Woke physics - image

[Murph1090]

Hey, we're only sixty years ahead of Harlan Ellison's short story "Harrison Bergeron." https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...ZmNmMjFjMjgxZA

Harlan Ellison? Try Kurt Vonnegut.

Murph

[WmRMeyers]

Well, that's interesting, since I found it searching Harlan Ellison. Though it is properly credited in the pdf I linked.

Bill

[NortonDommi]

There is a YouTube video called 'Deliberate Dumbing Down of the World, Charlotte Iserbyt' who is talking about how she was one of those responsible. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that there are so many people in the world,(I think all bureaucrats would fall into this group),who work so hard to ruin other peoples lives and they for the most part seem to take delight in doing so.
Then there are those who are full blown woke. This from 2016 so maybe some of these students are now 'teachers'? The fact is that it has really only taken 50 - 60 years to destroy the West and unfortunately fads in America spread fast, things like spelling, "it doesn't matter how you write something as long as YOU know what you wrote" doesn't cut mustard when someone else has to try and decipher your drivel.

[old kodger]

My IQ has been severally rated at 124, not magically high, but higher than average. when at school, my position in a class of 64 students was 1st in algebra.
Three months AFTER leaving school I could not comprehend my own exercise book, and have not consciously used algebra in the ensuing 63 years.
However, I have a very logical bent of mind, which in my opinion, is primarily what algebra is, so, instead of filling student's heads with bucket loads of gobble-de-gook called algebra, teach them to THINK, logic(algebra), will most likely follow.
The problem with this situation is that governments the world over do not like critical thinkers, because it is they who will quickly identify the lies perpetrated by "authority", and thus endeavor to show that to everyone else.

[Karl_H]

As long as my son gets his turn to play quarterback for the football team, I am fine with all of this.

Actually, when he was in elementary school, we complained about the chart on the gym wall that showed he was able to do zero pull-ups, zero push-ups and was the slowest runner in the class. When we asked about posting math and science scores, we were told that would make the other kids feel bad. Go figure!

[metric_taper]

All I can figure is that we have an American culture that mostly outsources the education of their children to the school system. There are cultures that have quality parent involvement. But that is not common in descendants of white northern European immigrants, or the descendants of African forced immigrants, as well Hispanic immigrants.
It does seem to be a cultural behavior of the India, Asia, and Jewish cultures. Where the parents invest much extra time in teaching and providing learning opportunities with music and tutors.
And I've seen the local school districts that have inept superintendents, as well teachers, that push for touchy-feely learning. There are few skilled math teachers in high school, as if your that good at math, why would you teach grade school when you get real pay working in private industry.
I just remember my math teachers saying, "wait till you get to calculus, that is hard". In my adolescents, I took that as the truth. It was not until I attended university, that I had to take basic algebra and trig before I could start calculus, and still wonder where the difficulty is. So I have to believe that we have morons in our primary education system here. And in college, I saw, if you can't get a degree in anything else, you can get a teaching degree.
As well we have a system here, where we won't pay for the quality needed.
But the root failure is parents.

[old kodger]

Metric_Taper,
I comprehend your angst, but don't blame the teachers, or for that matter the schools, the "education" system is not there to teach kids ANYTHING, it's there to ensure that they are brain washed into thinking that perceived "authority" is always right there fore any other opinion must be wrong, thereby producing compliant little drones.

[jdurand]

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

I don't remember why now, but I was explaining the use of imaginary numbers with regard to power calculations. The friend's teen daughter had been listening and I could see the light bulb come on. She said she could now see why they were being taught this strange stuff, it made sense!

[superhl]

When are they going do this for basketball? How can anyone vote democrat? So they are going to make all equal by bring down the ones with a better work ethic. Math takes effort. It is not for the less disciplined.

'Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers ..

[old kodger]

And I say again, any culture that promotes idiots into positions of power is destined to collapse under the weight of it's own stupidity.