San Francisco Middle Schools No Longer Teaching Algebra

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > San Francisco Middle Schools No Longer Teaching Algebra

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Jack of Hearts posted:

If this is the point of high school, we should be permitting a not-insubstantial number of kids to graduate at 15. At least some of the time, honors and AP classes function as a sop to kids who should really be at a local CC already getting their general ed out of the way. Of course, if we were to permit that, we'd face the same social problems caused by tracking, but even more so, since there would arise a massive stigma against those who got their diploma at the normal age kids do now.

Why, exactly? There's nothing in there that requires that "a not-insubstantial number of kids" to run out of classes after two years. He didn't say anything about banning honors classes, or AP classes. He said that the purpose of public education ought to be to educate everyone up to a certain standard, and that the minimal level of this standard is failing to be met. Now, implicit in your response would thus be the belief that educating everyone up to this minimal standard requires "permitting a not-insubstantial number of kids" to only spend two years in high school. Which in turn has a host of other implications.

But it's ridiculous to think that, because there's plenty of space for classes that are agnostic on whether the kid is "gifted" or not, and even if we were unable to maintain AP/IB/honors courses, that would still be better, morally and pragmatically speaking, both because democracy is superior to aristocracy and because "gifted" children are more likely to learn on their own.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 22:41

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:14

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Jack of Hearts posted:

My response was to Main Paineframe, who said

If you're saying that there are other objectives in high school education, then I agree, chief among them socialization. But if the paramount objective of high school is to achieve these basic proficiencies, what do you do with the ones who already have, and who are nevertheless compelled to attend? They have achieved the desired end; why shouldn't they go and continue their intellectual development in a place that doesn't mandate you take gym?

At some point, incidentally, socialization doesn't hold as a worthwhile end either. My best friend's little sister dropped out of high school at 16, took an equivalency exam, and went straight to community college. I thought this was very clever, as I had no idea it was possible. If you're capable, why bother with tedious junior English, when you can do slightly-less-tedious college freshman English and get credit for transfer?

That's not what I'm saying, and that's not what Main Paineframe is saying either. What is being said is that the minimal, absolute minimal, standard of universal education is failing to be met by our schools, so the priority shouldn't be on focusing on the "gifted" kids, it should be about getting things up to that minimal standard of everyone being able to read and write and do math.

Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with gym, porky.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 23:19

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Jack of Hearts posted:

I agree that "gifted" students shouldn't be the priority, but, uh, if the purpose of our high schools is to educate our students to that minimal standard, then what's left for those who have as of grade 10? Inasmuch as high schools can also teach intellectually challenging material past that point, aren't they necessarily favoring "gifted" students?

Awwwwwwwwww.

You're missing the point. The purpose is to ensure everyone reaches a certain standard. Nobody is actually saying that that minimum standard is all that should be achieved, or that you can't educate people beyond even a more acceptable standard.

Job Truniht posted:

What you just described though is just another No Child Left Behind. It's not going to work. High schools are becoming increasingly irrelevant if we're stuck on "can everyone here do babby math?" School shouldn't hold your hand, it should push you and keep you constantly stressed. Those in turn come to help when you have to go to college and actual deal with real pressure.

Highschool math is purely arithmetic, and in that sense is total dogshit. It should be thrown in favor of something much more abstract.

Talking out of your rear end is rude.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 23:44

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Don't be offended for being ignorant. Taking any upper level or graduate course in real analysis or advanced calculus and you'll see what I mean. Therein lies actual math- not the stuff that gives math a horrendous reputation that's still loving taught in schools.

Even if you believe this, the work force doesn't. They've already started taking college level degrees for factory jobs years ago. Stop trying to hold the hands of every student. You're just producing a group of people who go into college with helicopter parents and can't handle any pressure at all.

I agree. We should teach the calculus of variations starting in the sixth grade. This is the belief of a sane, intelligent man.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 00:05

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

If you do not understand the theory there is never hope of comprehending the math you do not anything but purely mechanical interaction of input and output. It's like playing board games without knowing the rules for it. Go out and ask someone to prove 5 + 2 is 7. Like, actually prove it, not just simply state it as being the truth.

