Math Education, elementary

[blackshoe]

I suppose a better understanding of socialism and its pitfalls might be had in reading Von Mises' Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.

[hrothgar]

I suppose a better understanding of socialism and its pitfalls might be had in reading Von Mises' Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.

 

[Elianna]

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

 

That's what I get for not reading the whole thread before I google, I got the same result. First hit, so rather easy to find.

[Elianna]

I said that I feared Common Core for reasons that the government would use it in a political way. That should have been enough, but one poster requested that I back up that argument.

 

You are more than welcome to state whatever fears you have, but I think that the point is to examine them to see if they are reasonable. I have a true and definite fear that people will get hurt whenever they leave the house, but I know in my head that is not a reasonable fear, so I leave the house to go do normal things. It doesn't stop having nightmares about car accidents or dying, but that still doesn't mean that it's statistically reasonable.

 

I don't remember if I was the poster that requested that you back up that argument (my guess is that I wasn't - I see that Hrothgar is claiming to be the person) but not to speak for others, but the point of asking you to back up that argument is not because I (for one) don't believe that you aren't afraid, it's more to try to determine if your fears are ones that we should adopt, too. And also, for you to examine your fears and see if you believe that they are ones that should control how you think.

 

There are issues that I have taken a softer stance on after considering the liberal position. For example, I am not nearly as dismissive of the man-made climate change argument as practically every other conservative in America, and that comes from reading both sides' arguments and trying to think critically about each one.

 

See, and my problem is that this, and common core, should not have political positions.

 

Politicians don't seem to need to take a position on things like the Pythagorean Theorem, the Theory of Gravity, Dark Matter, or String Theory, but they seem to think that they need to take a stance on things like Evolution. I accept that they can dictate that it shouldn't be taught (though I would think that they're wrong) but to expound about how it's wrong when they don't understand the science behind it (or don't want to understand) casts them in a ridiculous light. I feel the same about common core. I don't really care what non-experts think about the math and learning stages detailed in it (of which I would lump politicians), I care more about what experts in how students learn think about it.

[cherdano]

I have a compromise suggestions. Let's adopt Common Core, but only for Maths and English language.

[cherdano]

Instead you bent over backwards to find the only way to lose.

Not sure about that. The runner-up was Ted Cruz, the most disliked politician in all of DC.

[Zelandakh]

I have a compromise suggestions. Let's adopt Common Core, but only for Maths and English language.

English language is "dangerous". The teachers (proxy for the police state obviously) can choose essay subjects that will corrupt the minds of the students. That leaves just maths but perhaps we best stop teaching maths altogether as it encourages people to think about things. And those that think about the world are highly likely to reject the Creationism, religious gospel, conspiracy theories and other such subjects that are routinely given as acceptable in red states without any kind of central control. If your political party relies on the voters following a belief system that requires poor education, it is only natural to want to avoid any improvements to that system! Turning such improvements into a conspiracy theory is thus completely logical and fits perfectly to the target audience of ignoramuses for which it was intended.

[kenberg]

Just remember the old Beatles song Math is all you need.

[billw55]

Not sure about that. The runner-up was Ted Cruz, the most disliked politician in all of DC.

How many electoral votes for DC? http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif

 

Probably Clinton could beat Ben Carson. Cruz, maybe, but I would bet on him. I wasn't being literal; my point was that there were several R choices that would have won. In my opinion, of course.

 

 

[kenberg]

More seriously, when it comes to history, culture, etc I think the first thing that has to be faced is that no matter what is done someone, quite a few someones, will think that it is wrong.

Further, any teaching of values is going to be very rocky.

Curiosity and a healthy skepticism are useful I think.

 

We were shown a short movie, maybe twenty minutes, in civics class when I was 16. This was 1955 and the movie was a documentary of sorts from the (pretty recent) days of WW II. It spoke of German aggression, that was expected, but it also went on at some length about the bravery of the Russian people in their resistance. You have to understand the time period. The McCarthy-Army hearings were a year earlier. There were commies everywhere, check under the bed. The teacher, Mr. Tighe, did not draw out any conclusions but I did, and I think he intended such thinking. Propaganda changes with the times, perhaps. Or something on that order. Mr. Tighe was a very interesting man. As to discipline, he once explained his approach: " I am not under the impression I can make you do what I say. I do believe I can make you wish you had." He had very few problems. He had expectations of us. The first half of the year was on Civics, the second half on Psychology. There was a term paper for the latter and he suggested to me that I do it on Freud. "Who's Freud?" "Oh, Ken". I did a fairly well researched paper on parapsychology (I interviewed a psychology prof at the U to get his views, for example) and the experiments by Rhine and others at Duke. He accepted it, but clearly it was not his preference. He was an interesting guy.

