Which raises the point, why are teachers spending a huge amount of time teaching crap like algebra and trig that 90% of the population will never use for the rest of their life when they are driving trucks and serving fries, but teachers spend almost zero time teaching and testing real world "Numeracy" skills that would greatly help people practically every day of their lives?

Mmh, when I was at school I thought a lot of things they taught us were crap, including biology, chemistry, music, art, history...

Thing is kids don't know what they will be working with later and they especially don't know how their interest may change later.

I now wish I would have paid more attention during history and biology classes.

Kids don't REALLY want to go to school. At least the kids I know\knew, so we have to give them the basics. IMO this includes those mathematical concepts.

 

Consider also this:

In a perfect world, the humble restaurant employee would acknowledge the need of his profession. But that wouldn't stop him from developing a cultivated character and therefore he would want to learn mathematics, physics, biology, litterature and arts, just like the renaiscence man.

The theory is correct, but it isn't appliable in the real world.

 

Mmh, when I was at school I thought a lot of things they taught us were crap, including biology, chemistry, music, art, history...

Thing is kids don't know what they will be working with later and they especially don't know how their interest may change later.

I now wish I would have paid more attention during history and biology classes.

Kids don't REALLY want to go to school. At least the kids I know\knew, so we have to give them the basics. IMO this includes those mathematical concepts.

I can attest to that. When I was in HS, algebra and geometry, basically all math I despised. I put only enough effort to pass the class and then dump the information. My rationale was "when the hell am I ever going to need to know how to plot a line on a graph or solve for a letter?" Well, now I find myself doing just that, and I had to teach it to myself from the internet. I've been doing lots more of it recently and now going to college to learn more.

 

Hind site, prepare for the journey thru life,be ready.

 

Learning Algebra Trig, Cal, etc... Builds problems solving skills, and is actually much more important then people give it credit.
...

I greatly value problem solving skills, and think that should be taught with a lot of emphasis in school, along with decision making.

People will spend every day of their lives making decisions but very few people will spend every day doing trig.

I feel the people arguing that it should not be taught anymore have grown dependent on computers and the use of them.
...

Well I didn't say that "A should not be taught anymore" my point was more about an excessive focus on A which is less useful to most people than B which is sorely neglected.

And yes computers are here to stay. The internet will find you anything an academic knows, so who needs a head full of formulae these days? Crunching the numbers has become a job for the servile, something the machine does with a sim or a math model, while we do the design.

A century ago a great master architect would spend months on paper with slide rule and log tables, calculating beam loadings etc. These days a great master architect designs the beautiful curves of the building and designs spaces for the occupants, while the servile computer sim crunches the data and spits out beam loadings.

Why teach people the servile tasks? The heirarchy is changing greatly and we need to let go of some of the old preconceptions about what should be taught.

 

Can you suggest a better means of teaching and testing logical thinking, problem solving and decision making?

 

Society reflects the era that we are going thru,so that we go with what we have.

However imperfert it is,changes take time,new devices will help the imperfect.

 

I greatly value problem solving skills, and think that should be taught with a lot of emphasis in school, along with decision making.

People will spend every day of their lives making decisions but very few people will spend every day doing trig.



Well I didn't say that "A should not be taught anymore" my point was more about an excessive focus on A which is less useful to most people than B which is sorely neglected.

And yes computers are here to stay. The internet will find you anything an academic knows, so who needs a head full of formulae these days? Crunching the numbers has become a job for the servile, something the machine does with a sim or a math model, while we do the design.

A century ago a great master architect would spend months on paper with slide rule and log tables, calculating beam loadings etc. These days a great master architect designs the beautiful curves of the building and designs spaces for the occupants, while the servile computer sim crunches the data and spits out beam loadings.

Why teach people the servile tasks? The heirarchy is changing greatly and we need to let go of some of the old preconceptions about what should be taught.

Because all our computers and technology could be wiped out in minutes world wide. Then what do we do with a civilzation where an building designer can create sky scrapers with his cad software, but can't do it on paper and doesn't know the mathmatics of it? Human history is just a micro flash in the history of earth. We know the poles change, we know we get hit by astroids, we know the sun could send and emp flash in a blink that would fry every chip on the earth. For all we know they could happen ever couple hundred years. Computers are a wonderful gift, but ones that can be taken in an instant if the sun feels like it.

 

@ Max,A power outage killed my reply,are you getting bad weather.

 

why still teach basic skills? because cultures have been wiped out as they forgot how to use them. Same will happen to us. If you think that computers are here to stay, I wish you all the best. Something will happen sooner or later and I do not want to live in a world without a backup plan. There should always be at least two ways to solve a given problem.

 

Whats your back up plan,do you have one.

 

@ Max,A power outage killed my reply,are you getting bad weather.

Nah weathers been pretty tame here the past couple weeks. Going back to a drought now. No power outages or anything of that sort.

 

Strantor stands and applauds maxpower097 and justtrying. I'm currently learning how to grow my own food for this reason. 98% of the population (based on tax records) is not connected with agriculture and would likely have no idea how to feed themselves if the house of cards were to fall.