So you're talking out of your rear end again. Keep it up and you'll earn a gluteoectomy.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 00:11

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

It's entirely in your favor to come up with a counter argument People are taught math without understanding the theory behind it, and that's why most people hate it. I struggled with it my whole life until I was retaught from the ground up using theory. Arguing with people who know high school math is like arguing with libertarians, they'll cite arithmetic and call them axioms.

Basic geometric proofs are taught as part of high-school education in American public schools.

Furthermore, your statement assumes that everyone reacts universally and there is one single approach to pedagogy that is, if not literally universal (though frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it was, in your mind), so close to universal such that its apparent lack is condemning enough.

This is a laughable statement, but one that is not really challengeable because it's the product of a radically different episteme. So instead I'll smile at the misanthropy on display.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 00:23

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

I wouldn't call it misanthropy. I call it introducing critical thinking skills at a younger age, when concepts like that are much easier to learn and remember. From what I've seen, Common Core's math is trying to do something similar, but in a really weird roundabout way by showing you can arrive at it through the arithmetic. Parents are going apeshit because of it.

And I really don't care about this "universal standard for education". This is the 21st century, where humans should be able to live with dignity whether or not they go to college or whether or not they did well on some standardized test. Fundamentally, competitiveness is what killed American schooling to begin with. It should be about the appreciation of knowledge and that's probably partially why the Finns are so drat good at it.

On the other hand, this approach to education hasn't done you any good, since you're completely unable to interpret simple English sentences that other people write. Maybe it's only about math, that being the sum total of critical thinking, and not, say, the ability to determine whether there's a relationship between pregnancy and childbirth.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 01:06

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Hey, I'm the not the one being a dick and calling up previous debates to win my arguments. You're fundamentally wrong when you say there's "one approach" to abstract math. What it teaches you exactly the opposite of that. I don't get why you guys are so insistent on another variation of "No Child Left Behind", because that's exactly what raising the curriculum does. You're living in a fantasy world if you think that wouldn't just lead to more standardized testing that teachers have to waste their time preparing their students for.

I don't know what you're talking about, I was using it as a representative example of an inability to reason. You simply are unable to understand my simple post, where I accused you of believing in a single pedagogical approach to teaching math, so everything you have built on that house of cards will be dashed to the ground again and again. Thou art Ozymandias, halfwit of halfwits, look upon thy works, we mighty, and despair.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 01:38

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Unseen posted:

Nothing wrong with not going to college and getting a trade. In this day and age, if you're not going to college for specialized training to work in a field that requires that training (ex doctor nurse lawyer engineer scientist), you might as well avoid the mortgage. Whether you or your perfect Scandinavian government are paying it.

The world needs furnace guys, machinists, carpenters etc. You don't need to be ultra educated to get a good job, you just need marketable skills.

There's actually plenty wrong with it, given working conditions for even unionized skilled laborers in today's world. Most people would rather have the sort of comfort associated with white-collar positions, which is why they encourage their kids to go to college.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 01:45

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Because I thought that was utter nonsense. If you lack even a consistent pedagogical approach to teaching a concept that is both consistent and logical, you're just going to end up confusing someone. A thousand bad methods to teaching someone math won't outdo one good method, and unfortunately the best people who I've seen teach the subject teach it from this approach. Teaching people arithmetic just to teach people concept is wildly inefficient, even at glance. Especially if it ends up showing nothing about how that person you're trying to teach thinks.

Have you considered that, in terms of teaching people arithmetic so they can do loving arithmetic, it's pretty efficient to actually teach arithmetic.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 01:52

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Yeah, they're nearly as efficient as a calculator. I'm certainly not as good as Wolfram Alpha is. Look, you don't even have to teach people math to learn math. Board games make a great introduction to the sort of critical thinking skills you end up using in math. And from my personal experience, it's much harder to teach someone if they hate it. Make it interesting. Don't teach a cosmology class without talking about the fate of the universe. Don't teach a math class without explaining why it has advanced beyond whatever was taught sometime during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Do something with the human brain that a computer cannot do.

