Richard Cohen = 2-1 Ape
PZ Meyers points us to the grubby cousin of Intelligent Design: idiocy sprung from lazy, not ideology.
WaPo
I am haunted by Gabriela Ocampo.How many varieties of willful dumb and arrogant are on display here? (Equations, only, please.) I sweated through Algebra 2. Statistical Methods gave me a hernia. But I never considered that that made me smarter than those who breezed through. Anyone got Jaime Escalante's email address?Last year, she dropped out of the 12th grade at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles after failing algebra six times in six semesters, trying it a seventh time and finally just despairing over ever getting it.....In L.A., more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them.
...I confess to be one of those people who hate math. I can do my basic arithmetic all right (although not percentages) but I flunked algebra (once), barely passed it the second time -- the only proof I've ever seen of divine intervention -- somehow passed geometry and resolved, with a grateful exhale of breath, that I would never go near math again. I let others go on to intermediate algebra and trigonometry while I busied myself learning how to type. In due course, this came to be the way I made my living. Typing: Best class I ever took....Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not....
posted by fouro @ 1:45 AM
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6 Comments:
Aren't "Richard Cohen" and "willful, dumb, and arrogant" redundant?
I'm guessing that poor Gabriela's problems stem much less from the inherent inscrutibility of algebra than from the vagaries of the education system in L.A. More kids drop out on account of algebra because you can't fake competency by writing about your "feelings" about it. It's probably also the only course of that kind that someone HAS to pass to graduate.
<rant>
Why is it that every time someone brings up algebra, everyone's stomachs sink? Moans and groans are always on high display.
"Oh, I don't get that stuff!" or
"I just wasn't smart enough for that math stuff."
This all BS if you ask me. Don't we have the emotional competence to separate our maligned past from the underwhelming performance of teachers?
I'm a nerd. Period. I played intramural football with a guy whose number was e^2πί. [That's my proof to my nerdoscity.] But I've never had a teacher that really inspired me to the profound power of mathematics. I've toiled in its mystery only to be able to look at the world in a new light. That's what got my juices going.
Richard Cohen is a Knob Goblin. I've pieced together more coherent thoughts in my alphabet cereal. [Ok, that was harsh.] To be fair, his vision is just a little off. If he, and others, heard of the tales of men (and sorry, it's mainly men) toiling in understanding the language of algebra, he'll realize how poetic and precise it can be.
Richard Cohen is half ape... Maybe. But hopefully the rest of us can be at least half human.
</rant>
You have a large point there, Mike, and it's not the one on top of your head. z;-)
Mitesh, I can see beauty in Fibonacci or Strings, in Kekule's struggle with the long chain (see bastardixed blog title), but as my engineer dad long maintained, I have the neurons but not the will for serious math. So, I'm jealous of your sight. Mike's too, come tho think of it.
Mitesh, the reason there aren't many great math teachers is a limitation in the fundamental design of the brain. People with a love of mathematics (nerds like us) tend to be left-brain dominant folks. The skills to be a great teacher/communicator are more right-brain skills. People that are strong in BOTH are a rare breed and tend not to end up as school teachers. Mark's example of Jaime Escalante, an engineer by training who was a exceptional teacher in spite of the system in which he taught because he had both skills, will always be the rare exception.
Mark, earlier you posted about the report of how to get the US more competitive which contained a recommendation for 10,000 new math/science teachers. The point Mitesh brings up is the Achilles Heel of that plan. If you add 10,000 teachers that can't inspire anyone, you've just wasted a lot of money and taken 10,000 people who could be productive elsewhere in our economy out of the labor pool.
Here's a better idea: Have the U.S. Government give Kathy Sierra and Co. a pile of money to develop a "Head First Algebra" book and course materials and put them on the internet for free. Allow teachers who aren't that great at math to use the materials themselves to get that "I rock at Algebra" feeling and then pass it along to their students. Problem solved for under $100,000 total. In truth, I'll bet we could get the whole thing done free by asking the executives on the orginal study committee to fund it out of their personal holdings - because it would be an awesome legacy to leave behind!
More great points. Let's do that head-first idea, Mike.
And yeah, the schoolteacher bit is a perfect crystalization of a vicious cycle:
1. Left brain, narrow-focus and risk averse, school teachers/administrators create linear, left-brain-centric protocols.
2. least analytical or patient (Right-brained) kids fall asleep, or pull hair out, and do miserably.
3. L/B teachers confab: invent lower standards and new math, but still present lessons in rote, inert manner. Kids still fail.
4. Left brain, narrow-focus and risk averse Business people get uppity, demand more quality and accountability. Politicians pick up their banner. Their solution? TPS reports for education--SOL tests that remove ANY opportunity for creativity, ad hoc problem solving, and engagement in the class-room because teachers are teaching to the test; rote memorization, turbocharged.
5. More high-maintenance and low-resourceful grown-up drones are unleashed into a world they're not ready for except in the most directed of situations leading to Nanny States and the comforting words of totalitarian Daddies.
6. Return to Step 1 and repeat. A few hundred times.
7. Then a meteor strikes. Or somebody with the big checkbook finally takes guys like Ian Jukes seriously.
Sounds like a good skype topic. Look for me online.
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