Oh, Physics
I went to Elonwy's engagement party last night, and it was the most fun I have had in AGES. I got way too drunk and talked way too much physics with everyone who would listen. A bunch of Mike's friends from the Berkeley physics department were there, so there were lots of physicists to talk to! One of them has been head TA for an intro physics class, so I even got to talk physics teaching! I'm still drunk AND still excited. They throw a bitchin' party.
Talking with the other physicists has strengthened my idea that the Alg 2 curriculum needs to be modified. I got on a bit of a rant and started listing off the topics students are "required" to know, and the response was a blank stare. Many of the topics taught in Alg 2 are taught in a vacuum and are so abstract and practically useless that students dutifully memorize what they're supposed to and instantly forget it as soon as they've gone over it and all the while the only thing that sticks, and sticks HARD, is how stupid math is.
I have decided I need to start a campaign to change state standards. I have no idea who to talk to or write to or what, but it NEEDS to happen. There should be a class that takes the parts of Alg 2 that are useful (exponents, factoring, simplifying, logs, etc.) and do that in one semester, and spend the other semester USING that information to learn probability and statistics. The vast majority of news and research and ideas out there use some sorts of statistics, but the vast majority of people have no idea what that means. They don't know what it means to be statistically significant, what is the difference between average and median and why should they care, what is a standard deviation, what is uncertainty. All of these are very easy, basic concepts that can be taught as a way to really use the important topics in Alg 2 in a way that will really and truly give them something they can use for the rest of their lives.
Again, I don't know how to actually make a difference at the state level, but I am going to start with some local teachers and professors and see if anyone else agrees. It's a good start to improving the educations system and bringing it closer to something relevant to modern times instead of based on early 20th century ideas and scheduled around a now-almost-non-existant agricultural mode of living.
Talking with the other physicists has strengthened my idea that the Alg 2 curriculum needs to be modified. I got on a bit of a rant and started listing off the topics students are "required" to know, and the response was a blank stare. Many of the topics taught in Alg 2 are taught in a vacuum and are so abstract and practically useless that students dutifully memorize what they're supposed to and instantly forget it as soon as they've gone over it and all the while the only thing that sticks, and sticks HARD, is how stupid math is.
I have decided I need to start a campaign to change state standards. I have no idea who to talk to or write to or what, but it NEEDS to happen. There should be a class that takes the parts of Alg 2 that are useful (exponents, factoring, simplifying, logs, etc.) and do that in one semester, and spend the other semester USING that information to learn probability and statistics. The vast majority of news and research and ideas out there use some sorts of statistics, but the vast majority of people have no idea what that means. They don't know what it means to be statistically significant, what is the difference between average and median and why should they care, what is a standard deviation, what is uncertainty. All of these are very easy, basic concepts that can be taught as a way to really use the important topics in Alg 2 in a way that will really and truly give them something they can use for the rest of their lives.
Again, I don't know how to actually make a difference at the state level, but I am going to start with some local teachers and professors and see if anyone else agrees. It's a good start to improving the educations system and bringing it closer to something relevant to modern times instead of based on early 20th century ideas and scheduled around a now-almost-non-existant agricultural mode of living.