On 5/17/2013 2:40 PM, Jim Thompson wrote:
I'm fighting the school system with, now, the 5th granddaughter, 6th
Grade.

Last week they were peddling how to cut corners out of a piece of
cardboard to form a box with the maximum volume, with no established
skill set.... "guess" your way to the solution :-(

In another context I and likely *you* would talk about this as getting a
"feel" for the math. I know that some of the best stuff I ever learned
was from "playing" with things, be they blocks or oscilloscopes. No
matter how much math I have learned, I don't consider I know a topic
until I get an intuitive feel for it.


This week they suddenly jumped to Algebra, simultaneous equations,
without even any single variable background.

There may be more to this than you are getting second hand from a 12
year old.


And she says her teacher is already using the word "Calculus". I
guess that's the leftist way anymore, speaking the words makes you
expert :-(

Why is this a political issue? Teachers are highly educated in...
teaching. It is not a subject that is trivial for the lay person. Try
sometime reading some of the material teachers have to master.


No wonder US students rank so low, worldwide, in math (and science).

Or maybe its because we just don't value engineers, etc. as highly as
other occupations, so students aren't interested as much in those subjects?

--

Rick