5 ms·

I wasn't as cool as this kid, but I wrote a binomial expansion program in TI BASIC back in high school that I was pretty proud of. Teacher said it was neat, but

I wasn't as cool as this kid, but I wrote a binomial expansion program in TI BASIC back in high school that I was pretty proud of. Teacher said it was neat, but then banned calculators on our tests/ quizzes after I demoed it.

ok_dad 4y ago
It was a while ago, and my memory sucks for those kind of things, so maybe it was you! Anyways, programming anything in the space of 5 minutes is hard enough for me, so I'm still amazed at that binomial expansion (which I had to look up, myself).
- wingmanjd 4y ago
  We're you in eastern PA in high school? Would be wild if we were in the same class!
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    I was in the opposite side of the country, but let’s pretend, haha.
saurik 4y ago
I remember my teacher banned the use of software on calculators (not the calculators themselves) but left an exception for me because she knew I was writing all the software I was using and didn't want to discourage me using that to learn about both algorithms and the underlying math.
noir_lord 4y ago
I had a maths teacher who accused me of cheating because we had coursework to solve a particular problem, I solved the problem for that case and then the general case using math she hadn’t taught me even had a pascal program that you could enter parameters and it’d give you the answer. She literally couldn’t get her head around a student going to the library, taking out a book on maths and teaching themselves because they where curious. The UK has a very strange educational system, curiosity isn’t encouraged, you learn like a good little peg in a round hole. Left a very bad taste in my mouth but at least she did eventually apologise.
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  "Never let school get in the way of your education" is roughly the philosophy my parents raised me on. Precisely to encourage what you had done vs. what school expected.
  - smeej 4y ago
    Wow, my parents were willing to sacrifice my entire education if it meant I participated in school in the ways they cared about. Your way sounds better.
  - ddingus 4y ago
    Mine too, well mostly. My Grandmother worked through my mother to get that done without invoking other fairly painful, in the consuming too much time sense, family dynamics (Father was a mess and mostly out of this part of the picture.), but I digress save to say me too. They want to encourage self directed learning and I am glad they did. If nothing else, boredom becomes a good thing more often. The seeking begins and with that can often come some real learning and insight as it may be applied.
- markdown 4y ago
  Not unique to the UK. This is common all over the world. It's the most efficient way to educate the masses cheaply.
- teachersaredumb 4y ago
  Among college-educated professionals, primary and secondary school teachers are near the bottom for intelligence, as measured by SAT scores. https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-for-every-college-major-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-... The pay is shit, so intelligent people decide to pursue other passions instead of teaching. Also, the profession seems to attract the kind of people who like to exercise arbitrary authority over other people. Not a majority of teachers, but a substantial minority. Once I realized these things, a lot of negative experiences I had with teachers made more sense. For what it's worth, I also had some great teachers along the way.
idunno246 4y ago
I wrote programs too. Even had them print out the work. Checked with the teacher at the beginning of the year and she said no problem. After rampant cheating, mostly people just writing notes in the programs section, she instituted a policy of deleting everyone’s calculator before any test. but let me keep mine too, I had asked to not delete it and I’d take a class calculator if she insisted.
- Nursie 4y ago
  Waaaay back at school in the 90s, that was the policy in our public exams, we were allowed the calculator but it would be wiped on the way in to the hall. So I memorised my quadratic-solver-with-intermediate-steps and tapped it back in while we were waiting for the test to start :) The calculation was not hard, but it was still faster just to run my program and scribble down the steps it spat out than to do the solving manually each time it came up. IIRC I had one for simultaneous equations too.

ok_dad 4y ago

It was a while ago, and my memory sucks for those kind of things, so maybe it was you! Anyways, programming anything in the space of 5 minutes is hard enough for me, so I'm still amazed at that binomial expansion (which I had to look up, myself).

wingmanjd 4y ago
We're you in eastern PA in high school? Would be wild if we were in the same class!
- ok_dad 4y ago
  I was in the opposite side of the country, but let’s pretend, haha.

saurik 4y ago

I remember my teacher banned the use of software on calculators (not the calculators themselves) but left an exception for me because she knew I was writing all the software I was using and didn't want to discourage me using that to learn about both algorithms and the underlying math.

noir_lord 4y ago

I had a maths teacher who accused me of cheating because we had coursework to solve a particular problem, I solved the problem for that case and then the general case using math she hadn’t taught me even had a pascal program that you could enter parameters and it’d give you the answer. She literally couldn’t get her head around a student going to the library, taking out a book on maths and teaching themselves because they where curious. The UK has a very strange educational system, curiosity isn’t encouraged, you learn like a good little peg in a round hole. Left a very bad taste in my mouth but at least she did eventually apologise.

nickstinemates 4y ago
"Never let school get in the way of your education" is roughly the philosophy my parents raised me on. Precisely to encourage what you had done vs. what school expected.
- smeej 4y ago
  Wow, my parents were willing to sacrifice my entire education if it meant I participated in school in the ways they cared about. Your way sounds better.
- ddingus 4y ago
  Mine too, well mostly. My Grandmother worked through my mother to get that done without invoking other fairly painful, in the consuming too much time sense, family dynamics (Father was a mess and mostly out of this part of the picture.), but I digress save to say me too. They want to encourage self directed learning and I am glad they did. If nothing else, boredom becomes a good thing more often. The seeking begins and with that can often come some real learning and insight as it may be applied.
markdown 4y ago
Not unique to the UK. This is common all over the world. It's the most efficient way to educate the masses cheaply.
teachersaredumb 4y ago
Among college-educated professionals, primary and secondary school teachers are near the bottom for intelligence, as measured by SAT scores. https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-for-every-college-major-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-... The pay is shit, so intelligent people decide to pursue other passions instead of teaching. Also, the profession seems to attract the kind of people who like to exercise arbitrary authority over other people. Not a majority of teachers, but a substantial minority. Once I realized these things, a lot of negative experiences I had with teachers made more sense. For what it's worth, I also had some great teachers along the way.

idunno246 4y ago

I wrote programs too. Even had them print out the work. Checked with the teacher at the beginning of the year and she said no problem. After rampant cheating, mostly people just writing notes in the programs section, she instituted a policy of deleting everyone’s calculator before any test. but let me keep mine too, I had asked to not delete it and I’d take a class calculator if she insisted.

Nursie 4y ago
Waaaay back at school in the 90s, that was the policy in our public exams, we were allowed the calculator but it would be wiped on the way in to the hall. So I memorised my quadratic-solver-with-intermediate-steps and tapped it back in while we were waiting for the test to start :) The calculation was not hard, but it was still faster just to run my program and scribble down the steps it spat out than to do the solving manually each time it came up. IIRC I had one for simultaneous equations too.