I could have written a sarcastic little gibe about someone whipping out a TI-84 Silver Plus to figure out how many quarters for their soda from the vending machine, but instead:

The Feeling of Power, Isaac Asimov posted:

Jehan Shuman was used to dealing with the men in authority on long-embattled earth. He was only a civilian but he originated programming patterns that resulted in self-directing war computers of the highest sort. Generals, consequently listened to him. Heads of congressional committees too.
There was one of each in the special lounge of New Pentagon. General Weider was space-burned and had a small mouth puckered almost into a cipher. He smoked Denebian tobacco with the air of one whose patriotism was so notorious, he could be allowed such liberties.
Shuman, tall, distinguished, and Programmer-first-class, faced them fearlessly.
He said, "This, gentlemen, is Myron Aub."
"The one with the unusual gift that you discovered quite by accident," said Congressman Brant placidly. "Ah." He inspected the little man with the egg-bald head with amiable curiosity.
The little man, in return, twisted the fingers of his hands anxiously. He had never been near such great men before. He was only an aging low-grade technician who had long ago failed all tests designed to smoke out the gifted ones among mankind and had settled into the rut of unskilled labor. There was just this hobby of his that the great Programmer had found out about and was now making such a frightening fuss over.
General Weider said, "I find this atmosphere of mystery childish."
"You won't in a moment," said Shuman. "This is not something we can leak to the firstcomer. Aub!" There was something imperative about his manner of biting off that one-syllable name, but then he was a great Programmer speaking to a mere technician. "Aub! How much is nine times seven?"
Aub hesitated a moment. His pale eyes glimmered with a feeble anxiety.
"Sixty-three," he said.
Congressman Brant lifted his eyebrows. "Is that right?"
"Check it for yourself, Congressman."
The congressman took out his pocket computer, nudged the milled edges twice, looked at its face as it lay there in the palm of his hand, and put it back. He said, "Is this the gift you brought us here to demonstrate. An illusionist?"
"More than that, sir. Aub has memorized a few operations and with them he computes on paper."
"A paper computer?" said the general. He looked pained.
"No, sir," said Shuman patiently. "Not a paper computer. Simply a piece of paper. General, would you be so kind as to suggest a number?"
"Seventeen," said the general.
"And you, Congressman?"
"Twenty-three."
"Good! Aub, multiply those numbers, and please show the gentlemen your manner of doing it."
"Yes, Programmer," said Aub, ducking his head. He fished a small pad out of one shirt pocket and an artist's hairline stylus out of the other. His forehead corrugated as he made painstaking marks on the paper.
General Weider interrupted him sharply. "Let's see that."
Aub passed him the paper, and Weider said, "Well, it looks like the figure seventeen."
Congressman Brant nodded and said, "So it does, but I suppose anyone can copy figures off a computer. I think I could make a passable seventeen myself, even without practice."
"If you will let Aub continue, gentlemen," said Shuman without heat.
Aub continued, his hand trembling a little. Finally he said in a low voice, "The answer is three hundred and ninety-one."
Congressman Brant took out his computer a second time and flicked it. "By Godfrey, so it is. How did he guess?"
"No guess, Congressman," said Shuman. "He computed that result. He did it on this sheet of paper."
"Humbug," said the general impatiently. "A computer is one thing and marks on a paper are another."
"Explain, Aub," said Shuman.
"Yes, Programmer. Well, gentlemen, I write down seventeen, and just underneath it I write twenty-three. Next I say to myself: seven times three -"
The congressman interrupted smoothly, "Now, Aub, the problem is seventeen times twenty-three."
"Yes, I know," said the little technician earnestly, "but I start by saying seven times three because that's the way it works. Now seven times three is twenty-one."
"And how do you know that?" asked the congressman.
"I just remember it. It's always twenty-one on the computer. I've checked it any number of times."
"That doesn't mean it always will be, though, does it?" said the congressman.
"Maybe not," stammered Aub. "I'm not a mathematician. But I always get the right answers, you see."
"Go on."
"Seven times three is twenty-one, so I write down twenty-one. Then one times three is three, so I write down three under the two of twenty-one."
"Why under the two?" asked Congressman Brant at once.
"Because - " Aub looked helplessly at his superior for support. "It's difficult to explain."
Shuman said, "If you will accept his work for the moment, we can leave the details for the mathematicians."
Brant subsided.
