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Author Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée  (Read 1570775 times)

WealthyRadish

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14160 on: March 11, 2016, 02:14:51 am »

Personally, I really loved calculators in school. It's how I first got into programming, making games and trippy polar graph visualizations in TI-basic (it's not like they offered a programming class). But that's graphics calculators, I guess, which were sometimes necessary in calculus (they really weren't). Arithmetic abilities really do go way to shit after using one for a while, and the laziness of it sometimes surprises me. The other day I used a calculator without thinking for 4 * 10. Like, what? Maybe it's just not being in a math class for 3 years.
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scriver

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14161 on: March 11, 2016, 02:53:14 am »

We weren't allowed to use calculators in school up until high school. Which, incidentally, was when I stopped actually doing math and just entered problems into the computer and wrote down the result.

It is also the point where my math skills and knowledge started to degrade (have I mentioned lately how I these days feel so underproficient in basic, everyday math that I feel ashamed of myself?).
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Frumple

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14162 on: March 11, 2016, 06:24:08 am »

I wasn't allowed to use calculators in a lot of math classes as well, haha. It didn't keep my math skills from degrading or improve my ability to work with mathematics, it caused me to occasionally fail tests, made it significantly more frustrating to do much of the work involved, and contributed to hating math (classes in particular) :V

What really needs to happen on that front is better integration of both calculator and non-calculator calculation, preferably side by side or in quick succession (like, say, do a test by hand one day; get it back the next with a calculator and partial or full credit for any mistakes they can correct (probably while showing the work)). Hand work and mental arithmetic is all well and good, but not using a significantly more precise and consistent tool to do things like check your bloody work is just goddamn monumentally stupid,* especially before the point you're actually practiced enough to do the work being addressed consistently and without error.** We're a tool using species, we kinda' shouldn't be refusing to use the tools available, y'know? You can teach mental arithmetic and whatnot while still using a calculator. Breaking down a equation and showing your work can still be done just fine with the TI-whatever sitting beside you. And you should, because that's one less point of failure introduced into the process, one more increase in the probability checking your work isn't going to leave mistakes behind, and so on, and so forth.

*Which, hint, is something I distinctly remember students being very thoroughly aware of and regularly disgruntled by. Significantly moreso when they knew that the actual practical work they would be doing with the material in question would always be alongside a calculator (because you can afford to regularly make calculation errors doing math homework; you can't afford to regularly do that doing construction or road work or bookkeeping or whatever.).
**Note: I don't think I've ever actually met someone in person that can do that. Even the best of my various mathematics classes and other math heavy work screwed up fairly regularly -- they knew the work involved with whatever just fine, could do it quickly, etc., etc., etc., but errors in meatbag calculation still popped up very regularly. Every accounting teacher I met could do the work in their head; they'd still pull out a calculator (or ask a student that had one) to double check their work, or pull out the spreadsheet software if there were several sequential problems to solve or whatev'.
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mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14163 on: March 11, 2016, 08:12:42 am »

Identifying those in need of more aggressive search for underlying understanding nuggets to build from, so that they can get that attention, is in everyone's interest.

But for some reason, politicians and parents alike consider this to be a bad thing, and I can't for the life of me understand why.

If you institutionalize writing some people off for not being up to snuff, pretty soon you discover you'd written a lot of people off for being misunderstood.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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sluissa

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14164 on: March 11, 2016, 08:57:39 am »

I don't think kids have any more or less potential now than they did 10 or 20 years ago. I sat next to kids dumber than me and smarter than me when I was in school. I see kids on the dumb end and the smart end in schools now. I do think, however, schools are being pushed to the limit in what they can handle. Classes are overcrowded. Teachers are taxed beyond their skills to simply keep a classroom managed and on task, much less actually teach a full lesson. Those lessons are given to them to teach rather than allowing them to come up with tailored ways to teach them to specific classes. Too much is tried to be packed into a short period of time so if there are children that fall behind they're simply left behind, as there's no time to go back and help them understand. The school day in general is simply too long on the younger end of things. Younger kids don't have the attention span to stick with a lesson for 7 hours straight. This applies for a lesser extent for older students, but they're maturing enough they can usually handle it better.

While it's getting better, there are still far too many standardized tests. Last year and the year before were the worst I'd ever seen. I did the math and something like 1/4 of the school year had some sort of testing going on in that school. (I'm not saying every student was testing for 1/4 of the year, but the school had testing of some sort occurring for about 1/4 of the days school was in session.) This year is much better though.

Along side all of this you have younger teachers who are dissuaded from applying or once accepted, from staying by horrendously low wages and a complete lack of job security along side a big brother mentality where you're being watched directly by at least 3 levels of administration above you and all the paperwork and wasted time that go along with those sorts of assessments. You have older teachers which have given up because of all of this, they're just trying to get to retirement and they, if they got in early enough, still have tenure and the worst side of tenure is showing, where you have a teacher that doesn't care about their job anymore and is almost impossible to fire.

