Stitching away

You were smarter than kids these days lol!

My mother had six kinds of hissy over buying me a TI30 in 1978. Guess which calculator I'm still using for my grades all these years later?

Elizabeth

Next time you offer to trade lives with me, I'm going to remind you that you actually have time to stitch.

Elizabeth

The curricula have changed. They cover more things in those classes, and some kids are making it all the way through multivariate calculus before graduating from HS.

Best wishes, Ericka

Welcome back, Elizabeth. I was just wondering this morning where you were. After all, academics are supposed to have lots of free time in the summer. (One friend of mine in the college town where we lived always said "There are three reasons to remain in teaching. June, July and August.")

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

In middle school, the GT math teachers said, "You can buy this simple graphing calculator now, or you can spend a little more money now and buy the calculator that will last throughout high school GT courses." They actually talked to the high school teachers and offered parents alternatives, and made a commitment for which calculators they would use for that grade's academic career. Then if you thought your child might or might not continue all the way through, you could make an appropriate decision. Or at least have all the facts before you placed your bet (on how many math courses your kid would last through).

Sue

Hi Olwyn Mary,

I have a sick DH and had a very sick dog, so I've been busy. The sick dog has been taken care of by removing his right front leg, which was traumatic for all involved, but doesn't seem to be bothering Harry in the least any more. He just does whatever he wants to do and, except for tiring relatively quickly (it's only been 2 weeks since the surgery), is very much himself.

My DH, on the other hand, requires much management, as we have no idea what's wrong with him and it's starting to wear on his every nerve. Stress levels are high and I find that I'm not a very nice person to have on rctn when I'm stressed.

Elizabeth

Oh dear. I'm so sorry to hear that. Men can be such a pain even when they know exactly what is wrong and how soon they can be well again. Not knowing must be absolute misery for both of you. I assume you are being referred from doctor to doctor, with each one finding a different (latin) way to say "damned if I know". Not fun.

Perhaps you should come here more often just to vent. Now that we know you are having problems, we will understand. At least, the majority of us will, and you can ignore the others.

Hang in there.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Just what I was going to say. Even in subjects like geometry or trig, they can do more with a calulator. The bigger problem is the kids that don't understand the basics of algebra, or actual arithmetic. Even when I went to school, I had to have a slide rule in high school for calculus and AP Physics & Chem. Don't need a calculator IMHO for algebra, geometry or trig

- but it definitely helps with trig.

The goddaughter that's entering her junior year at MIT - she had the basics of multivariate calc in high school senior year. Not quite the full blown college semester would have, but certainly beyond basic calculus. And the calculator was definitely a graphing one with trig functions.

I suppose it helps with getting students thru the basics, and being able to arrive at number solutions. OTOH, we definitely weren't allowed to use them in any math classes in university or grad school. But could, did have to use them with functions, in a lot of engineering classes. I remember proctoring a make-up exam for an Ops Rsrch class - and loaning a calculator to someone that had forgotten theirs - only to then get stuck finding a crew passing calculators with answers (which meant getting the prof out of the grad class he was teaching to come and destroy the miscreants). I had several classes where you were checked to be sure that your calculator did not have memory storage that had lasted beyond last power on. You'd have to show that the memory was empty. No calculators that could store formulas were allowed.

Times change, and still stay the same. We still have a few HPs from college hanging around here.

Ellice

Based on what my kids have used calculators for (through geometry, at this point), it's not that they use the calculator instead of learning to solve things the "old fashioned way." It's true they don't use a slide rule and they don't use logarithms much, but they also have a much heavier emphasis on real world sorts of problems where the math doesn't work itself out nicely. They still learn the usual methods, and work the practice problems sans calculators, but then they go on to do more applied problems for which they are more likely to use the calculator. I don't have any objections to that, and actually think that it improves the program to have them do more real world sorts of problems. I'd say that to date, the kids have only used calculators for maybe 10-20 percent of their math classes, but the use has seemed quite sensible to me. Once the basic ability to solve a particular type of problem has been mastered, the important thing is to get a lot of practice figuring out when to apply that technique and using it to solve a variety of problems.

There are definitely kids who don't understand basic arithmetic or algebra or whatever the topic is at hand--but I don't think that's because they've used calculators. There were kids who didn't master arithmetic or algebra or what have you before calculators as well ;-) Not only are more things being covered in these math courses, but many more students are taking higher level math courses than previously, which would also lead one to expect some dilution in accomplishments. There may be some kids who aren't getting algebra all that well, but a generation ago, they might not have even attempted algebra. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing can, of course, be debated ;-)

Best wishes, Ericka

Same here except that later on we were taught to use a slide rule, usually referred to as a "guessing stick"

While some of that applied math is okay, the method my kids were taught didn't teach the basics nearly well enough. I've said it before here: they can tell you five different ways to figure out what a 15% tip should be, but can't tell you what the actual answer is! (Doesn't help most cell phones actually come with a tip calculator).

The parents finally had enough and they are now going to start teaching more traditional methods of rote memorization. To this day, I am not sure my kids can do long division manually. And I know my son's biggest mistakes in algebra were math errors - because they just don't do enough practice.

linda

Sorry to hear of all these woes for you, Elizabeth. Glad to hear that Harry is coping, and hope that somehow the situation with your DH improves. Medical mysteries are very tough on everyone, sending good thoughts your way.

