[ExI] focus

[SR Ballard]

> Ballard wrote - Many science and math teachers will now provide formulas used during tests for the students instead of having them memorize what they are. 
> 
> My question, as always, is where are the data.  Education depts. in my experience, love theories and hate collecting data on them.  For all we know, memorizing multiplication tables is a bad idea; or it's a great idea.  We cannot go by what we did and how we turned out.
> 
> Trouble is getting good data from experiments run by educators.
> 
> bill w

My point is not that rote memory is better. I have no idea.

My point is that kinds are not taught how to actually figure out how to solve problems themselves (non-rote) or required to memorize the answer (rote). Even if one is inferior to the other, it’s still better than nothing.

Take for example this situation: 

You need to find the area of a triangle. 

A non-rote method would be to realize that you can turn the triangle into a square, and then find the area of the square. (Assuming you know how to find the area of a square).

A rote method would be memorizing “A=1/2(bh), where b is the width of the triangle, and h is the height of the triangle.” 

The method that I see often is “you take this number and put it here, that number and put it there, use your calculator and you’re good.” Kids don’t recognize the formula enough to know what goes where. They’ll for example put in the length of a side, because they don’t understand that the length of a side is not what is asked for. 

Or if, for example, given the length of the sides and their angles, cannot determine what base or the height are, and declare such questions impossible.

Yet, somehow they get passed through pre-algebra, were getting the length of one side and it’s adjacent angles should provide enough information to determine area... 

Multi-step problems which require this type of mastery are not used, students are spoon fed, and they still can’t pass because they have no clue what is happening.
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