funny, i was taught to reverse add... 342
173
3+9=12 carry the one, 8+6=14 carry the one, 2+1=3
Posted on 06/26/2005 6:42:49 AM PDT by grundle
In the early 1990s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued standards that disparaged basic skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, since all of these could be easily performed on a calculator.
In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. In the 1998 book, the index listed families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises and fund-raising carnival.
They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice.
Among its topics are: "Sweatshop Accounting," with units on poverty, globalization and the unequal distribution of wealth. Others include "The Transnational Capital Auction," "Multicultural Math," and "Home Buying While Brown or Black." Units of study include racial profiling, the war in Iraq, corporate control of the media and environmental racism.
It seems terribly old-fashioned to point out that the countries that regularly beat our students in international tests of mathematics do not use the subject to steer students into political action. They teach them instead that mathematics is a universal language that is as relevant and meaningful in Tokyo as it is in Paris, Nairobi and Chicago. The students who learn this universal language well will be the builders and shapers of technology in the 21st century. The students in American classes who fall prey to the political designs of their teachers and professors will not.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
bttt
For those who wonder why kids today at fast food places can't count back change then you might want to read the following history of math problems in the public schools.
Math in 1950
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Math in 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price or $80. What is his profit?
Math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Does he make a profit?
Math in 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline the number 20
Math in 1990
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrles feel as the logger cut down the trees? (There are no wrong answers)
Math in 2005
El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es....
When our son was in the fifth grade, the school switched to "Chicago Math." It appears to have been designed to amuse college level mathematicians and confuse everyone else. Until his experience with "Chicago Math," our son was pretty good in math. After one year of it, he no longer understood the relationship between decimals, fractions, and percentages. They'd gotten him so thoroughly confused that it took several school terms to get him back on track, and he still has no confidence in his ability to do math to this day. He'll be entering high school this fall, and he still calls math the "Evil Class."
Yes,
thankfully, our president's "no child left behind" education program will put things right again!
Oh, wait...........
Heh heh heh!
Yea, it is sad.
bmp
My 9-year-old was studying long division this year, and the math textbook was so confusing, even I couldn't understand it.
They had the poor kids doing things with circles and little blocks of squares.
When I showed him how I was taught to do long division, he said, "How come it's so much easier your way, Mommy?"
Good question, kid. Good question.
Regards,
PS: Back a couple of years ago, he got the following:
Find the sum: 7+8=_____
How did you arrive at this answer?
(When my son asked me what that meant, I told him I honestly didn't know. Turns out they want the kids to say, "doubles plus one." Silly me, and I thought that just knowing that 7+8=15 was all you needed to know.)
Chicago Math:
On Election Day, the democrat candidate is trailing the republican by 100,000 votes, with 50,000 ballots still to be counted. From this, we can surmise that:
a. The republican will win by at least 50,000 votes.
b. The republican will win by fewer than 50,000 votes.
c. The republican will win, but the final margin is not
determinable as yet.
d. The democrat will win.
If you chose A or B or C you are a naive fool.
The correct answer, of course, is D.
I teach mathematics to inner-city postsecondary school students. Almost none of them understand simple fractions. Almost none of them understand how to place the decimal point when converting from decimals to percentages.
Those who do not know these things do not seem capable of learning them.
One of them, when asked to calculate a 15% tip on a $15.00 restaurant bill, came up with $137.50.
ping
It looks like another generation of American school kids is about to get screwed out of an education.
Just when you think it can't get any worse...
I teach mathematics
doesn't look like it ...
15% tip on a $15.00 restaurant bill, came up with $137.50.
"Mathmatics is the language in which God created the Universe" - Galileo Galilei
And the same conservatives that are outraged at things like this are equally outraged when US companies outsource to countries where workers actually learned in school.
ping
ò E.dA = q/e0
ò B.dA = 0
ò E.ds = -d/dt(ò B.dA)
ò B.ds = m 0ò j.dA,
I would never send a child of mine to government schools. No way!
Some public schools are doing an excellent job of teaching math.
My son was in a private school, and was not challenged with math there. He then scored low in math on standardized testing.
We pulled him and put him in a recommended public school. He's done great in math since.
He's 10, and he just tested out of 6th grade math. At the end of math this year, he'll be able to test out of 8th grade math and go straight to algebra. He'll be taking algebra when he's 12. I was 14 when I took algebra.
Yesterday, we were at a store that had everything 30% off. He was going around the store telling his little sisters what everything costs. He would just look at it, and then tell them the new price. He'd pause less than 20 seconds to figure out the price.
My husband and I both have degrees in engineering. I was really good at math, but our son is much better than either of us.
He learned a lot at school (and from us).
Some public schools are doing an excellent job of teaching math.
My son was in a private school, and was not challenged with math there. He then scored low in math on standardized testing.
We pulled him and put him in a recommended public school. He's done great in math since.
He's 10, and he just tested out of 6th grade math. At the end of math this year, he'll be able to test out of 8th grade math and go straight to algebra. He'll be taking algebra when he's 12. I was 14 when I took algebra.
Yesterday, we were at a store that had everything 30% off. He was going around the store telling his little sisters what everything costs. He would just look at it, and then tell them the new price. He'd pause less than 20 seconds to figure out the price.
My husband and I both have degrees in engineering. I was really good at math, but our son is much better than either of us.
He learned a lot at school (and from us).
Ethnomathematics sounds like political correctness to the nth degree. I haven't come across a better reason to avoid public education for your kids, not even the sex education, with the culture already saturated in sex.