 

I think it is ok for a teacher of history/civics/culture to have views of his/her own, I don't see how s/he could not. It can be valuable for the teacher to express his/her. But not to ram these views, the instructor's views or the school board's views, whatever they might be, down the students' throats. It's tricky.

[barmar]

Politicians don't seem to need to take a position on things like the Pythagorean Theorem, the Theory of Gravity, Dark Matter, or String Theory, but they seem to think that they need to take a stance on things like Evolution.

Indiana tried to pass a law about math, it's commonly known as the Indiana Pi Bill because one of the implications of the law would be to set th value of π to 3.2.

[Cyberyeti]

Indiana tried to pass a law about math, it's commonly known as the Indiana Pi Bill because one of the implications of the law would be to set th value of π to 3.2.

 

There are some good reasons for legislating that pi should be a larger value than it really is, for example if you're building narrow circular chimneys with rectangular bricks to deal with wastage in calculating the number of bricks. I seem to recall somewhere legislated it as 4 at one point.

[Zelandakh]

Indiana tried to pass a law about math, it's commonly known as the Indiana Pi Bill because one of the implications of the law would be to set th value of π to 3.2.

That was a great read Barry!

[kenberg]

Indiana tried to pass a law about math, it's commonly known as the Indiana Pi Bill because one of the implications of the law would be to set th value of π to 3.2.

 

From that source:

"However, the bill does imply various incorrect values of π, such as 3.2."

 

This has been my understanding of it. It is so incoherent that "such as 3.2" is about the best that can be said. I once fielded a telephone call from someone who had found the exact value of pi. I could not figure out where on earth he got the number from until somehow, experimenting around, I found that my calculator gave his number as its approximation to the square root of 10. He just said something like "Oh, ok". and the conversation ended.

 

It's sometimes hard to tell whether we are looking at an hones mistake or some sort of pi psychosis, or what.

 

 

An amusing variant on this: In the summer of 1961, after a year of grad school, I had a job as math support for an engineering group. I was to take their problems and get numerical answers. Someone came to me and needed the value of the integral from 0 to pi/2 of sin(x). I told him the value was 1. He wanted me to "put it on the computer". I showed him why the answer was 1. He still insisted. Being low man on the totem pole, I did as I was told. Of course the computer answer was something like 0.99999987. I always figured he told his buddies "That kid is pretty good, he did it in his head and almost got the answer right."

[Kaitlyn S]

Earlier I thought you were being somewhat reasonable, but now you're just reposting far right conspiracy nonsense.

The word I take offense to here is 'nonsense'. First, before you totally ignore me, let me say that it is possible, maybe even likely, that what I am about to describe isn't about to happen in the USA in the near future.

 

However, for a capitalistic society to become a socialist society, do you think it's more likely to happen because the people vote for it, or through the government taking too much power and overriding the will of the people? If you think the first, let's agree to disagree. If you agree with me that it's the second, then there are steps that a government can take to make socialism happen and the list that was presented seems like a reasonable set of steps to take to achieve that goal. So while the fact that it's happening now might be far right conspiracy theory, the steps themselves are not nonsense.

 

By the way, I apologize for those who wanted to discuss education, it seems as if the other posters think it's more important to belittle or "enlighten" me.

[Kaitlyn S]

I have no sympathy for R voters. This election was yours for the taking. Clinton is very unpopular and even many erstwhile Ds don't like her. All you had to do was nominate anyone reasonable and you would have won the presidency. Instead you bent over backwards to find the only way to lose. No sympathy at all.

No sympathy even for those who didn't vote for Trump and even actively campaigned against him in the primaries? I had a good feeling that Trump was bad news. On another site, I spent many hours telling Republicans that they should pick someone else to no avail; the only thing I accomplished was to get Democrats in open primary states to vote for Trump as the only person Hillary could beat. Sadly, my vote didn't mean squat as Trump won Florida by a landslide. So you are simply rubbing salt in the wounds, although TBH I believe that wasn't your intent.

