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Yeah man, the cure for declining American competitiveness is absolutely dumbing things down even further. The other countries need to respect our dum-dums!

warcher 9y ago
I swear to god NPR spends half their time actively trolling at this point.
bsder 9y ago
Read the article, the goal is to have alternate math courses. And, to be fair, that's probably a GOOD idea. A standard algebra course is a lousy math course if you aren't going any further. Schools used to have a course that was "shop math" aka how to do the things you might have to do in construction, machining, etc. This included elements of algebra, geometry, trig, and statistics. It was a much better match for people who were not going forward to more theoretical math or science.
- warcher 9y ago
  I read and respectfully disagree-- this is college, not high school or trade school. You're not training for diesel engine repair here, you're training for white-collar jobs. Basic algebra is pretty uniformly necessary today, and it isn't becoming less so in the future.
  - bsder 9y ago
    Community college isn't quite that cut and dried. There are quite a few 2-year Associate's degrees that are not "academic". One of the community colleges near me has quite a good nursing program. How much "algebra" will they need vs. procedures for medication dosage calculation? "Algebra" has a lot of dead ends for practical use. A great example is "How do you divide by a fraction?"--a fairly routine algebraic manipulation. Yet, I can't even think of when I have had a real world situation where I had to "divide by a fraction". Multiply by a fraction? Sure. Divide by a whole number? Sure. Calculate a percentage? Sure. Divide by a fraction? Ummmmm. I would argue that algebra is both too advanced in many places AND too sketchy in others. Geometry is something that people need and don't get because it is after algebra that they fail. The worst part is that a lot of people have better geometric intuition than mathematical and would do better to have geometry first. Should they have a math course? Yes. Should it be the pedagogical algebra? Not as obvious.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > Read the article, the goal is to have alternate math courses. I'm not opposed to that idea in the abstract, but what other math courses are they suggesting?

warcher 9y ago

I swear to god NPR spends half their time actively trolling at this point.

bsder 9y ago

Read the article, the goal is to have alternate math courses. And, to be fair, that's probably a GOOD idea. A standard algebra course is a lousy math course if you aren't going any further. Schools used to have a course that was "shop math" aka how to do the things you might have to do in construction, machining, etc. This included elements of algebra, geometry, trig, and statistics. It was a much better match for people who were not going forward to more theoretical math or science.

warcher 9y ago
I read and respectfully disagree-- this is college, not high school or trade school. You're not training for diesel engine repair here, you're training for white-collar jobs. Basic algebra is pretty uniformly necessary today, and it isn't becoming less so in the future.
- bsder 9y ago
  Community college isn't quite that cut and dried. There are quite a few 2-year Associate's degrees that are not "academic". One of the community colleges near me has quite a good nursing program. How much "algebra" will they need vs. procedures for medication dosage calculation? "Algebra" has a lot of dead ends for practical use. A great example is "How do you divide by a fraction?"--a fairly routine algebraic manipulation. Yet, I can't even think of when I have had a real world situation where I had to "divide by a fraction". Multiply by a fraction? Sure. Divide by a whole number? Sure. Calculate a percentage? Sure. Divide by a fraction? Ummmmm. I would argue that algebra is both too advanced in many places AND too sketchy in others. Geometry is something that people need and don't get because it is after algebra that they fail. The worst part is that a lot of people have better geometric intuition than mathematical and would do better to have geometry first. Should they have a math course? Yes. Should it be the pedagogical algebra? Not as obvious.
mcphage 9y ago
> Read the article, the goal is to have alternate math courses. I'm not opposed to that idea in the abstract, but what other math courses are they suggesting?