Aub said, "Three plus two makes five, you see, so the twenty- one becomes a fifty-one. Now you let that go for a while and start fresh. You multiply seven and two, that's fourteen, and one and two, that's two. Put them down like this and it adds up to thirty-four. Now if you put the thirty-four under the fifty-one this way and add them, you get three hundred and ninety-one, and that's the answer."
There was an instant's silence and then General Weider said, "I don't believe it. He goes through this rigmarole and makes up numbers and multiplies and adds them this way and that, but I don't believe it. It's too complicated to be anything but horn-swoggling."
"Oh no, sir," said Aub in a sweat. "It only seems complicated because you're not used to it. Actually the rules are quite simple and will work for any numbers."
"Any numbers, eh?" said the general. "Come, then." He took out his own computer (a severely styled GI model) and struck it at random. "Make a five seven three eight on the paper. That's five thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight."
"Yes, sir," said Aub, taking a new sheet of paper.
"Now" - more punching of his computer - "seven two three nine. Seven thousand two hundred and thirty-nine."
"Yes, sir."
"And now multiply those two."
"It will take some time," quavered Aub.
"Take the time," said the general.
"Go ahead, Aub," said Shuman crisply.
Aub set to work, bending low. He took another sheet of paper and another. The general took out his watch finally and stared at it. "Are you through with your magic-making, Technician?"
"I'm almost done, sir. Here it is, sir. Forty-one million, five hundred and thirty-seven thousand, three hundred and eighty-two." He showed the scrawled figures of the result.
General Weider smiled bitterly. He pushed the multiplication contact on his computer and let the numbers whirl to a halt. And then he stared and said in a surprised squeak, "Great Galaxy, the fella's right."
The President of the Terrestrial Federation had grown haggard in office and, in private, he allowed a look of settled melancholy to appear on his sensitive features. The Denebian War, after its early start of vast movement and great popularity, had trickled down into a sordid matter of maneuver and counter-maneuver, with discontent rising steadily on earth. Possibly, it was rising on Deneb, too.
And now Congressman Brant, head of the important Committee on Military Appropriations, was cheerfully and smoothly spending his half-hour appointment spouting nonsense.
"Computing without a computer," said the president impatiently, "is a contradiction in terms."
"Computing," said the congressman, "is only a system for handling data. A machine might do it, or the human brain might. Let me give you an example." And, using the new skills he had learned, he worked out sums and products until the president, despite himself, grew interested.
"Does this always work?"
"Every time, Mr. President. It is foolproof."
"Is it hard to learn?"
"It took me a week to get the real hang of it. I think you would do better."
"Well," said the president, considering, "it's an interesting parlor game, but what is the use of it?"
"What is the use of a newborn baby, Mr. President? At the moment there is no use, but don't you see that this points the way toward liberation from the machine. Consider, Mr. President" - the congressman rose and his deep voice automatically took on some of the cadences he used in public debate - "that the Denebian War is a war of computer against computer. Their computers forge an impenetrable shield of countermissiles against our missiles, and ours forge one against theirs. If we advance the efficiency of our computers, so do they theirs, and for five years a precarious and profitless balance has existed.
"Now we have in our hands a method for going beyond the computed, leapfrogging it, passing through it. We will combine the mechanics of computation with human thought; we will have the equivalent of intelligent computers, billions of them. I can't predict what the consequences will be in detail, but they will be incalculable. And if Deneb beats us to the punch, they may be unimaginably catastrophic."
The president said, troubled, "What would you have me do?"
"Put the power of the administration behind the establishment of a secret project on human computation. Call it Project Number, if you like. I can vouch for my committee, but I will need the administration behind me."
"But how far can human computation go?"
"There is no limit. According to Programmer Shuman, who first introduced me to this discovery - "
"I've heard of Shuman, of course."
"Yes. Well, Dr. Shuman tells me that in theory there is nothing the computer can do that the human mind cannot do. The computer merely takes a finite amount of data and performs a finite amount of operations on them. The human mind can duplicate the process."
