THANK YOU! Learning to spell matters, learning basic math functions matters (rote...but necessary!), learning the scientific method matters, learning to follow direction matters. I was NEVER a math person and NEVER understood the need to learn the Quadratic formula, but I could always get the correct answer because I followed rules/direction....so I guess I "learned" something! That being said, I think this obsession with making ALL teens take these higher and obscure maths is what has fueled the "None of this matters!" attitude for a lot of kids.
Thanks for sharing this -- I think you did learn, no scare quotes required. And it's legitimate to want to push to improve pedagogy in mathematics or any other discipline. But we all know the sentiment expressed in that graphic is about something more fundamental, which is whether learning things matters. It is madness that I've hard to argue the affirmative case for more than a decade, but I'm going to keep making the case because our kids deserve no less.
My older sister is a retired teacher and did 30+ years in the classroom.....3rd-8th grades. She would constantly say spelling didn't matter because of spell check on computers or that learning basic math facts was useless because everyone had calculators. I thought that was very dangerous! As I watch these kids/young adults in restaurants and they can't calculate a tip without their phone or the cashier doesn't know how to count back money without consulting the screen on the register, I find myself thinking that I was correct all along. My mother used to tell me that the best calculator I had was sitting on my shoulders (at that time, calculators were new on the market and expensive for a blue collar family to afford). We should NEVER let technology take over what our brain is designed to do for us.
Tim! Or Comrade Kong, if you prefer -- great to see you on here! And a prescient post by you indeed. I'm struck by this passage:
I wonder as we look at the internet - and if we consider it as one aspect of a social revolution - instead of being the only revolution - how much more would we able to consider and reflect on the decay of not just how we think, but in what we value about our ability to think.
That is spot on -- valuing our ability to think. The Era of Cognitive Automation threatens that value...but not around these parts!
THANK YOU! Learning to spell matters, learning basic math functions matters (rote...but necessary!), learning the scientific method matters, learning to follow direction matters. I was NEVER a math person and NEVER understood the need to learn the Quadratic formula, but I could always get the correct answer because I followed rules/direction....so I guess I "learned" something! That being said, I think this obsession with making ALL teens take these higher and obscure maths is what has fueled the "None of this matters!" attitude for a lot of kids.
Thanks for sharing this -- I think you did learn, no scare quotes required. And it's legitimate to want to push to improve pedagogy in mathematics or any other discipline. But we all know the sentiment expressed in that graphic is about something more fundamental, which is whether learning things matters. It is madness that I've hard to argue the affirmative case for more than a decade, but I'm going to keep making the case because our kids deserve no less.
My older sister is a retired teacher and did 30+ years in the classroom.....3rd-8th grades. She would constantly say spelling didn't matter because of spell check on computers or that learning basic math facts was useless because everyone had calculators. I thought that was very dangerous! As I watch these kids/young adults in restaurants and they can't calculate a tip without their phone or the cashier doesn't know how to count back money without consulting the screen on the register, I find myself thinking that I was correct all along. My mother used to tell me that the best calculator I had was sitting on my shoulders (at that time, calculators were new on the market and expensive for a blue collar family to afford). We should NEVER let technology take over what our brain is designed to do for us.
Comrade Riley,
On point as per usual.
2016 was a good year for similar words it appears - back in the halcyon days of blogging - I wrote this:
https://www.continue.nz/the-information/
Which itself was based on reading an essay from 2011.
Same as it ever was in some ways.
Onwards
Tim! Or Comrade Kong, if you prefer -- great to see you on here! And a prescient post by you indeed. I'm struck by this passage:
I wonder as we look at the internet - and if we consider it as one aspect of a social revolution - instead of being the only revolution - how much more would we able to consider and reflect on the decay of not just how we think, but in what we value about our ability to think.
That is spot on -- valuing our ability to think. The Era of Cognitive Automation threatens that value...but not around these parts!
But what of the Subaru?