required. As one social media commentator aptly pointed out, Ontario teachers no longer need to pass basic math in order to teach basic math. As bad as your first-impression take on this might be, it's actually even worse. Read closely: this math proficiency test isn't for the students, it's for THE TEACHERS. Your Ontario teacher no longer needs to pass basic math...

USA Today changed the headline after well-deserved mockery. USA Today published a convoluted, garbled mish-mash of “antiracist” Critical Race Training crazy disguised as a serious piece of “journalism” . . . . or maybe it’s an op-ed? Who can tell in these final days of leftwing propaganda disguised as “news”? NOTE: USA Today changed the headline after endless and well-deserved mockery to “Is Math Education Racist?”As is so often the case when leftist propagandists engage in what could be meaningful discourse, the team of four writers on this piece (FOUR!) start out asking the wrong question and, in the process,...

Hundreds of prominent professors — including top names from CUNY, NYU, and Columbia — have signed a letter blasting the erosion of math rigor in grades K to 12. Arguing that curtailing advanced math programs puts American kids at a global disadvantage, the coalition called the movement “the height of irresponsibility.” A total of 746 math teachers and professors across the country signed the new missive, warning that enfeebled math curriculums would have dire consequences down the line. The teachers — including two CUNY professors, nine from Columbia University, and 13 from NYU — argued that kids need exposure to...

As many students of color struggle with the subject, schools are altering instruction - sometimes amid intense debate.Students practice equations through singing, dancing and drawing. Activities are sculpted around their hobbies and interests: anime, gaming, Minecraft. Problem-solving is a team sport, rather than an individual sprint to the right answer.Ebri, a math teacher and tech specialist for Duval County Schools in Florida, is using new techniques designed to promote equity. If kids of color, girls and low-income students engage, they'll be more likely to pursue high-level math classes, the argument goes. That can open doors to competitive colleges and lucrative...

An open letter from more than 1,200 California academics and teachers is protesting the state’s proposed K-12 math curriculum, which the signatories state amounts to “an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”Signatories of Independent Institute’s “Open Letter to Replace the Proposed New California Math Curriculum Framework” include 900 academics, at 67 California colleges and in universities, who assert the state is “on the verge of politicizing K-12 math in a potentially disastrous way.” The letter sends a similar warning as another from hundreds of the nation’s top scientists and mathematicians that expresses “alarm”...

When Rebecca Pariso agreed to join a team of educators she said she expected some controversy. “We were transforming math education, and change is hard and scary,” said Pariso, a math teacher at Hueneme Elementary School District. “Especially if you don’t understand why that change needs to occur. But I didn’t expect it to go this far.” Every eight years, a group of educators comes together to update the state’s math curriculum framework. This particular update has attracted extra attention, and controversy, because of perceived changes it makes to how “gifted” students progress — and because it pushes Algebra 1...

A rare manuscript by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein goes under the hammer in Paris on Tuesday, with auctioneers aiming for a stratospheric price tag. The manuscript, containing preparatory work for Einstein's key achievement the theory of relativity, is estimated at between two and three million euros (2.3-3.4 million), according to Christie's which is hosting the sale on behalf of the Aguttes auction house. "This is without a doubt the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever to come to auction," Christie's said in a statement. The 54-page document was handwritten in 1913 and 1914 in Zurich, Switzerland, by Einstein and his colleague...

A hearing officer at a Nevada community college has ruled against a professor who says the school is trying to fire him for standing against weakening math standards. In a report issued November 12, Truckee Meadows Community College Special Hearing Officer Vicky Oldenburg found that math Professor Lars Jensen violated several school codes when he protested a new curriculum structure that essentially allows remedial math classes to count for college credit. The report brings Jensen one step closer to being fired with cause. The report will now go to a faculty panel that will vote and write up its own...

A California math teacher is under fire after she was filmed donning a feather headdress and doing a bizarre 'Native American' dance for her students. Footage of John W North High School math teacher Candice Reed donning feathered headgear while chanting 'SOH CAH TOA' -a mnemonic for remembering the definitions of the trigonometric functions sine, cosine, and tangent- has gone viral. The video was posted to Facebook on Wednesday by Shadae Johnson, a member of the Urban Indigenous Peoples Advisory Council Member in Vancouver. Johnson said the footage was filmed on Tuesday by a Native American student in Reed's math...