Schools are pushed harder and harder to do their own fund-raising if they want to pay for things which takes time out of everyone's schedule. Currently there's a "Positive Behavior System" in place around here where students are supposed to get rewards for good behavior. But the suggestion of how to pay for those rewards was literally "Go around to local businesses and beg." The first year it was implemented much of it came out of employees pockets instead.

Technology is pushing its way into schools which aren't prepared for it. Testing is going from previously paper-based to all computer-based testing, but they're throwing hundreds of computers that require internet access to take these tests onto school networks that are not prepared for it. Teachers haven't been properly trained on the new technology and testing methods (which change every year). Students are pushed into computer based testing before they even have proper computer skills. You have a mix of old technology bought 10 years ago and new technology bought recently that all have to talk to each other, work somewhat efficiently and all do the same job. Schools are given very little help in regards to setting up this technology. Locally some schools don't even have a dedicated technology person on staff. And most of what staff there is is not suited to he job, many being transferred in from other departments. (Oh, you can use Excel? Well you're good with technology.)

Now I'll note, this is all local observations and may be better or even worse in different areas of the US. But based on what I've seen, our system is screwed up royally and the fact that kids and teachers together can accomplish ANYTHING is a miracle. It's broken and needs to be fixed, but all the attempts so far by government legislation and mandate have made things even worse. (By some theories this is on purpose so we can go fully privatized school system, but that might be bordering on tin-foil land.) I don't know the solution, but we haven't found it yet.


As for teaching methods, calculators, fingers and toes... Every kid learns differently. There's no one set solution for teaching every kid that'll work. Best we can do at the moment is find one that works for more kids than others do and hope the ones it doesn't work for can pick it up on their own. That is, until we stop treating every kid as identical and equal and allow ourselves to employ different teaching methods and speeds and give teachers enough time and room to stop and help the ones that might fall behind a bit in any given group.
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Reelya

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14165 on: March 11, 2016, 09:12:38 am »

I can't really understand how America manages to spend so much money on public school students (highest taxpayer spending in the world) yet they are doing so poorly. The problem can't be "gubbermint", because government-run school systems in almost all other countries cost a lot less and produce a lot more.

mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14166 on: March 11, 2016, 09:23:57 am »

I can't really understand how America manages to spend so much money on public school students (highest taxpayer spending in the world) yet they are doing so poorly. The problem can't be "gubbermint", because government-run school systems in almost all other countries cost a lot less and produce a lot more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

There are a lot of things you can do that pay better then being a teacher if you are smart enough to be one.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Frumple

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14167 on: March 11, 2016, 09:26:18 am »

Lot of it's allocation, too. Much of that money doesn't really reach the students or teachers.

Though it's not just pay, heh. Conditions for teachers are often pretty poor. Though I guess you could file that under benefits or somethin'.
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mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14168 on: March 11, 2016, 09:31:47 am »

Yeah, if the cost of healthcare rises (healthcare cost inflation), the cost of educated labor rises (college cost inflation) or the cost of pensions rise (decline in investment rate of return), it will be more expensive to hire teachers who need masters degrees and expect healthcare and pensions.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14169 on: March 11, 2016, 10:01:35 am »

Yeah, exactly. It used to be the same thing here (at least where I'm from), but now it's changing.

Personally, I was required to use a calculator from the day I entered high school, because my math teacher was a big believer in the idea that eliminating manual computation would allow you to spend much more time understanding why things fit together the way they did. I saw no signs of math skills degrading, and half of our class scored in the 99th percentile on both ACT and SAT exams. One of the great benefits was that we never memorized "shortcut" equations that work in only one specific situation (for example, to calculate the resistance of a parallel circuit, the formula is 1/((1/R1+(1/R2)+(1/R3)......), while if you have exactly two sources pf resistance you can use ((R1)(R2))/(R1+R2), which is much easier to calculate longhand, but  is of little real-world use due to the fact that you will rarely have only two resistance sources), and instead just learned the ones that work all the time.

The point is that calculators are not a handicap IF you change the way you're teaching to fit them. In most cases they're just mixed in with the traditional format (which teaches entirely through brute force that the calculator takes away) or the new system (that consists primarily of shortcut tricks that the calculator doesn't give you) and are thus detrimental.
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hector13

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14170 on: March 11, 2016, 10:16:36 am »

Carson has endorsed Trump :o
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itisnotlogical

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14171 on: March 11, 2016, 10:18:56 am »

If I had to do manual arithmetic for every single problem in my class, I would never get anything done.
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smjjames

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14172 on: March 11, 2016, 10:35:06 am »

Carson has endorsed Trump :o

And you're surprised?
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hector13

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14173 on: March 11, 2016, 10:37:26 am »

Carson has endorsed Trump :o

And you're surprised?

Only if people take Carson seriously and it boosts Trump's ratings.
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Sheb

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #14174 on: March 11, 2016, 10:47:08 am »

I wonder what's origamiscienceguy's reaction, given that he supported Carson at some point.
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