as a junior in high school I am proud to say I can add and subtract. however, I remember a lot of times chemistry would get me so confused and frazzled I would forget some of the simpler stuff while doing the harder stuff. Like significant figures, they are so easy and silly yet I continuously got them wrong.
Forgetting stuff you know and getting frazzled we can deal with. Coaching people through problems is part of what we do! It's when people insist that they have NO IDEA AT ALL about the required math that I wonder why I'm doing this for a living.
That is the real crux of the problem. You should know how to add and subtract. Frazzling and calculator errors are totally par for course. But, to demand that "we are doing it wrong" and "we weren't taught to do it that way" in a voice that makes me want to jump off of high buildings to make it all end...not good. :)
I am the queen of dropping that really important negative number in any problem: stats, calc, algebra, physics, chemistry, history...I dunno. dumb mistake but i know it is my mistake, just gotta find where I left that little bugger (negative signs).
Do not get me started! This was one of my major peeves about teaching high school, period. So much of education is intended to be sequential and added to what was - supposedly - already learned in those fundamental years. And any time I encountered a situation similar to what you described it would just bewilder me. I mean, how is one supposed to teach chemistry if the student can't subtract?! It boggles the mind.
These last two posts are just the problems I'm concerned about. People fake it in school, learn just "what they have to" and then go out to the workplace and do the same, and businesses fail, and politics go wild, because people are pretending to know things they should not.
Personally, I'm in favor of don't pass a standard for the class, don't pass. But that would cause a bit of chaos in our current educational system.
I can admit that I stress this with my boy, and spent a good portion of the evening helping with homework. I admit that it was latin tonight, but other nights it has been math. Once and a while science.
The important thing is that those that teach understand, thank goodness Tenel does!!!
I like the image of calculators flying around. That would never happen in one of my classrooms. ...Hmmmm, now that I think about it, what would be flying around in a history classroom? Nothing as cool as a calculator, I'm sure. ;-)
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however, I remember a lot of times chemistry would get me so confused and frazzled I would forget some of the simpler stuff while doing the harder stuff. Like significant figures, they are so easy and silly yet I continuously got them wrong.
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That is the real crux of the problem. You should know how to add and subtract. Frazzling and calculator errors are totally par for course. But, to demand that "we are doing it wrong" and "we weren't taught to do it that way" in a voice that makes me want to jump off of high buildings to make it all end...not good. :)
I am the queen of dropping that really important negative number in any problem: stats, calc, algebra, physics, chemistry, history...I dunno. dumb mistake but i know it is my mistake, just gotta find where I left that little bugger (negative signs).
Reply
Reply
Personally, I'm in favor of don't pass a standard for the class, don't pass. But that would cause a bit of chaos in our current educational system.
I can admit that I stress this with my boy, and spent a good portion of the evening helping with homework. I admit that it was latin tonight, but other nights it has been math. Once and a while science.
The important thing is that those that teach understand, thank goodness Tenel does!!!
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