[diana_eva]

The word I take offense to here is 'nonsense'. First, before you totally ignore me, let me say that it is possible, maybe even likely, that what I am about to describe isn't about to happen in the USA in the near future.

 

However, for a capitalistic society to become a socialist society, do you think it's more likely to happen because the people vote for it, or through the government taking too much power and overriding the will of the people? If you think the first, let's agree to disagree. If you agree with me that it's the second, then there are steps that a government can take to make socialism happen and the list that was presented seems like a reasonable set of steps to take to achieve that goal. So while the fact that it's happening now might be far right conspiracy theory, the steps themselves are not nonsense.

 

By the way, I apologize for those who wanted to discuss education, it seems as if the other posters think it's more important to belittle or "enlighten" me.

 

That's because you sound like you have some sort of irrational fear of "socialism" where what you describe as socialism is some totalitarian communism. And also because you think it's more likely that Hillary will single handedly make all this happen while Trump who's an unstable nutcase will not cause that much damage if he wins.

[Kaitlyn S]

You claim to be willing to see both sides of an argument, but all you do, repetitively, is spout right wing talking points as if they were valid arguments or valid facts.

If that is what I am doing, it is only to a few people who don't believe me anyway. On the other hand, the mainstream media spouts left wing talking points as if they were valid arguments or valid facts and many naive listeners lap it up.

 

Don't believe me? When the "pussy" (omg, she said it!) tape came up, NBC, CBS, and ABC news spent 23 hours talking about it. When the Hillary-damning Wikieaks came up, NBC CBS, and ABC news spent less than 1 hour talking about it.

 

But that's perfectly all right, the news is slanted in the direction you want so everything is good and anybody that disputes it is a right-wing nutjob.

 

Your story about the grades is almost surely false

And you will note that I did in fact allow for that possibility.

 

For those of you who do support socialism, let me tell you a story which I believe to be true (but it might be some nutjob site propaganda!) A professor...

 

I know, you probably believe that Obama is a socialist. You may even question whether he is a citizen....I'd guess that you claim that you don't really think he isn't but that one can never be sure. And of course that has nothing to do with the colour of his skin or his name...after all, you aren't a racist...we know that because you say it with such assurance.

You are correct, I would be just as unhappy with Obama's policies if he were white. Although if he was white we would have already had our 8 years of Hillary.

 

The problem lies in the use of 'socialist' as an insult, going back one hundred years or so, exacerbated by the fact that the Soviets liked to call themselves socialists, and thus socialism became associated with fear of communism.

I do not consider socialism an insult, I consider it an ideology that I would prefer not to live under. If a socialist country's people are happy, more power to them.

 

For example, nationalized health care (the bizarre notion that access to health care should, in a rich country, be universal) is both socialistic and a tenet of social democracy. So to the extent that Clinton would like to see a single payer system enacted, one could say that she is supporting one socialistic idea. Of course, she isn't saying that, because experience suggests that the grip of the for-profit health care system on the (ill-informed) US population isn't about to lose its strength anytime soon. But I accept that, being an intelligent woman, she may well support it.

My problem with single payer is my own experience. I have a Canadian friend who had heart issues which frequently quickly lead to a heart attack and had to wait four months for an appointment.

 

The major tenet of socialism is government ownership of the major means of production of resources and goods! Where is the actual evidence that ANY Democratic politician supports, for example, the nationalization of Apple, or Google, or GM, or Ford, or Esso, or....the list goes on.

Few politicians tell the populace that this is their intention. Do you think that Harry Truman told the people in 1948 that he intended to nationalize the steel industry? He might not have even known it himself at the time!

 

I'm in no way saying that I think Hillary is going to nationalize anything, so don't go jumping all over me on that one. However, it wouldn't surprise me either and I'll bet most of you would be shocked. Fortunately, her great indebtedness to Wall Street donors will probably prevent her from nationalizing anything (at least some good comes out of it :) )

[Kaitlyn S]

I have another thought experiment for you. This one will be more demanding than the last one I suggested.

 

You are to imagine you have died. Mr. Jordan has escorted you up into the clouds to the gate into Heaven. And then comes the big surprise! Entrance into Heaven has absolutely nothing to do with the life you have led on Earth. It all comes down to a quiz. The Heavenly Gatekeeper asks you whether you believe this story about the Prof to be true or false. The Heavenly Gatekeeper is, of course, omniscient. You get the answer right, you are in. You get the answer wrong, you will be kept very warm.