The president considered that. He said, "If Shuman says this, I am inclined to believe him - in theory. But, in practice, how can anyone know how a computer works?"
Brant laughed genially. "Well, Mr. President, I asked the same question. It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings. Those were simple computers, of course, this being before the time of the rational use of computers to design more advanced computers had been established."
"Yes, yes. Go on."
"Technician Aub apparently had, as his hobby, the reconstruction of some of these ancient devices, and in so doing he studied the details of their workings and found he could imitate them. The multiplication I just performed for you is an imitation of the workings of a computer."
"Amazing!"
The congressman coughed gently. "If I may make another point, Mr. President - the further we can develop this thing, the more we can divert our federal effort from computer production and computer maintenance. As the human brain takes over, more of our energy can be directed into peacetime pursuits and the impingement of war on the ordinary man will be less. This will be most advantageous for the party in power, of course."
"Ah," said the president, "I see your point. Well, sit down, Congressman, sit down. I want some time to think about this. But meanwhile, show me that multiplication trick again. Let's see if I can't catch the point of it."
Programmer Shuman did not try to hurry matters. Loesser was conservative, very conservative, and liked to deal with computers as his father and grandfather had. Still, he controlled the West European computer combine, and if he could be persuaded to join Project Number in full enthusiasm, a great deal would be accomplished.
But Loesser was holding back. He said, "I'm not sure I like the idea of relaxing our hold on computers. The human mind is a capricious thing. The computer will give the same answer to the same problem each time. What guarantee have we that the human mind will do the same?"
"The human mind, Computer Loesser, only manipulates facts. It doesn't matter whether the human mind or a machine does it. They are just tools."
"Yes, yes. I've gone over your ingenious demonstration that the mind can duplicate the computer, but it seems to me a little in the air. I'll grant the theory, but what reason have we for thinking that theory can be converted to practice?"
"I think we have reason, sir. After all, computers have not always existed. The cavemen with their triremes, stone axes, and railroads had no computers."
"And possibly they did not compute."
"You know better than that. Even the building of a railroad or a ziggurat called for some computing, and that must have been without computers as we know them."
"Do you suggest they computed in the fashion you demonstrate?"
"Probably not. After all, this method - we call it 'graphitics,' by the way, from the old European word 'grapho,' meaning 'to write' - is developed from the computers themselves, so it cannot have antedated them. Still, the cave men must have had some method, eh?"
"Lost arts! If you're going to talk about lost arts - "
"No, no. I'm not a lost art enthusiast, though I don't say there may not be some. After all, man was eating grain before hydroponics, and if the primitives ate grain, they must have grown it in soil. What else could they have done?"
"I don't know, but I'll believe in soil growing when I see someone grow grain in soil. And I'll believe in making fire by rubbing two pieces of flint together when I see that too."
Shuman grew placative. "Well, let's stick to graphitics. It's just part of the process of etherealization. Transportation by means of bulky contrivances is giving way to mass transference. Communications devices become less massive and more efficient constantly. For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with computers altogether? Come, sir, Project Number is a going concern; progress is already headlong. But we want your help. If patriotism doesn't move you, consider the intellectual adventure involved."
Loesser said skeptically, "What progress? What can you do beyond multiplication? Can you integrate a transcendental function?"
"In time, sir. In time. In the last month, I have learned to handle division. I can determine, and correctly, integral quotients and decimal quotients."
"Decimal quotients? To how many places?"
Programmer Shuman tried to keep his tone casual. "Any number!"
Loesser's jaw dropped. "Without a computer?"
"Set me a problem."
"Divide twenty-seven by thirteen. Take it to six places."
Five minutes later Shuman said, "Two point oh seven six nine two three."
Loesser checked it. "Well, now, that's amazing. Multiplication didn't impress me too much because it involved integers, after all, and I thought trick manipulation might do it. But decimals - "
"And that is not all. There is a new development that is, so far, top secret and which, strictly speaking, I ought not to mention. Still - we may have made a break-through on the square root front."
