IMHO, that’s not a hard test. We had simiral tests during our math classes, and it never posed much problem.
Why would someone design a system that poorly educates its people?
[quote]goochadamg wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The ONLY thing required to have been “memorized” there (and really I think it’s more a matter of “known”) is that there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch.
[/quote]
There is? Fascinating. Never knew that until now. I guess it’s never come up in my daily or professional (admittedly, I am young) life.
Guess I’m an idiot.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
And if someone has not picked that up after that many years of schooling, it is either poor education or a mind that does not want to know things such as that.
[/quote]
It’s not important to memorize. If I need to know it, I can look it up very very quickly. Since I’ve never needed to know it, I’ve never looked it up, and hence it hasn’t been memorized.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
There are no “memorized formulas” either.
[/quote]
Sure there are: simple and compound interest formulas.[/quote]
No, it is all simple – very simple – arithmetic NOT memorized formulas.
It appears that you believe education should prepare one, if in arithmetic at all, only to be able handle the situation where someone hands out a pre-written-out equation missing only the solution, such as:
5 + 3 = ?
But as it happens, that NEVER happens in life. Only in school.
Instead in life one has to FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO with information that is provided.
On this, you fail.
You assume the solution requires having memorized a formula for that specific question and as you can’t recall such, you can’t solve the problem. Even though no such memorization was required but only ability to lay the problems out as simple arithmetic.
I don’t know how many hours per year kids are in school. Let’s say it’s 6 hours per day and 5 days per week for 10 months (let’s approximate them as 4 weeks per month) with another 3 weeks off in various vacations plus another 2 weeks total off due to teachers’ goof-off days.
Awwwww, man, we’d have to have MEMORIZED A FORMULA to solve that. Shit!!!
No, actually it’s not that tough. The estimate using these figures is 35 weeks total, thus 175 days, or 1050 hours.
So the total time for grades 1-8 is something like 8400 hours in school.
In (probably) over EIGHT THOUSAND HOURS you think that learning to be able to solve simple problems without already being laid out as:
5 + 3 = ?
is too much?
I appreciate that your being unable to solve such problems makes it appealing to assert that there is no value to being able to do so and in many thousands of hours in the classroom there should be no expectation of it being accomplished, but I believe you are letting personal inability to solve simple problems to direct your thinking there.
And on not knowing that there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch: As said before, either education has failed if this has not been presented quite adequately in such a vast amount of time in the classroom, or in an individual case the mind may have had a contemptuous attitude towards knowing such things, not having a desire to be able to do anything with knowledge such as that, and therefore paid no attention to it.
(Although I would have no way to know, I would guess with regard to your not knowing this, and having the opinion towards it that you do, that it is the education system that has failed you.)
In either case – whether the educational system or the individual is the cause – failing one or more questions on that account on a test of general education is entirely deserved.
You’ve made HH’s point for him.
"An exciting new role has just opened up at the national mint of Chile, but there’s a catch: successful applicants will have to be able to spell the word “Chile.”
That seemingly simple task was the undoing of the former general manager of the Chilean mint, Gregorio Iñiguez, who has reportedly been let go after an embarrassing blunder.
Iñiguez minted a set of 50-peso coins with the nation’s name spelt C-H-I-I-E instead of the usual C-H-I-L-E, the BBC reported.
The mistake was only picked up late last year even though the coins were circulated back in 2008, the report said. Locals are now searching through their small change in the hope that the coins will become collectors’ items and rise above their nominal value of around 9 cents, the report said.
In 100 years, perhaps less, not a single person will be alive who could understand a conversation such as we are having now. (1984)
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Why would someone design a system that poorly educates its people?[/quote]
Kuz dumb likes what dumb duz and won’t know no difference anyhow?
Or, because with out the ability to analyze and think critically, you cannot find fault with nor criticize the system which has disabled you.
This enables the development a social stratification in which the upper echelon becomes the nerve center of a social structure, thinking for it and disseminating information at it’s will. This creates a cozy little nest for the top end, while the lower ends suffer in gradations of ignorance and toil.
Come on HH, you are an executor of this plan. You should know that.
Metric system as US standard FTW.
FACT: there are 16 year old kids who can drive cars, but don’t even know their multiplication tables (I do)
You know, the government schools are just terrible with education in at least many instances, perhaps most.
When my ex-fiancee’s kid was I think 8, we tried to get him into a local private school that was affordable. This wound up being impossible due to a quite different one of their requirements – cursive writing – being impossible to achieve in the time available. I don’t agree with such a requirement, incidentally. It can readily be put off till a much later date if even bothered with at all, as unlike arithmetic, there is very little call for it today.
But he did not know the multiplication table and could not do division, and thus would not have been able to pass the arithmetic portion of the entrance exam.
