5 ms·
Something needs to be done to make the school year more worthwhile for such students Actually, it needs to be done for ALL students. You really think the only
by caffeine 17y ago
Something needs to be done to make the school year more worthwhile for such students
Actually, it needs to be done for ALL students. You really think the only kids poorly served by school are those that teach themselves math on the side?
Nearly every kid has an innate curiosity about the world and more importantly the people around him. Some prefer symbolic worlds, others the physical, and most the social.
Schools are currently poor places to learn about any of those. The bizarre hierarchies in place seriously warp most children - witness the daily cruelty that is normal in an average school (others on the internet have made this point better than I can).
To most people, Lockhart's lament is a very minor annoyance compared to the social retardation that goes on in these institutions. Rampant alcohol abuse and unreasonable sexual promiscuity in universities are the inevitable backlash to years of social repression, far beyond the young ages at which it might be called for.
It was not unreasonable in earlier times to consider someone a "young man" or "young woman" at 13 or 14, and as a fully functional society member at 16. Why does this seem so completely ludicrous now? Has our genetic lifecycle programming changed? Of course not - but our social lifecycle programming has.
All this to say that the kids for whom symbolic systems education is too slow are the lucky ones. For them, there is at least the library as an outlet for that spark. Consider the rest, who have no such thing.
- spitfire 17y agoNo. Our world is a thousand times more complex than that of even the 1800's. It used to be that your average young man/woman was in one unskilled job for their entire life. One you could learn by the time you were 15-16. This is no longer the case. Even entry level office jobs jobs now require an understanding of calculus, statistics, excel, etc. When all that used to be required was knowing how to plow a field, recite wives tales or run a loom. It isn't as simple as "oh our education system is too slow".
- quizbiz 17y agoDo you know how to run a loom or plow a field? Maybe oddly, but I consider those much more a skill than knowledge of how to use excel.
- spitfire 17y agoYes and yes. A loom is actually sort of neat. They're the first programable computers. A plow on the other hand is dull and difficult work. Both are simpler than excel even for their more advanced uses.
- ramidarigaz 17y agoI would say yes, the plow is much more simple than excel. However, I disagree that the loom is too. You can do amazing things with a loom if you take the time to learn the complexities of the machine.
- callmeed 17y agoShow me an entry level office job posting/ad where calculus is a requirement ...
- apsec112 17y ago"Even entry level office jobs jobs now require an understanding of calculus, statistics, excel, etc." This is simply not true. Entry-level office jobs require a piece of paper saying "this dude knows calculus"; they don't actually require the knowledge. If you don't believe me, visit an average office, go around, and ask people to take the derivative of sin(x)*x^2; this is a fairly simple problem which any first-semester calculus student would know how to solve.
- DougBTX 17y agoPerhaps you meant sin(x)+x^2?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- sketerpot 17y agoNo. Just use the product rule. The derivative is x^2 cos(x) + 2 x sin(x) Finding derivatives is actually really easy. There are just a few simple rules you have to apply deterministically to any problem, and the answer will pop out.
- jrockway 17y agoI think his point was to suggest a simpler question. Do you really think most "entry-level office workers" remember the product rule?
- sketerpot 17y agoI believe the whole point of proposing a calculus question was that most entry-level office workers won't be able to answer it.
- jrockway 17y agoAs I mention above, I bet they wouldn't be able to answer an even simpler question. Requiring application of product rule "raises the bar" a bit too high.
- caffeine 17y agoYou're missing the point. Technical learning of any sort (looms or calculus) is really the least important consequence of schooling - if it takes 20 years, fine. The fundamental error is to assume that socialization (for which nearly all humans are genetically optimized) and training in symbolic methods (for which most humans are rather ill-suited) should proceed apace.