"Square roots?"
"It involves some tricky points and we haven't licked the bugs yet, but Technician Aub, the man who invented the science and who has amazing intuition in connection with it, maintains he has the problem almost solved. And he is only a technician. A man like yourself, a trained and talented mathematician, ought to have no difficulty."
"Square roots," muttered Loesser, attracted.
"Cube roots, too. Are you with us?"
Loesser's hand thrust out suddenly. "Count me in."
General Weider stumped his way back and forth at the head of the room and addressed his listeners after the fashion of a savage teacher facing a group of recalcitrant students. It made no difference to the general that they were the civilian scientists heading Project Number. The general was over-all head, and he so considered himself at every waking moment.
He said, "Now square roots are fine. I can't do them myself and I don't understand the methods, but they're fine. Still, the project will not be sidetracked into what some of you call the fundamentals. You can play with graphitics any way you want to after the war is over, but right now we have specific and very practical problems to solve."
In a far corner Technician Aub listened with painful attention. He was no longer a technician, of course, having been relieved of his duties and assigned to the project, with a fine-sounding title and good pay. But, of course, the social distinction remained, and the highly placed scientific leaders could never bring themselves to admit him to their ranks on a footing of equality. Nor, to do Aub justice, did he, himself, wish it. He was as uncomfortable with them as they with him.
The general was saying, "Our goal is a simple one, gentlemen - the replacement of the computer. A ship that can navigate space without a computer on board can be constructed in one fifth the time and at one tenth the expense of a computer-laden ship. We could build fleets five times, ten times, as great as Deneb could if we could but eliminate the computer.
"And I see something even beyond this. It may be fantastic now, a mere dream, but in the future I see the manned missile!"
There was an instant murmur from the audience.
The general drove on. "At the present time our chief bottleneck is the fact that missiles are limited in intelligence. The computer controlling them can only be so large, and for that reason they can meet the changing nature of anti-missile defenses in an unsatisfactory way. Few missiles, if any, accomplish their goal, and missile warfare is coming to a dead end, for the enemy, fortunately, as well as for ourselves.
"On the other hand, a missile with a man or two within, controlling flight by graphitics, would be lighter, more mobile, more intelligent. It would give us a lead that might well mean the margin of victory. Besides which, gentlemen, the exigencies of war compel us to remember one thing. A man is much more dispensable than a computer. Manned missiles could be launched in numbers and under circumstances that no good general would care to undertake as far as computer-directed missiles are concerned . . ."
He said much more, but Technician Aub did not wait.
Technician Aub, in the privacy of his quarters, labored long over the note he was leaving behind. It read finally as follows:
"When I began the study of what is now called graphitics, it was no more than a hobby. I saw no more in it than an interesting amusement, an exercise of mind.
"When Project Number began, I thought that others were wiser than I, that graphitics might be put to practical use as a benefit to mankind, to aid in the production of really practical mass-transference devices perhaps. But now I see it is to be used only for death and destruction.
"I cannot face the responsibility involved in having invented graphitics."
He then deliberately turned the focus of a protein depolarizer on himself and fell instantly and painlessly dead.
They stood over the grave of the little technician while tribute was paid to the greatness of his discovery.
Programmer Shuman bowed his head along with the rest of them but remained unmoved. The technician had done his share and was no longer needed, after all. He might have started graphitics, but now that it had started, it would carry on by itself overwhelmingly, triumphantly, until manned missiles were possible with who knew what else.
Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction, is sixty-three, and I don't need a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.
And it was amazing the feeling of power that gave him.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 02:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Fortunately, TI-84s are pretty obsolete. And that short story was written around the time engineers were still using slide rules during their midterms. Would Asimov unironically think the same thing today? This is the same guy who also wrote this.

