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Re: Math is an Art
Posted:
Feb 22, 2012 12:31 PM
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Haim, what if the cause is more basic than socialism. Have you heard of google ngram? Essentially they cataloged all of the words in all of the books in their corpus and you can search for a word or phrase and show a histogram that identifies usage over time. For example, enter the word "telephone" and you see it start to appear in the 1880's and rise thereafter. Enter the word "television" and you see its appearance and rise in the 20th century.
The following is the histogram for "Bottled Water"...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bottled+Water&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
This is obviously marketing at work, right? The distributors might tell people that bottled water is better or safer but they don't actually care if is or isn't. Their only real purpose is to sell more bottled water.
Here is another stupendous success at selling us something we didn't need, Hand Sanitizer...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hand+Sanitizer&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Ok, so here is "NCTM"...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=NCTM&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
I agree that there are other "social" plans afoot but I get the impression that they piggy back a more sinister and selfish plan who's only purpose is to sell more education.
Some other interesting phrases...
And "AP Calculus"...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=AP+Calculus&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
And "NCLB"
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=NCLB&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Here is a neat one, "Honors Algebra"...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Honors+Algebra&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
(I think we all knew why "honors" was created)
On Feb 22, 2012, at 10:29 AM, Haim wrote:
> Robert Hansen Posted: Feb 22, 2012 2:36 AM
>
>> Paul, let me tell you where I am going with this
>> discussion. It is something many of us have thought
>> about before and after Haim?s reference to van
>> dastardly I thought it a good time for discussion. It
>> has to do with the theories that educationalists put
>> forward regarding the teaching of mathematics.
>
> Bob,
>
> Thanks for the explanation. I had not been paying attention to this thread because the subject line, as it reads, raises an issue that does not, per se, interest me. However, your purpose, as you explain it, is a wholly different matter.
>
>> ...But it didn?t and I eventually saw the problem. As I
>> listened to the opposing side, I realized that their
>> teaching theories lacked even trivial notions of
>> mathematical skill and acumen. And I realized that the
>> reason for this (because it is the only possible reason
>> for this) was that they themselves lacked that skill.
>> They are not mathematicians.
>
> You are decidedly on the right track, but you have one more step to take. All your observations, all your conclusions: they know them, too. You must factor into your analysis the evident fact that they, the Education Mafia, are fully self-aware of what they are doing. Therefore, the simple observation that math education in the public schools is run mainly by mathematically incompetent people is not, of itself, an explanation. It is a consequent.
>
> Yes, indeed, running a math education system with mathematically incompetent people will degrade math education just as running a music education system with musically incompetent people would degrade music education. Everybody knows this. The Education Mafia know this.
>
> Here is a simple experiment. Ask a friend, ask a neighbor, as an educator: if you had a child with some talent and interest in, say, the piano, would you send that child to a teacher who himself cannot play the piano? Piano playing aside, would you send your child to a piano teacher who is musically incompetent? To a teacher who has demonstrated, by the entire arc of his life, that he has no special affinity for music, maybe even an aversion to music. (Math teachers are superb at imparting their fear and loathing of mathematics to their students.) Would you do this with your own child?
>
> Of course, we know the answer wrt the Education Mafia, since it is a well established result that public school teachers disproportionately send their own children to private schools.
> - -----------------------
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/sep/22/20040922-122847-5968r/
> In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.
>
> In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.
> - ---------------------------
> So, subjecting their own children, or themselves, to incompetent practitioners is something they would never do. So, when it comes to teaching math in the public schools, why are they doing what they are doing?
>
>> Whatever happened, the result is that the MAA
>> suggestion is what our students suffer through today.
>
> Yes, the fascist impulse---the desire to run other people's lives for them---runs deep, and mathematicians are not immune. Far from it.
>
> In the case of mathematicians, the fascist impulse may be severely compounded by "Mathematician's Disease"
> http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?forumID=206&threadID=1322579&messageID=4207739#4207739
> That is, the mathematicians may be thinking, "What is the harm?" I.e., what is the harm in mandating more mathematics, of people who do not want it, since learning the math is so easy?
>
> We have an example of this thinking right in our own "backyard". There is a correspondent to MATHEDCC who aggressively insists that all of mathematics, from elementary arithmetic at least through ODE's, is nearly trivial for all people to learn and that the fault is entirely in us that not all students learn it, and love it.
>
> Now, this correspondent seems to be an extreme case, but I strongly suspect that he is illustrative of a general feeling among both mathematicians and math educators. The mathematicians feel this way because of mathematician's disease. The math educators feel this way because they do not know enough math to know better. And we tie it all together with the black bow of fascism. It is a real witch's brew of ignorance, intolerance, and ideology. (And we have said nothing, so far, of the non-math educators.)
>
>> Algebra isn?t used in every-day life...
>
> Again, they know this just as well as you know it, maybe better. They certainly know this to be true in their own lives, and any minimally competent researcher would explore this question as his very first step. Furthermore, even if they did not know this in 1921, they have had some time to figure it out. Why, do they still persist?
>
>> I don?t read this as a progressive conspiracy (since
>> the progressive report was canned).
>
> Don't be so quick to let the socialists off the hook. Agendas change. For example, socialists were among the first and most enthusiastic supporters of Israel. Today, they are the worst anti-semites. (I am NOT, NOT, NOT getting into a discussion about Israel, I am just giving a good example of changing agendas.)
>
>> It seems that this is really more about artificially
>> elevating the importance of mathematics and the
>> teachers of mathematics,...
>
> That this is a part of the tragedy is certain. I think it is the lesser part. The greater part, by far, is their impulse to social engineering, their desire to "fundamentally transform" our society
> http://youtu.be/jOuedf6jx98
> The key here is to listen attentively. They really mean it. Believe it.
>
>> ...at the expense of the students of course.
>
> Of course.
>
>> Isn?t it odd how little they care about the students
>> compared to how much they care about themselves. Have
>> you ever seen teachers strike on behalf of students?
>
> One of the chief characteristics of socialists. It was famously said of Karl Marx that he loved humanity but hated people. Like marxists professing their love of humanity even as they were constructing their gulags, the Education Mafia relentlessly profess their love of children even as they pitilessly destroy those children's futures.
>
> Haim
> Shovel ready? What shovel ready?
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