School?

[myfordcnc]

I have been teaching classes in machining to seniors students. How is it possible for them to be literally illiterate. I mean really they can't read, even numbers. Very depressing. What are we doing? Some thing has to change.

[DMAT]

How many of them are on a sports team or rather what % of them are on one.

That might reveal an interesting answer.

[GoMachV]

They were starting this crap when I was in school, the old methods work but require thinking. If you need to "draw" the answer to "427-316=?" There are some deep problems with our ways of teaching.

[Coelacanth]

I honestly believe the widespread use of cellphones is contributing to illiteracy, not to mention major erosion of social etiquette. And the sad thing is, it's not just the kids. I've chatted with grown adults that write like they're friggin' teenyboppers. It truly is sad.

Also, with accessible internet, search engines, and what-not, everybody can be an "expert" at anything just by Googling it. The problem is somewhere along the line, with answers being so easy to find, we've almost completely lost the ability to problem-solve. Googling or internet research isn't equivalent to problem-solving and isn't experience or wisdom.

[Charlie don't surf]

Fundamentally, there is more than one factor at work in all of this. Common Core is currently taking all the flak for these issues (not a proponent for Common Core at all) but you have to back-track a bit to see the picture.

In 2001, the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act was re-authorized, and empathetically named “No Child Left Behind", and while that might not seem to be long ago (mere 13 years) most of the current educators are products of NCLB either via education (new teachers) or dogma adopted by older teachers. The foundational problem with all of these programs is the lack of Critical Thinking
on the part of both educators and students and parents. NCLB focused on bringing the underprivileged up to the level of the average student, but only succeeded in changing the testing methods to accommodate those target students, which as a result brought the average student to a lower level. Those average students shone like diamonds; in reality they were good students, but became great when measured against the new standards only. The lower than average students became "good" students by numbers only and the program statistics showed that the program succeeded, which it did...statistically anyway.
Common Core is structured in a similar manner, and is a fresh face on the 2001 "reform", but adds that the critical thinking process taxonomy will be used in all facets of education. Moore County school superintendent Dr. Aaron Spence wrote a response to our local paper after the first Common Core test results showed low scores with a response of "lower test grades were anticipated, due to the unfamiliar testing procedures and the new materials" sounds like Dr. Spence isn't all too familiar with the critical thinking process...or he wouldn't have commented that they couldn't "teach to the test, yet" which was the issue with NCLB-
It is well documented that over 48% of University Staff are not familiar with the concept of critical thinking, nor do they know how to teach higher-order thinking in general. The stats toward the public school systems have shown over 60% have no concept of this premise...or worse...the wrong premise of this system.

I have been running core-educational classes for the past 3 semesters at a very highly respected University, and I can validate that over 50% of my classmates have none of the tools toward higher-order thinking that I am armed with. This is especially noticeable in our clinical settings where patients don't behave or fit a given example ie- they freeze, fail to adapt, and cannot think on their own. Of course there are exceptions. But it's not their fault, if educators and parents never exposed them to the concepts.

As far as the number-line. I tutor intermediate college algebra and college algebra (pre-calc) and the number line is a useful tool for visual-spatial learners (high % of today's youth are visual learners) but it mostly used to introduce the negative number system to children under 11 years of age (unable to fully process abstract concepts) as a way to represent how a number can be negative and what happens as you add and subtract negative numbers. It's still used as a visual rep, and a chunking (the 100's) trick to not have to do long form, when you have a 1/2 page pre-cal equation to evaluate or solve. I assume that they were introducing the number line as a pre-negative process.

Anyway...back to patient care plans... I'll be around here a bunch this weekend, got some members to get back to and some stuff to ship out etc-

[Coelacanth]

Set the bar low enough and anyone can be a genius.

[askbob]

Set the bar low enough and anyone can be a genius.

And don't forget, EVERYBODY is a winner!

Just ask the losers and they'll show you proof with their loser trophy.

[jwscab]

yeah, i am looking forward to see how they will start teaching my 6yr old, currently in kindergarten. I teach him math and science as an old school engineer, not slide-rule old, but old enough where you did standard division etc. I'm going to attempt to give him the tools to work out problems with the old methods as well as the new methods wherever possible. hopefully it will benefit him. Then start the same process over with my 3 yr old.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

yeah, i am looking forward to see how they will start teaching my 6yr old, currently in kindergarten. I teach him math and science as an old school engineer, not slide-rule old, but old enough where you did standard division etc. I'm going to attempt to give him the tools to work out problems with the old methods as well as the new methods wherever possible. hopefully it will benefit him. Then start the same process over with my 3 yr old.

My daughter is in 2nd grade and I use a similar method. Some of the homework she brings home I have to read the directions to see exactly what she is supposed to be doing because it looks so foreign from when I was in school.

[GoMachV]

The problem I had was graduating in 1993 and not attending college till 2001 things apparently had changed a bit. I had a hard time understanding why I couldn't do the math the way I learned, the easy way. I could solve anything they threw at me but if I had to show my work I was basically doing the problem twice- once to get the correct answer (my way) and then backtracking to figure out how they wanted me to do it.

some of the stuff I see the kids coming home with now is just plain stupid.