I have a s-i-l who has been teaching for over thirty years and the last few summers she has, out of boredom, taken on a summer teaching assignment. Her job? To teach math to math teachers!
That should tell us all something, eh?
Insert propaganda here _________.
Depends on your point of view. A waitress would applaud their math skills.
It doesn't surprise me about the NCTM. Organizations like that are magnets for liberals. They can't resist it. The fact is that math, business and engineering are drawing students who don't want to deal with the nonsense that academia has descended to.
Some of you who have small children may have perhaps been put in the embarrassing position of being unable to do your child's arithmetic homework because of the current revolution in mathematics teaching known as the New Math. So as a public service here tonight I thought I would offer a brief lesson in the New Math. Tonight we're going to cover subtraction. This is the first room I've worked for a while that didn't have a blackboard so we will have to make due with more primitive visual aids, as they say in the "ed biz."
Consider the following subtraction problem, which I will put up here: 342 - 173. Now remember how we used to do that. three from two is nine; carry the one, and if you're under 35 or went to a private school you say seven from three is six, but if you're over 35 and went to a public school you say eight from four is six; carry the one so we have 169, but in the new approach, as you know, the important thing is to understand what you're doing rather than to get the right answer. Here's how they do it now.
You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens,
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add them to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?
Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.
From the three you then use one
To make ten ones...
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right.)
And so you have thirteen tens,
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five...
Well, six actually.
But the idea is the important thing.
Now go back to the hundreds place,
And you're left with two.
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?
Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Now that actually is not the answer that I had in mind, because the book that I got this problem out of wants you to do it in base eight. But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten really - if you're missing two fingers. Shall we have a go at it? Hang on.
You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
And you add them to the two,
and you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.
Now instead of four in the eights place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours.
"Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into it?" I hear you cry. Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?(Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.)
From the three you then use one
To make eight ones,
And you add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four.
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
And you're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?
Now, let's not always see the same hands. One, that's right! Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Come back tomorrow night. We're gonna do fractions. Now I've often thought I'd like to write a mathematics text book someday because I have a title that I know will sell a million copies. I'm gonna call it Tropic Of Calculus.
Well put, Judge, especially your second sentence. To me, rightly or wrongly, but definitely dogmatically, geometry and algebra, the first stepping stones to mathematics, are the most important disciplines that one should master. They actually accomplish what our public schools talk about and fail at, teaching how to think.
funny, i was taught to reverse add... D'oh! And we lived in Chicago for ten years!
Once he figured out he was supposed to ask "What are five fives?" she had the answer.
I've suspected for some time that a lot of this goes on primarily to keep the parents befuddled.
I'll bet they have no problem finding people who want to be waiters in that part of town.
I used to have a t-shirt with that
More like "If math stayed stable, how would we sell new math texts?"
The school systems are really allergic to parental input. When we moved to New Jersey from Chicago (talk about going from the frying pan into the fire), I thought it was about time to contribute something to the community. My wife noticed that a letter from the PTO (or some school-connected body -- this was a few years ago), requested people who would read and critique textbooks the school board was considering. When I tried to volunteer, I was told there was no such position, and when I showed the official involved the letter, I was told that wasn't what it meant.
My wife is a trained educator, by the way. Her thoughts on the matter would get a post pulled in less time than it would take to compose.
I still do, but I wear it very sparingly these days. I have no idea where a replacement might come from.
I remember back in the mid 90s that the NCTM wanted a new standard for math grading. They didn't want the teacher to have a standard grading system that fits all; they wanted a teacher to take into account the background and ability of a student. Basically, that meant that if you had 30 students in a classroom you'd have 30 different grading scales. Don't know what became of it but it doesn't appear that anyone took them up on their suggestion.
Actually this could be a good thing: As the leftists masses are dumb-downed they will eventually marginalize themselves.
Actually this could be a good thing: As the leftists masses are dumb-downed they will eventually marginalize themselves.
MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS, final version:
| Equation: | |
|
| Electric: divergence |  |
 |
| Electric: curl |  |
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| Magnetic: divergence |  |
|
| Magnetic: curl |  |
 |
Gotta love the simplicity of the del operator.
Great T-Shirt........my contribution is below....
Theorem : 3=4
Proof:
Suppose:
a + b = c
This can also be written as:
4a - 3a + 4b - 3b = 4c - 3c
After reorganising:
4a + 4b - 4c = 3a + 3b - 3c
Take the constants out of the brackets:
4 * (a+b-c) = 3 * (a+b-c)
Remove the same term left and right:
4 = 3
Theorem : All numbers are equal to zero.
Proof: Suppose that a=b. Then
a = b
a^2 = ab
a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2
(a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b)
a + b = b
a = 0
Theorem: 1$(dollar) = 1c(cent).
Proof:
And another that gives you a sense of
money disappearing...
1$ = 100c
= (10c)^2
= (0.1$)^2
= 0.01$
= 1c
Theorem: 1 = -1 .
Proof:
1/-1 = -1/1
sqrt[ 1/-1 ] = sqrt[ -1/1 ]
sqrt[1]*sqrt[1] = sqrt[-1]*sqrt[-1]
ie 1 = -1
Theorem: 4 = 5
Proof:
16 - 36 = 25 - 45
4^2 - 9*4 = 5^2 - 9*5
4^2 - 9*4 + 81/4 = 5^2 - 9*5 + 81/4
(4 - 9/2)^2 = (5 - 9/2)^2
4 - 9/2 = 5 - 9/2
4 = 5
division by zero is a wonderful thing.
Balancing my checkbook taught me that......:o)
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