It took very, very little time for me to teach him. Soon you could ask him any number that appears in a multiplication table, and he could tell you all about it. For example, you could ask him about the number 36, and he could tell you “Oh, that’s 6 times 6, or 3 times 12, or 4 times 9.” (I omitted properties such as also being 2 times 18: I only went up to 12 as a factor as for the second grade, as I think this was, he would not need to go higher than this.)
Which of course meant that on seeing a question, “8 x 9 = ?” the solution would be obvious. It’s something he knew about 72 that it is 8 x 9.
Kind of like asking “What animal has stripes and looks a lot like a horse?”
That hasn’t been memorized, but one knows about zebras, and so the answer is obvious. Rather than having to memorize a list of animals with stripes to be able to answer the question.
With this approach, arithmetic problems such as 8x9 or 72/8 weren’t a matter of “memorizing,” they were a matter of knowing the nature of a thing.
Just as you could ask him about some type of animal and he would naturally, without having “memorized” its qualities, be able to tell you various key things about it, he could tell you the things about these particular chosen numbers, of which there are not so many.
Easy. And this, btw, is how anyone who is good with numbers works with them.
He’s now in the 8th grade, with the public school having been the only continuing source of education in arithmetic. Try asking him now what 72 is and it will be a head-scratcher for him. His mind has nothing assigned to the number 72. It’s just this number that has a 7 in front followed by a 2.
Yet it is not hard to know about the numbers and when much younger he had learned all the numbers needed for the multiplication table in quite few hours.
Do the schools even TRY to teach this approach: knowing about numbers, being familiar with them? Nope.
Instead, thousands of hours go to, well, pretty close to nothing.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The ONLY thing required to have been “memorized” there (and really I think it’s more a matter of “known”) is that there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch.
And if someone has not picked that up after that many years of schooling, it is either poor education or a mind that does not want to know things such as that.
[/quote]
Sorry Bill, but not many 8th graders know there are 2.54cm in an inch…Unfortunately, neither do many 12th graders. The only really metric measurements most teenagers know is how many grams are in an 8th(ounce) and then they could probably figure out how many are in an ounce, but your going to have to give them some time for that.
I agree that it should be COMMON knowledge…the metric system is sooo god damn easy.
Then if HH’s point was that in the 19th Century it wasn’t considered too tough for 8th graders to know how units related with each other while in the 21st Century such a tough intellectual feat is considered too much to have achieved from thousands of hours in the classroom and often this daunting (?) learning achievement is not accomplished by those in the K-12 government school system, your observation seems to support that.
Now, how does such a thing fail to enter the minds of the students?
It probably really is not lack of exposure. I would bet that quite a number of problems in their books involved doing the conversion.
It is that the system fails to instill interest.
While I can’t now cite the study, the majority of public school teachers that teach science or math do not personally like the subjects and have poor academic records themselves in them.
Disinterest or even dislike breeds disinterest or dislike.
The entire subject is viewed as tedium and memorization, even where memorization should have nothing to do with it. (See this thread for evidence of seeing things as being memorization when they are not.)
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Why would someone design a system that poorly educates its people?[/quote]
Kuz dumb likes what dumb duz and won’t know no difference anyhow?
Or, because with out the ability to analyze and think critically, you cannot find fault with nor criticize the system which has disabled you.
This enables the development a social stratification in which the upper echelon becomes the nerve center of a social structure, thinking for it and disseminating information at it’s will. This creates a cozy little nest for the top end, while the lower ends suffer in gradations of ignorance and toil.
Come on HH, you are an executor of this plan. You should know that.
[/quote]
Well, war IS becoming obsolete. If we want to maintain control and prevent complete equality (maintaining the pyramid-form of society) we HAD to do something. One option was to make the base of the the pyramid (65%) into uneducated sex-crazed and drug/alcohol-crazed illiterate and INNUMERATE (that’s where I come in) morons.
Based on how many of you voted for Barack, Harry, Nancy, and John (Murtha), the plan seems to be working.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Why would someone design a system that poorly educates its people?[/quote]
Kuz dumb likes what dumb duz and won’t know no difference anyhow?
Or, because with out the ability to analyze and think critically, you cannot find fault with nor criticize the system which has disabled you.
This enables the development a social stratification in which the upper echelon becomes the nerve center of a social structure, thinking for it and disseminating information at it’s will. This creates a cozy little nest for the top end, while the lower ends suffer in gradations of ignorance and toil.
Come on HH, you are an executor of this plan. You should know that.
[/quote]
Well, war IS becoming obsolete. If we want to maintain control and prevent complete equality (maintaining the pyramid-form of society) we HAD to do something. One option was to make the base of the the pyramid (65%) into uneducated sex-crazed and drug/alcohol-crazed illiterate and INNUMERATE (that’s where I come in) morons.
