On Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:34:35 -0600, Lew Hartswick
wrote:
Hawke wrote:
"Lew Hartswick" wrote in message
m...
Hawke wrote:
Yep, you're right, You just like to argue.
Hawke
:-) Partly that and I don't have a job or even my volunteer
position now that school is out. (retired 10 yrs ago)
I'm not talking about what you are calling "higher math"
necessarily, but having been in close contact with several
hundred high school students over the last 6 or 7 years
that cant do arithmetic let alone algebra or trig I can
tell you exactly the competance of your typical high school
student. :-(
When I went to school we had Algebra I, Algebra II,
Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, and Trigonometry.
Calculus, diferential and integral I didn't get till college.
That served me very well and a lot of other folks I know.
...lew...
Here's the problem. You guys that can do and understand math remind me of
the basketball players that say I don't see what's so hard about dunking a
basketball and why can't you do it. All my friends can. Most people just
can't understand math. The people who do understand it think it's easy and
can't see why others don't get it. Just like the basketball player. To me
math is like when you go to the eye doctor and they show you the color
blindness charts where it's a circle filled with colored dots and there is a
number in the middle, which you can see if you're not colorblind. But if
you're color blind you can't see anything. That's math. If you get it you
can see the number in the circle if you can't you see nothing. Most people
could never complete a class in trig, calculus, or what comes after. It
takes a certain type of brain to understand that stuff. Those of you who get
it are lucky. Most of us are not. Even so, I still think there are other
classes that would be more helpful for most students than mathematics. Aside
from Goodwill Hunting, I've never seen a janitor or anyone working
construction, or on an oil rig, or selling cars, or cage fighting, or so
many other jobs doing equations. Like you said, most people can't even do
simple arithmetic, but I can understand why.
Hawke
OK Hawke, I see your point. I guess My BIG complaint should be with
the "mainlining", or what ever they call it, trying to push every
kid through the same curriculum and the whole concept of "No Child
Left Behind". I can relate to your argument with History and language,
I flunked History 21 and German 1 in college the first time through.
Math and sciences were a breeze. (struggled like hell with english
comp) :-)
I guess different brains work different.
...lew...
Most people who claim that their brain simply can't comprehend
mathematics, or, for that matter, any abstraction, are simply making
an excuse for the fact that they're just too lazy to actually apply
themselves to learning.
Learning is a very personal process that demands that you first work
at understanding how your mind works. Too many people fault the
teaching (and teacher) if they fail to learn. The teacher is there to
present the material. It's your job to figure out how to learn what
is presented.
Typically, the first time someone encounters a math concept they can't
immediately understand, they go into mental shut-down mode and, from
that point forward, they actively work to shield themselves from any
mention of mathematics rather than trying to understand why they can't
understand the concept. It doesn't take a genius to understand that
actively avoiding learning situations is not the key to lifelong
learning.
It's like the poor spellers who attribute their garbled writing to ADD
or dyslexia. They're such convenient excuses for not paying attention
to the problem and working out a method for correcting it. Besides,
with the dyslexia excuse in hand, your time spent watching football,
beer in hand, won't be affected.
I'm fairly proficient with math now but, when I was learning algebra
in the ninth grade, it wasn't unusual for me to spend days thinking
about how to reformat a thorny problem into a form in which it was
clear to me. That slowed me down quite a bit early on but served to
make subsequent learning much easier.
Certainly there are people out there with genuine learning
disabilities. However, IMO, their numbers are far fewer than I can
believe by the vast numbers who tell me they "just can't learn"
something.
Regards, Marv
Home Shop Freeware - Tools for People Who Build Things
http://www.myvirtualnetwork.com/mklotz