 

Above you say that you believe it, but the stakes are mild for posting here. You will still stand pat? If so, and if in fact it is true I think you will pretty much have Heaven to yourself. The rest of us will be Down Below, hoping for a cool breeze.

Well, I would have guessed it to be true, but apparently it is not. And as I pointed out, I allowed for that possibility.

[Zelandakh]

The word I take offense to here is 'nonsense'.

It is not nonsense in the same way that the majority of science fiction is not nonsense, possible in theory but so unlikely as to be irrelevant. Actually I would say the majority of science fiction is considerably more likely than your scenario and that includes the possibility of Darleks and Cybermen attacking London at the same time.

[Kaitlyn S]

Thx, Diana

 

I wonder if this revelation will cause Kaitlyn to decide that maybe she should make a conscious effort to step outside of her bubble of rightwing ignorance.

While I believe that all of the posters are ignorant to some degree, I am willing to change my mind when the evidence proves my ideas wrong. I have changed my mind about several things through the reading and gathering of information. Even some posters have caused me to reconsider my position.

 

However, I wonder if the same can be said for any of you. Most of you will never see the other side's point because once you see that the source is right-wing, you ignore it as bulls***. There is a reason that 40% of Americans will vote for Trump and it's not because they are stupid. They realize that a lot of what they are fed by mainstream media and taught by liberal-leaning professors is not the gospel truth.

 

I am under no delusion that if all the liberals died tomorrow and the country was always run by conservatives, that it would be euphoria. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and frequently temptation gets the better of those in power no matter what their political leaning, and problems would ensue. They would be different problems than the ones I see facing the country today, but indeed because there are humans involved, who are both infallible and subject to temptation, you won't have a perfect society. The Republican Party has its share of scoundrels too. Plus, I am totally aware that right-leaning media outlets are presenting biased material. You all are aware of that too. I'm also aware that left-leaning media outlets (which include most of the widely read or watched or listened-to media) are presenting biased material. This is where they disagree - I am willing to admit that "my" side has bias, I don't think many of you are willing to admit that "your" side has bias. Which I believe is naive. And yet I am the one being called naive here.

 

And yes, thanks Diana - while many have told me that Snopes is liberal-leaning, I have to think that this account is true because if it were crap, they likely would have called out on it and you might have found that with Google instead.

[Kaitlyn S]

See, and my problem is that this, and common core, should not have political positions.

I couldn't agree with you more.

 

And yet, who is politicizing the Climate Change issue?

 

that would be our attorney general

 

Seems to me that it's a scientific issue, not a law issue. Plus, don't we have free speech in this country?

[Kaitlyn S]

I have a compromise suggestions. Let's adopt Common Core, but only for Maths and English language.

Most sciences would be okay too, I expect.

[Kaitlyn S]

Just remember the old Beatles song Math is all you need.

One of the Beatles' songs does have math in it. Which one? :D

 

 

Come Together.

 

He say, "One and one, and one is three."

 

[Kaitlyn S]

That's because you sound like you have some sort of irrational fear of "socialism" where what you describe as socialism is some totalitarian communism. And also because you think it's more likely that Hillary will single handedly make all this happen while Trump who's an unstable nutcase will not cause that much damage if he wins.

I believe that socialism is a system under which the community (i.e. government) controls production and consumption. While it sounds good in theory, I believe it promotes laziness as innovation isn't rewarded to the extent necessary (IMO) to keep it happening. I would prefer to live in a society where innovation happens frequently simply because it is rewarded, and also where hard work is rewarded. Note that I don't benefit from such an arrangement; I'm not particularly hard working, preferring to spend time on bridge problems for I/N players than doing something that benefits mankind more profoundly, but those that work hard should be rewarded and I don't believe that either socialism or totalitarian communism (which I also don't want to live under) does that.

 

I don't think Hillary will single handedly make this happen. I do believe that she will take us further in that direction. Demographics are telling me this is an unstoppable train because the youth seem to think this is a good direction for our country (look at all the Sanders supporters.) I don't think it's a good direction for our country, and am hoping that either the next generation will realize that. However, I won't live forever and if future generations believe that it is a good direction, then they will get their government of the people which will be more socialist and fortunately I won't be here to see what has happened to our country, but if that is the government that future generations want, they should have it.