Based on how many of you voted for Barack, Harry, Nancy, and John (Murtha), the plan seems to be working.
[/quote]
Well I didn’t vote for any of them, but then again I didn’t fit into the public school system very well. Tim Murphy is my candidate of choice.
Being a private school teacher, wouldn’t you be teaching the upper echelon?
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Why would someone design a system that poorly educates its people?[/quote]
Kuz dumb likes what dumb duz and won’t know no difference anyhow?
Or, because with out the ability to analyze and think critically, you cannot find fault with nor criticize the system which has disabled you.
This enables the development a social stratification in which the upper echelon becomes the nerve center of a social structure, thinking for it and disseminating information at it’s will. This creates a cozy little nest for the top end, while the lower ends suffer in gradations of ignorance and toil.
Come on HH, you are an executor of this plan. You should know that.
[/quote]
Well, war IS becoming obsolete. If we want to maintain control and prevent complete equality (maintaining the pyramid-form of society) we HAD to do something. One option was to make the base of the the pyramid (65%) into uneducated sex-crazed and drug/alcohol-crazed illiterate and INNUMERATE (that’s where I come in) morons.
Based on how many of you voted for Barack, Harry, Nancy, and John (Murtha), the plan seems to be working.
[/quote]
Well I didn’t vote for any of them, but then again I didn’t fit into the public school system very well. Tim Murphy is my candidate of choice.
Being a private school teacher, wouldn’t you be teaching the upper echelon?
[/quote]
Yes I teach kids that average a 28 on the ACT, with many 30+ scores. My older son (see Naval Academy avatar) got a 35 (top .8%).
I have left the public school system to those who deserve to be there, teachers and students alike.
To me memorizing something like there are 2.54 cm in an inch is completely pointless. I would much rather spend my time learning a concept than wasting space in my head with a figure that I can look up in hardly more time than it takes to think of it.
And Bill, you said that the school system has failed if someone doesn’t know that because it obviously hasn’t been presented to them properly. Well, tell that to a physicist. Hardly any physicist would be able to tell you anything better than the approximate order of magnitude of the physical constants, nor would they be able to tell you exact conversions. It’s relevant to know have an approximate understanding, but in this day and age, it’s not at all necessary to know all those specific values.
I personally received a great public education. I’m of the mind that you get out of school what you’re willing to put into it.
You know, I think most likely I know a few more scientists than you do.
Using the word “memorizing” as a pejorative when the actual matter is knowing or not knowing what some simple thing is, is simply an excuse for not knowing that simple thing.
And if you grew up in a US customary units system, then part of knowing what a metric unit is is knowing what it is, at least approximately, in the units you are more familiar with.
If you claim it’s too tough to know how inches compare to centimeters, or to know any other means of converting meter-based units to foot or inch based units then that’s your prerogative.
And btw, if one knows how ANY two of the units interrelate then the problem given is easily solvable. It’s totally a person’s choice as to whether he knows how many kilometers are in a mile, or inches in a meter, or centimeters in an inch, etc.
If a person is inquisitive enough to have wanted to know ONE then he can do metric/inch conversions wherever they may come up in life, wherever his is, on the spot, no problem. A matter of understanding oneself, rather than always having to have something else provide the answer.
Each can decide for himself whether the issue of not knowing even one relation between metric and US customary measures of length is one of low standards and poor education, or an unreasonable expectation for students to learn the incredibly difficult and supposedly useless.
Great balls of fire, 2.54. How could anyone remember that? Fiendish. “Memorization,” don’cha know. No problem remembering three digits for someone’s batting average last season, or how many MotoGP’s Rossi has won thus far, or any number of things with three digits or even more (!!!) but for how many centimeters in an inch, like man, who gives a shit? Tedious, don’cha know.
And you’re right, you get out of something what you put into it. That’s why I included it as the possibility, if a person does not know how to convert inches to centimeters, that it may not have been lack of exposure but the person having a contemptuous or other negative attitude, or at least lack of positive attitude, towards knowing such things. This may be a consequence of the educational environment or may be the person’s nature.
Being unable to answer such questions still merits failing one or more questions on a test of general education, regardless of cause for the lack of knowing how inches and centimeters (for example) relate with each other.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yes I teach kids that average a 28 on the ACT, with many 30+ scores. My older son (see Naval Academy avatar) got a 35 (top .8%).
I have left the public school system to those who deserve to be there, teachers and students alike.
[/quote]
I can appreciate that sentiment. Teaching has long since taken a back seat to the NEAs more pressing agendas.
Hell, If I wanted to teach, I sure as hell wouldn’t become a public school teacher.
