I try to teach a few adult industrial education classes. I see clear evidence of each of the following with disturbing frequency. At the beginning of every class I have to spend an hour just showing / reminding most of the class how to follow equations and the order of add, subtract, multiply, divide and raising numbers to powers.
(including the ability to follow simple instructions)... word problems that require selection of variables and the correct formula to apply blow their minds.
They can make a computer simulator do a lot of stuff but usually don’t know or care what is happening in the background or have any sense of the rightness of the numbers... they just expect them to be correct because they are provided by a computer.... never mind that there may be serious data entry errors or conflicting data.
I wonder what kind of a cliff they will drive off of some day. I don’t want to be around for it.
Oh. I say that while I am assigning reading and writing
When they discover they like Shakespeare and the dopiest jock writes a readable poem tgen they are on their way to it