[flipwils11]

If you're interested in a sad glimpse of what our education system has become, and where we're headed, read the book "The Global Achievement Gap" by Tony Wagner. To pass standardized tests, mandated by NCLB, our kids are taught to pass the test. "Teach to the test" largely consists of memorization. Ask many of these kids that are a product of this system how to solve a problem or think abstractly and you'll get a blank, open-mouthed stare.

Or they might pull our their phone and google it.


edit: read Reggie's post which is spot on as well. Reggie touched on it, but another key insight in the book I mentioned, was the strategy employed that the best chance of achieving a passing grade in a district for NCLB was to focus on the students on the margin of passing, i.e. the mediocre students. The smarter end of the spectrum are left to fend for themselves, and the opposite end are classified as lost causes. But by getting the mediocre students a bit better so they'll pass, everyone can call the effort a success. High fives all around!

[85Edinger]

As someone who's currently going through the education system, my biggest pet peeve is that most teachers really do just teach to the test. I see it most in math.
This year, I have a really good math teacher. She doesn't just tell us how to do things, she explains why we do them that way- she walks us through the process so we actually understand it, so we actually learn.
In the past, we were just told "this is how you do it", never shown why.

In the past, when I've asked in math class what something is needed for, why were learning it, I've gotten one of a few responses:

It's on the test.
You'll need it if you become a math teacher.
You'll need it. (No elaboration)

Over time (and with the help of my current teacher), I have realized that most things we learn how to do have no direct real-life application, but are concepts needed in order to build up to something greater that is useful. I just wish teachers explained this, I would have gotten so much more out of the last few years of math.

What doesn't help is when we get "real life" problems: "Pam is standing on a bridge, and the bridge is at X=0, y=3. She has a robotic arm. She throws a rock, which follows the quadratic equation y=x2+2x+3. How high does the rock go?" That's not what it's used for!

[Mazdaj]

Interesting. Things have changed. I also graduated high school 20 yrs ago. My son comes home with math homework being taught in the form of the new core curriculum. Apparently (or should i say obviously) there is more than one way to solve basic math problems. Use the example letter. He was given 12 ways to solve the problem. In the new system it is up to the student to determine which is easiest for them!? Confusion!? Heck, yeah. None of which is the way most of us learned it. I 'm not the smartest in the world, but my wife and I sat there trying to make sense of some of the "new" methods. Oh yeah, my kid comes up with a 13th method (that works) and was told he was wrong. Nothing like taking the wind from his sails. Some kids may be turned off from school by stuff like this. Add in distractions-iphones,facebook,etc...and maybe this contibutes to the problem?

[EvolutionRevolution]

This is not only a problem in North America, but also in other Western countries. Idiot methods developed by people who seem to believe their idealistic view is the answer to everything (and won't take "no" as an answer) screw up kids' education and make us end up with university students that can't read (usually blamed on "dyslexia") or count ("dyscalculia") or think ("your fault for making things too complicated").

IMHO, the rise of the calculator (the device, not the people) is a big contributor to kids not being able to count anymore ("just use your calculator and see what it says"), coupled with unintelligible calculation methods for use on paper. For reading, the basics are skipped in favour of more advanced methods that are unattainable without the basics, and instead of fixing the basics and/or teaching methods that allow students to critically think what a word could mean based on what they already know they lower the requirements to "fix" things. Oh, and the methods often involve unwarranted use of modern technology, such as "This method requires an iPad!".

My last job was in Big Data, where people seem to seriously think you can end all disagreements by coming up with a single unified definition for each concept ("ignore any divergent definition") and applying that to all scientific work - ever. When you then point out that that basically destroys our ability to have different opinions and hypotheses (which drives science and lots of other things) they look at you as if you're mad and their eyes glaze over. If that is the future, DO NOT WANT.

This kind of stuff makes me wish I could pull back into a very remote place somewhere in the woods where I can make a living, play with my RCs, and not bother with anything information technology-related. Because Gods is it making people stupid.

[Coelacanth]

IMHO, the rise of the calculator (the device, not the people) is a big contributor to kids not being able to count anymore ("just use your calculator and see what it says"), coupled with unintelligible calculation methods for use on paper.

I agree with your second point, but not the first. Calculators were common in our/my day (I just turned 46), but were not allowed to be used for tests. Also, I remember always having to show my work; for a long division problem, for example. Sure, a calculator would give you the final answer, but wouldn't show the teacher how you arrived at that answer. So, I don't blame calculators. I *do* blame unintelligible calculation methods, though...such as the example in the picture earlier in this thread.

I blame the internet and cellphones for lack of reading/writing skills. Who reads books these days, among the school-age kids? I mean reading for pleasure, not textbooks. People don't know correct grammar or even spelling because cellphones auto-correct (often incorrectly) without the benefit of context. If you understand grammar and how to spell words correctly, you'd know from context if a word should be "there", "their" or "they're". People generally know how words sound, but don't know how to determine which word to use when they sound alike. People who understand grammar and context also know when to use apostrophes correctly. A cellphone auto-correct probably won't.

This kind of stuff makes me wish I could pull back into a very remote place somewhere in the woods where I can make a living, play with my RCs, and not bother with anything information technology-related. Because Gods is it making people stupid.

Totally agree. The more high-tech we get, the less we think, because machines are doing all the thinking for us, and the dumber we get.