Tell me what you think the story is about, but give me five or six minutes to open up a beer first.

Unseen posted:

Professors in socialist wunderlands work for free right? You will pay it one way or another.

What does this have to do with anything?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 02:40

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Unseen posted:

My original point was that you can make reasonable money with a trade as opposed to going to college and sinking yourself in a $50k-$100k debt pit. Especially if you're just going to college just because you heard people will pay you more if you get a degree.

Yeah, if you're a carpenter, you might have to work out in the rain. Furnace guy and mechanic will need to wash their hands with fast orange cause they get greasy. But you talk about it like it's slave labor in Bangladesh.

In earlier posts I mentioned there are academically oriented kids who study and do their work, and catch on to advanced topics. And how there are kids who don't give a poo poo about academics. Separating them into different classes and course work allows teachers to cater to each group.

People try to make it a social justice issue. The bottom line is, everyone is different and who cares. Let the smart kids get smarter and the kids who don't give a poo poo learn something else (tech school).

Nope, I talk about it as though it were worse than white-collar labor, which it is. Even leaving aside 70-80 hour weeks, leaving aside the fact that you don't work consistent hours anymore, instead doing piecework jobs for a few days or weeks and then spending time looking for the next gig, leaving aside that training will actually take you longer than a bachelor's (apprenticeships are five years, and then you have trade schools proper, so it can even rival a doctorate for some specialty fields), leaving aside the whole supply-and-demand thing, leaving aside the health risks, there's the simple fact that the work environment of a blue-collar job is inherently worse in 99% of cases than that of a white-collar job.

So even though white-collar jobs might pay less on average than a unionized electrician or other skilled blue-collar job, under ideal conditions for both, there's still that big gap that makes white-collar work more attractive. Now, in theory, and making talk about socialism at least tangentially relevant, you could adjust conditions so that blue-collar work was competitive with white-collar work in this area. Say, electricians work for 6 hours on average, or something. Of course, this requires eliminating wage labor, and eliminating a lot of class distinctions and social hierarchies, so it will never happen. And in the real world, conditions are even worse (although it's harder to get into a white-collar job, it's more stable once you have it).

Of course, your post could have spilled from David Brooks's lips, with this belief that social structure is like some warped version of high-school cliques where you could move around freely between cliques. "Separate but equal" is inherently unequal, and not just in matters of race.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 04:17

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Panzeh posted:

In the real job environment, the extra years in the job are worth a lot more than 4 years of college and a marginally relevant degree. Yes, there are degrees that will win every time in this comparison, but most of them won't. Of course, some smart people parlay poo poo degrees into good white-collar jobs, but many just end up working a touch ahead in retail than a HS-educated worker and don't do much better than a tradesman.

Even science majors often end up doing trash work and making less than tradesmen.

Cool job ignoring everything I wrote in favor of repeating blather about how skilled work pays more. Are you a man or a mynah?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 04:39

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Panzeh posted:

They do get poo poo on but then everyone gets poo poo on- lovely white collar work for example gives you poo poo tons of unpaid OT. I'm not gonna disagree that people get poo poo on either way.

It's not a question of getting poo poo on. Can you read, or are you just putting up a somewhat convincing fake?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 04:43

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Panzeh posted:

You can kinda tell me about the cushy white-collar nature of being an assistant manager of a wal-mart and then tell me about how a paying apprenticeship(which is also common in other college degree fields such as architecture) is worse than dropping thousands of dollars on college.

You sound like a loving idiot when you think trash degrees are better than trade school(and btw, with most trade school programs in high school you can do both).

I said that, assuming the best possible cases for white-collar and blue-collar jobs, the blue-collar job still has a worse working environment. This is true. You can compare the highest end of blue-collar work to the lowest end of white-collar work all you want, but it's transparently about avoiding engaging with dissidence.

When you take the actual conditions of those employments, the gap widens further. For example, a nuclear power plant during a refueling outage will run 84-hour weeks. But white-collar workers at the plant are still working that 7-12 shift in better conditions than the carpenters or pipefitters or millwrights. We can go on to health risks, the increasingly irregular nature of blue-collar skilled labor, and the fact that supply and demand means that these gaps will widen as you force people into the skilled trades. All of it makes white-collar work more attractive to people, even to blue-collar skilled workers, even though it pays less on average (and this is questionable, once you take the actual amount of education involved into question), because it offers a better environment. Which is a large part of why people prefer college for their kids than skilled trades.

Correcting these issues requires some major changes to society that belie the inherently elitist and anti-democratic nature of such suggestions, along with the smoldering hatred of knowledge and intellectualism.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 05:03

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

Computers can't do abstract. They can't write journal papers. We can do computing, but we can also do many more things in mathematics than that. Computers are not worth more than people. It describes a logically impossible hypothetical situation written at a time when computers and computing were relatively new, large, and expensive. In other words, this story is not meant to be taken at face value.

Understanding arithmetic doesn't meant you understand the fundamentals of math, which are never taught at a high school level. However, the inverse is always true. If you understand the fundamentals of mathematics, you understand arithmetic.