[quote]BlakedaMan wrote:
To me memorizing something like there are 2.54 cm in an inch is completely pointless. I would much rather spend my time learning a concept than wasting space in my head with a figure that I can look up in hardly more time than it takes to think of it.
And Bill, you said that the school system has failed if someone doesn’t know that because it obviously hasn’t been presented to them properly. Well, tell that to a physicist. Hardly any physicist would be able to tell you anything better than the approximate order of magnitude of the physical constants, nor would they be able to tell you exact conversions. It’s relevant to know have an approximate understanding, but in this day and age, it’s not at all necessary to know all those specific values.
I personally received a great public education. I’m of the mind that you get out of school what you’re willing to put into it.[/quote]
For most of the questions of that quiz, I just don’t think you can divorce a fundamental understanding of the concept from the actual formula. The concept IS the formula. You don’t need to memorize the formula, because you get the concept so thoroughly that the formula comes naturally. The formula just couldn’t be anything else.
Would you believe somebody if they told you “I get the idea of the volume of a cube, I just don’t remember the formula off hand…”?
That’s what the arithmetic questions are like, and if any adult can’t do them right now, no researching, I think their education has failed them. Those questions aren’t rocket science.
2nd EDIT: The first exam is a little more anachronistic than I first thought, but I still maintain that there’s no excuse for an adult to not be able to provide correct or reasonably close answers to the questions on Bill Robert’s updated quiz right off.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
You’ve made HH’s point for him.[/quote]
You know, I can actually define compound interest in terms of a recursive function, use telescoping to derive a closed form equation, then prove it matches the recursive function using mathematical induction.
I doubt any 13 year old would be able to do this with that test. The test does not require true understanding of compound interest formulas; any kid could pass it simply by memorizing the required formula. This is, fortunately, not really that necessary anymore.
I would much rather, if a similar test were require today, have questions that involve FAR more thought than what is given in that test. What is asked are all very simple questions; I’ve never debated that. I am merely stating that it’s easy for one to fail that test, simply by lack of memorizing some very simple things, and that not knowing those trivial things (which are easy to look up) is not indicative of a failing education. Likewise, it becomes very easy to pass simply by memorizing some basic trivial facts.
A lot of 13 year olds know have much more sophisticated knowledge of mathematics than what is tested in that horrible “arithmetic” test.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
For most of the questions of that quiz, I just don’t think you can divorce a fundamental understanding of the concept from the actual formula. The concept IS the formula. You don’t need to memorize the formula, because you get the concept so thoroughly that the formula comes naturally. The formula just couldn’t be anything else.
[/quote]
What if I incorrectly recall that there are 2.55 centimeters to an inch? Oops, I’m wrong; but NOT because I have a fundamental misunderstanding of converting between units.
In this case, knowing the conversion factors will make or break you on this test. It is not an arithmetic test, it’s a “unit conversion” test. And honestly, as long as someone can convert from one unit to another given a conversion factor, that’s good enough. Memorizing specific ones in the real world is NOT important, but to pass this test it is required.
I’d prefer to see a test with made up units, made up conversion factors (given), and one question involving finding the conversion factor from one unit to another (that is not given).
Here’s what I think is a far better question:
There’s 5 Foo’s to a Bar, and 1/3 Bar’s to a Gord. What’s the conversion factor from a Foo to a Gord? If I have 13.78 Foo’s, how many Gord’s do I have?
This question tests the fundamental concept of unit conversion, without requiring one to specifically (and uselessly) memorize a specific conversion factor. This way, it then becomes very easy to determine why the person got the question wrong: they simply do not understand the concept of unit conversion.
[quote]goochadamg wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
You’ve made HH’s point for him.[/quote]
You know, I can actually define compound interest in terms of a recursive function, use telescoping to derive a closed form equation, then prove it matches the recursive function using mathematical induction.
I doubt any 13 year old would be able to do this with that test. The test does not require true understanding of compound interest formulas; any kid could pass it simply by memorizing the required formula. This is, fortunately, not really that necessary anymore.
I would much rather, if a similar test were require today, have questions that involve FAR more thought than what is given in that test. What is asked are all very simple questions; I’ve never debated that. I am merely stating that it’s easy for one to fail that test, simply by lack of memorizing some very simple things, and that not knowing those trivial things (which are easy to look up) is not indicative of a failing education. Likewise, it becomes very easy to pass simply by memorizing some basic trivial facts.
A lot of 13 year olds know have much more sophisticated knowledge of mathematics than what is tested in that horrible “arithmetic” test.[/quote]
I have to assume you are talking about the modernized version, as in your previous posts you were criticizing that the test required knowing how to convert inches or feet to metric.
I’ve written before but clearly I have to write again: the questions do NOT require memorization of any formulas.
They do require understanding the most basic meaning of APR and of non-compounded interest, but no memorized formula.
Fail.