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[Vector]

o7

I appreciate your argument! I'll rethink my position.

[mainiac]

Now I'm teaching kids who seem like they've just never seen how to deal with a fraction in eighth grade, or how to add 35 and 10 in their heads. There has been a real decline in basic skills because there is no longer as much training in the basics.

Yeah, we've all been there.  I had a student today who took two minutes every time I asked him a simple arithmetic problem.  But can I offer you a statistic that indicates that more people are learning basic math?
http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#mathematics/scores?grade=8

[RedKing]

CLOSING STATEMENTS!!

Kasich: Raise it up! Raise the roof! Raise Ohio! I filled Ohio with puppydogs and balloons, and I can do the same to America.

Rubio: MIAMI!! The city that keeps the roof blazin! (Oh God, please vote for me Florida or I'll have to find a real job)

Cruz: Three regular guys and a super-rich guy walk into a bar....and then go beat up Hillary Clinton.

Trump: I have millions of supporters. They're good people. And some, I assume, are rapists and murderers. And if you don't nominate me, you kiss their backwards asses goodbye in the general election.


EDIT:

Now I'm teaching kids who seem like they've just never seen how to deal with a fraction in eighth grade, or how to add 35 and 10 in their heads. There has been a real decline in basic skills because there is no longer as much training in the basics.

Yeah, we've all been there.  I had a student today who took two minutes every time I asked him a simple arithmetic problem.  But can I offer you a statistic that indicates that more people are learning basic math?
http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#mathematics/scores?grade=8

Score went down from 285 to 282. Your argument is invalid. 

[smjjames]

I wonder if Rubio will get any bounce out of this? A few polls show him being a bit closer to Trump in Florida than most other polls.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nightly Closing Statements void due to technical difficulties. For English, press one. For all other languages, get out of our country you parasite scum.

[wierd]

Learning how to abuse game mechanics was an essential part of my getting a good grasp on mathematics.  Developers can't be bothered to model things like economies accurately. As a consequence, they are rife for abuse.  If you understand math, you can see this, and abuse for fun and profit.

Take for instance, Fable II and Fable III.

Those games really strongly introduce a "Real-estate" mechanic. it's wholly optional. You can choose not to, but you would be stupid not to abuse the shit out of it. The problem is that this mechanic does not self limit like genuine real-estate does. Once you own 100% of the properties, prices dont suddenly shift-- or other forces related to supply vs demand. Instead, it is a guaranteed income generator. You can LITERALLY make 10 million gold every 10 minutes, doing NOTHING, if you aggressively go for the real-estate mechanic.

Another is Elderscrolls III: Morrowind.  The game bases certain actions/outcomes on certain base values using a bland formula. This gives rise to things like the "Super potion" exploit. Basically, the game bases the strength/duration of a potion on your intelligence value, and your alchemy skill level, with no cap.  So, if you brew a fortify intelligence potion, it makes your INT score go up-- now your potions will be slightly stronger. Buy up ingredients, make a potion, quaff a potion, rinse, repeat. After a few minutes of doing this, your fortify INT potions will be upping your int score by millions of points, the potions will last for literal days worth of time, and be worth millions of GC. Once you have done this, you can fortify other base stats while grooving on super potion, making any and all challenge to the game evaporate. (Try dying when your health regenerates at +10000000hp/sec, for instance.)

Understanding math is a very powerful tool for smashing video games. Seeing the opportunities gives you more deep insight into the math behind the game, and in particular, the failings behind those mechanics.

[mainiac]

Nightly Closing Statements void due to technical difficulties. For English, press one. For all other languages, get out of our country you parasite scum.

Learning how to abuse game mechanics was an essential part of my getting a good grasp on mathematics.  Developers can't be bothered to model things like economies accurately. As a consequence, they are rife for abuse.  If you understand math, you can see this, and abuse for fun and profit.

Not so much can't be bothered as even the most simple complete economic simulation requires a lot of knowledge to make complete.

[itisnotlogical]

My two cents on math:

I think it's becoming a cultural idea in the US that smart people are smart people and you can't ever be them so don't try if you hit even a little roadblock. When I ask my friends why they're dropping out and quitting college, they just say that they're not smart enough. They don't view it as a matter of training and hard work to improve, they act like they were born with a lower proficiency at school, which I think speaks to the whole argument about standardized testing and assessment. It doesn't seem like people go to school to learn, when I hear people talk about class. They go to be assessed and see if they're smart enough to get a Degree And A Good Job^tm.

It wasn't until later in high school, when I had basically the same thing explained to me, that I became an active student and generally a lot smarter about my studies. I wasn't bad at math, I just hadn't received the right training. But literally nobody thinks like that, that I've seen.

I'm not an expert or anything, I'm just a maths student who has spent almost 100% of their life glued to screens.

[mainiac]

I'm not sure if it's a math related issue but it's certainly a BFD.

[RedKing]

I think that's a fair argument. With all the testing it's like "Are you smart now? No? How about a week later? No, still dumb."
My daughter literally takes more standardized tests in a single year than I took in my entire K-12 education. Now, in her case, she's blowing them out of the water. But after the first couple, that's not really telling us anything we don't already know.

[Rolan7]

After-closing statement from Trump:
I have the most votes.  Clinton doesn't support violence?  Well isn't she a cute little political player.

Honestly this debate had me a bit more sympathetic with Kasich and even Trump, but thankfully Trump knocked that down hard with certain statements.
And Kasich doesn't have a chance in hell

[Vector]

Hm. The other thing I feel is that there's a lot of teachers who are more interested in evaluating their students and finding out Which Ones Are The Good Ones and Which Ones are the Chaff than are interested in... teaching.

But that's not their job. Their job is to teach, goddammit >_>

[penguinofhonor]

I mean, that's what you should expect when every other complaint about schools nowadays is that the Good Ones are getting dragged down by the Chaff.

[Vector]

I mean, that's what you should expect when every other complaint about schools nowadays is that the Good Ones are getting dragged down by the Chaff.

I will tell you that the rule of pairing the most able student in the class with the least able one is borderline moronic. You should pair students with complementary weak points, so that they can learn from each other.

[wierd]

This comes back again to the "Information can be transferred, but understanding cannot" issue.

Typically, a good teacher tries to find a small nugget of understanding that the student possesses already, then builds on that understanding to reach the understanding desired.  They do not give the initial understanding, they have to find it.

On the flipside, you have information. As long as the student can understand spoken language, information can by given-- Understanding of the information notwithstanding. (rote memorization drills, et al.)

Vector, you are lamenting that there is less pre-existing understanding on which to build to the desired level of understanding. (Nobody cooks at home any more, so no experience/understanding there. Nobody makes their own cabinetry anymore -- so , none there either, etc.)

Kids aren't dumb-- they just have different life experiences now, and teachers are less able to pick up on the already existing understanding the students have, to build those competencies.  Couple that with dunning-kruger, and you have a bad picture.