Okay, so to boil it down, your superior approach to education left you still totally ignorant of how to approach literature.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 05:11

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Job Truniht posted:

I'm looking at it on context of this argument. It's built on a premise that only works in a self contained story and nothing more. Otherwise, someday in a dystopian future people will forget math and some goon will relearn math from arithmetic and computers will be worth more than people therefore teach arithmetic is dumb the argument of the day.

e: Actually Aub killing himself actually resonated with me after wasting my time reading that poo poo

Okay. The story is about, literally, the way in which a militaristic society only sees things in terms of military usefulness, such that even someone's hobbies become an instrument of war. It also goes into how this makes the society stupider. This is tied to the rise of the computer in the context of the Cold War so as to create a context for this hobby to also be liberating, giving you a feeling of power that can't be taken away by the oppressive society of the Cold War.

Asimov, while not a canonical writer, nevertheless had things to say in his stories, and he understood that the technology was a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Eqeta.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 05:45

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Samog posted:

browsing wikipedia doesn't seem like a very good alternative to an algebra class, to me

Yeah, to hell with all the other kids. I hope they loving burn for eternity rather than impinge on the smart kids's right to have Algebra a year earlier than otherwise.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 22:42

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

on the left posted:

Why throw good money after bad?

This needs some expansion to make any sense.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 01:03

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Gifted programs reinforce structural inequality, however, because getting admitted is correlated with status more than anything and they are about establishing status. See, for example, the argument earlier in the thread that you need to have completed Calc 1 before your freshman year of college begins to be able to get a high-quality engineering or physics degree. If this was the case, then gifted programs would create this hierarchy where only people in them can gain those degrees. They definitely create a weaker hierarchy where people in these programs are much more successful in those degrees.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 20:24

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

archduke.iago posted:

That's not actually what's happening though, if someone claimed that special ed programs should be dismantled because they instituted a hierarchical status difference they would be laughed out of the room. Yet the analogous view seems to be in vogue wrt the other side.

The point of special education is, ideally, to annihilate the hierarchy around disability and enable disabled children to get an equal education. Many schools do not do this or attempt this, which would be worthy of a thread in a parallel universe where people didn't squeak, "Harrison Bergeron!" when it came to the idea of universal public education.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 22:48

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

The thing that "gifted" students most need to learn is not compatible with pedagogy as it is traditionally practiced, and there are some major, major ethical issues with implementing it institutionally. But for a lot of people, this is a cultural issue rather than a policy issue, so the limitations of education don't matter.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 00:22

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

PT6A posted:

And what is it that you think gifted students most need to learn? It's difficult to respond to your post unless you tell us, as I am unable to read your mind, and I assume others are as well.

They need to learn how to deal with failure, without being able to shrug it off as them "not being good at something". Since a large part of teaching is about establishing trust between teacher and student, it's hard to see how this can be ethically systematized, no matter the practical issues with doing it.

ChipNDip posted:

It makes it a metric fuckton more difficult and irritating though. Calc I and/or II at most universities are notorious weed-out, GPA-crushing, time-sink classes for science and engineering majors. Those classes, along with General Chemistry and Intro Physics are easily responsible for a significant portion of the "shortage" of STEM majors. If we want more students going into scientific fields, then we absolutely want more of them to avoid those classes with AP credits.

Why not address why these courses are developed in such a way? If it's nonessential to understanding the material (such that AP credits can substitute meaningfully instead of moving the weed-out courses to Calc III, Gen Chem II, or Physics II), then it's solely a waste of everyone's time and they could be improved for everyone's benefit. If it's a necessary consequence of understanding the material, then people who get AP credits are arguably underserved and will show weaknesses later in their curriculum.

The only way this makes sense is if we assume university curricula are immutable but secondary ones aren't, which requires some major justification.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 01:15

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:14

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

PT6A posted:

Okay, I completely agree with this. This is exactly why I think gifted children need to be pushed to their limits, and, in some cases, beyond them. I don't think everything needs to be completely systematic in education, I think it's up to the teachers to do their job properly and figure out how to push the child in question toward, but also through, struggles. Standardized systems, even ones like IB and AP, are not particularly effective in that, and I think it can done with equal effectiveness with a lesser degree of curriculum differentiation.

Out of curiosity, what do you feel the ethical issues are with such a system?

It breaches trust between teacher and student, not to mention the more general ethical ambiguity of tailoring it to involve the kid's self-image so that they can't shake it off as just being something they don't like. Granted, it's towards a good end, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to do that to a kid.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 01:50

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