Haim
Posts:
7,807
Registered:
12/6/04
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Re: How would YOU simplify arithmetic?
Posted:
Jun 26, 2012 10:27 AM
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Joe Niederberger Posted: Jun 26, 2012 9:23 AM
>Like Haim and you, I agree that some costly campaign for
>change that wastes resources and causes confusion is
>completely non-productive. What I think is that a study
>by someone like Karen Fuson (who is quoted in Galdwell's
>book) is certainly worthwhile.
Right! Let Fuson and Grasshopper and everybody else study whatever they like all they like, just keep the rest of us out of it---unless and until there is hard evidence the stuff works.
The general-under current of social engineers and angle trisectors is that entrenched interests resist change. As always in such matters, there is a soupçon of truth, but mainly the view is anti-historical. For example, it may be that those medieval computers who were committed to Roman numerals never did change, but they did not matter. The Indian numerals were so obviously better that all subsequent generations adopted the Indian numbers and those committed to the Roman system were relegated to the dustbin of history, and very quickly, too. Just the same happened to scribes with the advent of the printing press.
In other words, it really does not matter what I and other like-minded people think. If Crabtree really can simplify arithmetic, history will be on his side. I just want to make sure that he, and his like-minded people, are not loading the dice by pulling the levers of government.
Jonathan Crabtree, himself, may not deserve my skepticism, and if so, I am sorry. But, he has to know that we are living at a time when a lot of social engineers and angle trisectors have pulled the levers of government, implemented many of their half-baked and very destructive ideas in the schools, and a lot of people, like me, are gun-shy of yet another educational "get rich quick scheme".
Haim
Shovel ready? What shovel ready?
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