Woke physics - image

[WmRMeyers]

Virginia, where the "dumbing down of America" isn't just an observation, it's government policy. Makes one wonder what Jefferson would have had to say.

Wander by his tomb, I bet he's up to 4,000,000rpm by now. You should be able to hear it just fine!

[old kodger]

When they finally manage to reduce the population of the planet to 500,000,000, as is their aim, it won't matter, there'll be just enough drones to feed the bastards

[Jon]

Same thing happening in San Mateo, California. Archived article here: https://archive.is/7BiGx. Latino students are underperforming in math when compared to white and Asian students, so they're considering eliminating advanced math and putting all students in a single math class. The article is a real gem, including a mention of how putting everyone in the same math class "improved outcomes for all students". There's a COVID twist too; they want to spend pandemic relief funds on this idea.

Lots of parallels with Loudoun County, Virginia. Here the equity consultants are the National Equity Project, which inspired the San Mateo school district Equity Task Force. The Task Force has minutes online here. You can tell they're having a really tough time integrating high Asian student mathematics achievement into their supremacist narrative, especially as they have to assign victim points to Asians over recent anti-Asian attacks due to COVID.

Side note: Asia is enormous, and when they say "Asian" students perform well in math, they mostly mean students of East Asian origin. But pointing out how or why different countries may perform better in different subjects is troublesome to the woke movement, so they stick to their broad categories.

[nova_robotics]

Same thing happening in San Mateo, California. Archived article here: https://archive.is/7BiGx. Latino students are underperforming in math when compared to white and Asian students, so they're considering eliminating advanced math and putting all students in a single math class.

Then maybe they should offer math in Spanish so there's no language barrier instead of ****ulating every kid's brain.

[neilbourjaily]

So there is a conundrum.
I agree with the notion that there needs to be a massive increase in financial support of education, especially and specifically STEAM (For those whose heads are about to explode over my adding art to the list, I wish you peace).
Here is the conundrum. They who appear most to favor the that increase in support are from the same political persuasion as the ones referenced above in this ongoing thread about their advocacy of the abomination of dumass math.
Equity as a movement must be condemned! Rejection of failure must be condemned! Rejection of the scientific process must be condemned! If we fail to develop a generation of creative, and careful thinkers, then it will be to our doom. Our failure will be one of not trying versus one of trying. We, most of us, agree on that difference.
I do advocate for opportunity on top of opportunity. I do advocate for testing. I do advocate for finding your limits. I do advocate for allowing students to fail and to help them to try again. I do advocate for the need for every talent from every ethnic and both sexes to be encouraged and allowed to bloom and blossom. I even advocate for some of the stupid responses here.

[jdurand]

All the way back in grade school I was ahead of the class in science so I was banned from receiving Science News that the other students got to read and also could not participate in science classes.

My father was more than a little upset and had a few words with the school principal, but they wouldn't do anything about it.

[WmRMeyers]

Then maybe they should offer math in Spanish so there's no language barrier instead of ****ulating every kid's brain.

Having spent some time teaching math to ESL-Spanish speaking kids, I'm not sure it's going to help that much. They need parents at home who can help them, too. I did convince the parents that reading in both English and Spanish would help them, but there's a lot of "they only need enough math to count money" out there. That said, it certainly can't hurt. And if they can get the language for math in both Spanish & English, that will probably help too. MY preference would be to shove as much math at them as we can, using as many concrete examples of math as possible. The way math is taught, they spend a lot of time learning a few factoids about math, then a bit of practice, and then they often get dragged into some other facet of mathematics that doesn't use much of what they've already had. They were just starting to have some examples of things you could do with math when I stopped being a teacher, and hopefully the kids are getting more practical examples now. When I was in Algebra I, in 1971, I asked my algebra teacher why I needed to learn this algebra crap? His answer was "So you can graduate from High School." Lot of motivation there. Not!

If he'd known enough about me to suggest I needed it for the math I'd need to become an engineer, as to be an Astronaut, you needed to have an engineering degree and test pilot experience, he might have managed to motivate me a bit. After I got out of high school, and a few years into my USAF career, I found more reasons to learn algebra. Enlargements and reductions of film to print or slide can be calculated with a bit of algebra. With my eyes, I was never going to be an astronaut, but with an engineering degree I could later have become a shuttle Mission Specialist. While I was teaching, I asked my students what they wanted to do with their lives. Did have one young lady decide not to be a doctor after all, since they needed math, too, but mostly I found some example of math they'd need for whatever field they were interest in. I had a very short teaching career, so probably didn't get that many kids interested in math, but I tried.

Bill

[Ronj]

I’ll bet that Florida is going to see a large increase in its population.

Virginia, where the "dumbing down of America" isn't just an observation, it's government policy. Makes one wonder what Jefferson would have had to say.

[Philip Davies]

All English literature, or virtually all, must be banned AT ONCE!
Let’s see what Wordsworth has to say:
“It is not to be thought of, that the flood of....

[DIYSwede]

Seems like the Nordic countries have had some successful international exports after all...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante;



Also reminds me of the sci-fi short story I stumbled over in my early teens:
Examination Day By Henry Slesar 1958.pdf

Guess noone needs to ask why that story is still imprinted in my few grey cells left...

Johan