I think that school should teach the current fundamentals as well as knowledge and skills that are considered "obsolete" these days; the "old" fundamentals.

 

Like it or not, that would be of even less use to today's society.

Even if everyone was educated in producing their own food - how many would use it? Sure, some might grow some food to supplement their diet, but not many more than those who already do it today without 'formal' education. Even if they were keen to do it, where would the space come from?

Even if we had the space, people would spend so much time growing their food, we'd be forced back to the middle ages.

Farming allowed people to spend time doing other things - it's hard to learn maths/physics/language/whatever when you spend ten hours of your day growing food and looking after animals.

"Obsolete" skills don't just become obsolete without good reason. Growing one's own food and mantaining our current lifestyle (forget further!) is just about impossible.

You believe computers will fail and we will need to grow our on food - good luck.

The system is strong, it has existed before computers. There's no reason to believe that our current system will fail.

 

Sparky well see how you feel after a major emp blast from the sun that frys every transistor in the world, or the total economic collapse on a global scale. When it comes the only things that will be worth money are
#1 Food and clean Water
#2 DRUGS (Antibiotics, BP pills, benzo's, etc....)
#3 Weapons
#4 Petrol
Everything else won't be worth jack.

Sparky please name me 1 civilization that has not collapsed in the history of mankind. If we loose our electronics that means no distribution, no post services, No cars but old ones and race cars, no planes, all vehicles will have to be retrofitted to run without computers, no GPS no power, etc.... It can and will happen its just a matter of timing.

 

Bwahahaha - yeah, sure.

*wipes away tears"

Perhaps you should play fallout or something - you'd like that.

Perhaps you should leave the computer and start planting your crops for the rest of the year? Don't forget to find space for them all. And time to look after them.

 

Like it or not, that would be of even less use to today's society.

Today's society could see drastic changes in a blink of an eye. Who knows just how stable the economy is right now.

Don't underestimate the net effect of everyone doing just a small amount or alternative activities. Years ago I asked my Grandfather how everyone survived during the great depression. He said that people just helped each other and grew food in a garden. We're talking very small plots of land in a city here, by the way. My Grandfather was just starting his dentistry practice at that time, and instead of getting paid in money, he would work on people for free. Many of them in gratitude would drop off veggies and other treats.

My wife now has a hobby farm. She does it for fun, and we don't rely on it. We give the eggs away and we are giving veggies away so they don't go bad. She has also been preserving some of it. If push came to shove, we could go very far on a small garden and some chickens running around the place. We wouldn't starve, and could trade or sell some of it too. It takes some time, but in hard times, maybe all you have is time as your resource.

 

A good post Steve, and I agree with you and your grandfather.

However, one does not need a formal education to produce food as your family once did - to supplement their diet.

My family do the same. My grandparents have half of their back garden for growing potatoes and carrots (being good Scots, lol). My family also has half of our back garden for potatoes, onions, tomatoes, grapes, and sometimes pumpkins. It's great. But still it's not enough to support us entirely. We'd need more time, and more space.

I'm not arguing against growing your own - I really enjoy it and encourage others to do it. What I do disagree with, is the idea it should be taught formally and the doomsday people who constantly bring 'it's the end of the world - but I'll be alright' attitude to everything.

What makes you think that even it an emp destroys the world, people won't come 'round and steal your food before 'getting rid' of you in your sleep?

It's a horrible situation to be in - and I pray it will never happen. But there is nothing we can do to prevent it, or the hardships afterwards - nothing.

My view is that I can either live my life in constant fear of everything going wrong and dying, or I can live my life happy, enjoying myself before dying.

 

Bwahahaha - yeah, sure.

*wipes away tears"

Perhaps you should play fallout or something - you'd like that.

Perhaps you should leave the computer and start planting your crops for the rest of the year? Don't forget to find space for them all. And time to look after them.

Already done chief. I was raised to garden every year. We were taught to have gardens growing up in my era. Its not about space its about efficiency. Also knowing what to plant at what times is very beneficial. On the other hand I also live in a place that has a 362 day growing season.

 

But then surely you know that you've got to rest the land to allow nutrients to return?

Otherwise you'd have to use fertilisers - woops, won't be getting any packs from the garden centre after doomsday.

Even then, it's physically impossible to create a decent diet from a back garden sized plot of land. Unless you are happy to live off of potatoes and turnips. You can forget bread, cheese, milk, Fruit juice, etc.

But you are forcing the discussion away from the point I'm trying to make.

The people who need the tuition the most are those who are not as lucky as you. And you are very lucky. Those who would need to learn to grow food would be those who live in cities, but then they often have no land to grow food.

Which is why it would be pointless to force formal education.

That's what the discussion is, if you want to discuss some other doomsday crackpot stuff, that's fine. Live your life in fear.


P.S. Your era - bloody hell, how old are you? Last time I checked, it's been the Cenozoic Era for quite some time.