The University of Oklahoma wants to hire an assistant professor that has a 'culturally responsive and sustaining mathematics pedagogy.' Though the listing does not specify a salary, the Glassdoor jobs platform estimates a comparable position at the university earns around $83,000. The University of Oklahoma is seeking a mathematics education professor versed in “equity and social justice.” The incumbent will teach within the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, which according to the job posting, “aspires to become a diverse and inclusive community of learners who engage in transformative scholarship with and in communities to advance justice and promote human dignity.”...

Does the average person have any idea what is now considered “normal” in the field of K-12 education? I already had some misgivings after reading Jay Schalin’s devastating review of the curricula in education schools: The Politicization of University Schools of Education: The Long March through the Education Schools. Nevertheless, I was unprepared for what I recently heard in a 2019 speech by a leader in math education, Deborah Loewenberg Ball. While the talk is now two years old, it is very unlikely that her perspective has improved. Ball’s credentials place her at the apex of the education world: she...

NEWS PROVIDED BY Bakuage Co., Ltd. Jul 07, 2021, 03:00 ET SHARE THIS ARTICLE TOKYO, July 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- - Highest Prize for Any Unsolved Problem in Mathematics - Bakuage Co., Ltd. headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, announced on July 7, 2021, that it is offering a prize of 120 million Japanese yen (*) to anyone who has revealed the truth of the Collatz conjecture, an unsolved mathematical problem. (*) 120 million Japanese yen is about US$1,085,000 (1US$=JPY110.50 as of June 29, 2021). Image: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M106706/202106236656/_prw_PI1fl_dI1163aV.png - What is Collatz conjecture? The Collatz conjecture is one of unsolved problems in mathematics....

The three-body problem, which has been a focus of scientific study for over 400 years, represented a stumbling block for famous astronomers such as Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler. Scientists at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have found a solution to one of physics' greatest questions in a paper published this month. The paper, published in Physical Review X, focuses on the three-body problem, which concerns the orbits of the Sun, Earth, and the Moon. While in a binary orbit system consisting of two celestial bodies, the orbits can be accurately predicated mathematically, while the complex interactions of a three-body problem...

OREGON—Oregon high schools have removed requirements to learn reading, writing, math, and basic social skills for kids graduating and moving on into the real world. The reason, according to one Oregon school board member, is to make sure they aren't influenced by far-right misinformation present in Thomas Sowell books, Jordan Peterson books, and other Nazi-adjacent authors. "We have to protect these kids," said Dr. Ethan Bremington (they/them), a superintendent of one Portland high school. "They were learning to read and going off and reading unapproved material. We really hoped they would use their reading skills to read The Communist Manifesto...

An alarming discovery out of Baltimore City Schools. Project Baltimore has obtained student assessment data that North Avenue does not release publicly. That data shows some students who could soon graduate, are performing at an elementary school level, academically. Project Baltimore, over the years, has heard from many parents who say their children are being pushed through Baltimore City Schools without getting the education they need. Julie Gaskins told us back in 2018 that her seventh grader was doing math and reading at a second-grade level. Project Baltimore also spoke with Gregory Gray, a Baltimore City Schools father, back in...

An ancient clay tablet shows that the Babylonians used Pythagorean triples to measure accurate right angles for surveying land.Students may not believe that Pythagoras’ Theorem has real-world uses, but a 3,700-year-old tablet proves that their maths teachers are right. The artifact, named Si.427, shows how ancient land surveyors used geometry to draw boundaries accurately. Discovered in central Iraq in 1894, Si.427 sat in a museum in Istanbul for over a century. Now, mathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales, Australia, has studied the clay tablet and uncovered its meaning. “Si.427 dates from the Old Babylonian (OB)...

The International Space Station consists of 16 linked habitats, strung with solar arrays, space debris shielding, and a robotic arm, all spread over an area about the size of a football field. Yesterday, the entire assembly began to tilt and tumble after a newly-arrived Russian module malfunctioned and began firing its thrusters uncontrollably. Only the rapid response of flight controllers in Moscow and Houston, and of the 10 astronauts onboard, kept the $1 billion space lab on course. “We proceeded to do headstands and cartwheels,” Zebulon Scoville, a flight director on duty in Houston during the episode, said in a...