[ExI] Fwd: year round school

Sat Nov 14 01:36:57 UTC 2020

You are writing about areas in which algebra can be used.  I'd ask you:
just what percentage of the people actually do use it?  Or even understand
it when they hear it?

Speaking of which, I heard this on TV - more than once:  "He averages 4
yards a carry every time he touches the ball."  That's how much announcers
understand statistics.

Outside of my teaching and using statistics, I have used algebra a total of
two times in my life since college.

How much of it sticks?  I was a volunteer helping build an owl house for a
rescue service.  Two guys were standing around with the belts and equipment
of amateur builders.  I heard 'pi r squared, or is it cubed?' and words
like that.  What they were trying to figure out was the distance from the
edge of the building to the rooftop (the hypotenuse), based on the distance
from the wall to the center and from the center to the top of the roof.  Of
course I told them that they didn't need math about circles.

Maybe I can compromise:  require it, but do not require a senior test for
algebra in order to graduate, like our state does.  A person with an
average IQ can understand abstractions, but below that the ability
diminishes rapidly.  A person who cannot pass 9th grade algebra should be
put into a trade school type program, not a college prep program.  How
about that?  Of course many schools don't offer that - but they should.
English lit as an elective (and that coming from a person with a major in
English).

Just wondering on a different subject:  how many high school grads read
books like those they studied in Western literature?  Maube more than those
that use algebra, but I'll bet it's not many.  the average American reads
one book a year.  Which means, of course, that quite a large percentage
read no books at all. (Here is a good case for using the median, not the
mean - put a lot of zeros in the equation and it skews the mean).

Intellectuals plan curricula.  Maybe they should have some blue collar
workers on those committees to bring a tint of reality to the
requirements.  Home Ec - how to raise children - home finances - religion -
civics - courses everyone needs and no one gets.

bill w

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 4:58 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I disagree about the lack of value of algebra.
>
> If you're going into business, or any financial field, you'll need
> algebra.  (Then again, much of modern finance is basically a subset of
> computer science and thus STEM.)
>
> Fashion, or any clothing field?  If you need X amount of fabric for 3
> dresses, how much will you need to make just 2?  And many other surface
> area related questions.
>
> Civic activism?  If you can help 1 person every X hours, or Y people every
> 8 hours, which is a better use of your time?
>
> Sports?  Aside from the intuitive calculations done on the field mid-game
> ("at what angle do I send the ball so it will land where I want it to"),
> these days there seems to be no end to sports-related statistical analyses.
>
> Law?  News flash: when they call it the legal "code", that's a very
> similar sort to software "code".  It takes the same sort of thinking to
> find the loopholes.
>
> And that's not getting into making household budgets, and other such
> algebra-enabled tasks that most adults are expected to be capable of
> regardless of employment.
>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 11:32 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> my letter to a legislator, head of the Education committee - your
>> thoughts?   bill w
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 10:48 AM
>> Subject: year round school
>> To: <ddebar at senate.ms.gov>
>>
>>
>> Dear Sir,
>>
>> I have a Ph. D. in Experimental and Clinical Psychology and taught for
>> over 35 years.  The idea of a 'summer slump' comes from studies on memory
>> that do indeed show that students will do more poorly or even fail on tests
>> that they took just a few weeks or months ago.  Even at Harvard.  But, they
>> were not given the chance to study for them again - they had to take them
>> cold.
>>
>> That absolutely does NOT mean that those memories are gone forever.
>> No.  Memories that last more than a day or two are with us permanently,
>> though the longer we live the harder it is to retrieve them, mainly because
>> of competition from later memories.  There are some good reasons to have
>> year long schooling, but the 'summer slump' is not one of them.
>>
>> The very best thing the Legislature could do to help students is to start
>> school later in the day.  At that age they are mostly night owls and wake
>> up slowly, so that learning at 8 o'clock is difficult.  They are there,
>> they are awake, but their brains are still fuzzy.  There are many studies
>> done by physicians and psychologists that validate those conclusions.
>>
>> I do not think it matters with year long schooling how long the breaks
>> are.  I would be in favor of adding hours of school to the ones we have now.
>>
>> Just on a tangent:  requiring Algebra is just wrong.  Fewer than 5% of
>> the high school graduates ever use it.  I am in a chat group with a bunch
>> of engineers and they concur - no value to students unless they are going
>> into science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM), and those students
>> will certainly take algebra, precalculus, and calculus if offered, along
>> with geometry, solid geometry, trigonometry.  Requiring algebra keeps many
>> students from graduating.  A waste of minds, in my opinion.  And a lifelong
>> hindrance to job prospects.  Of course it differentially impacts minority
>> students.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> William F. Wallace, Ph. D. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
>> Brandon MS
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