Ellice

On 8/6/09 11:58 PM, "Ericka Kammerer" wrote:

The way you describe your kids usage makes sense to me. They just don't have to spend the time doing the math, so to speak. Which, OTOH, translates into the problem seen all over of not recognizing a wrong math solution because that familiarity with number relations, manipulation is not gained (the repetition, practice thing even with math). So often what ends up missing later on is that recognition of a solution being slightly, or even order of magnitude, off.

I think the difference in how much, how far in math type education kids go now compared to 20 or 40 years ago really depends on school systems. Honestly, compared to my high school the average kid takes less math nowadays. Our system required math thru Algebra II - IIRC those who were really struggling would perhaps go to a business math class instead. I had friends in the then Honors program who weren't heading for science careers and much to the shock of our classmates dropped math after Algebra II (only to later discover they had to take more math in university). Depending on where you fell on the scale WRT Math/Science programs kids would go thru Trig/analyt or Calculus, some with a 2nd year of calculus or some other math development. Educational strategies are always interesting. Having close friends that are academics in the science/engineering world we end up talking about the math thing a lot. Even from work - it is interesting to me that interplay between math and its applications. People doing fabulous calculational simulations - but they don't have the right science background to know that while their math is right the physics is off. Then the converse, people who are certain of the physics involved, but have no inherent feel for the numbers. I guess part of that is in some advanced math stuff - well - the numbers don't come into it - until you're in the real world trying to apply complex equations, and then the real part of things kicks in. It's all pretty interesting how things change, and in some ways remain the same.

Ellice

I am so with you on this. My favorite example - I taught a 300 level engineering class when my last year in grad school. Homework counted. Thermo calculations mean doing real numbers, and the kids could use calculators for tests. I would get homework turned in from a certain group of frat boys that clearly had an old copy of the answer manual. Now, the text is a classic, and the manual had been written by some similar grad student so had plenty of errors in it. Which meant that when I graded I would have to redo all the problems for correct answers - especially the math errors in the manual. The idiot kids would turn in their homework with the copied work - and not even bother to check the math. So, they'd get "0" and finally I put a note on saying "if you're going to cheat, at least be smart enough to check the math" . If work was presented so I could figure out that they at least had the right path working, they'd get most of the credit, with minimal math points off (depending). It amazed me, both for laziness, and stupidity - things as simple as 5X2=7 . And they'd just copy it. The moral of the story - those three did so poorly on the exams (despite their lovely, neat, presentations) that they had to retake the class to graduate. Yup.

Anyhow, sadly, it's the kind of thing that would happen with my co-op students, young engineers - they just hadn't enough work with the basics in a problem and would be so fast to grab a calculator, or look in the back of some book that they had to learn the hard way to check their work for maybe a misentered number.

Ellice

That hasn't been much of an issue for us. I will say that one teacher, in my opinion, taught too many ways to solve some kinds of problems. However, there was always plenty of practice and an expectation that basic math facts were memorized and readily at hand.

And frankly, while I think there is some value in memorizing basic math facts so that one is not completely incapacitated without a calculator, I do believe that there is little learning accomplished with rote memorization. As soon as you get past grade school math, if you don't really understand what you're doing and why (and have the ability to apply it to novel situations), then you're not going to get very far, no matter how quickly you can rattle of multiplication tables.

Best wishes, Ericka

If you look at national numbers:

% HS students completing through: 1986 2004

------------------------------------------------- Algebra I 79 94 Geometry 59 83 Algebra II 44 69 Pre-calc/Calc 7 18

So, significant increases even just over the last 20 years. There was a huge push in the 90s to get 8th graders into algebra, and it did result in a large increase in the proportion of 8th graders taking algebra. It's unclear whether this has been a good thing. On the one hand, it's greatly increased the number of students taking calculus in high school, but some argue that it has resulted in less proficiency (either because kids were pushed to take math classes before they were really developmentally ready, or because the courses were being "dumbed down" once they were no longer being taught only to the most elite HS students). Some say that the rush to get 8th graders into algebra has meant short-changing kids on basic math in the earlier grades.

Best wishes, Ericka

Those were little power houses. Still love my Casio for stats...

Cheryl

Again, I'd say that the variations in school systems 40 or 20 years ago was much wider than it is today. From my personal experience alone I can say that when I was in elementary school and went from Nassau Cty NY to Dade Cty (Miami) Fl, I had to be put forward 4 grades for math and reading - so for reading in 3rd grade - seriously - I spent the year reading the encyclopedia, and sat in math class with some 6th graders. The next year there were some reforms made in curricula, and a new elem school - so several of us were put into their version of a G&T - would spend 2 hours a day in the library doing special projects. This continued for me - I actually worked in the office for an hour a day instead of going to reading class.

However, as math & science classes progressed - Dade County made huge strides then, so the standards for math to graduate high school were 3 years. While my math/science group was ahead of the norm - all taking calculus in high school - I think the standard was people took Alg I in either 9th, the ahead of that taking it in 8th, and the accelerated programs taking it in 7th. Going to a summer camp away we'd all talk about school, and then university away - even at an engineering/science uni - there were huge differences in the math, science and language requirements and opportunities in different parts of the country.

As you know - statistics can be interpreted oh so many ways. I have no issue with the national average of math classes changing. My point is that the changes may be less of a greater requirement, or essentially none, to even a lesser requirement, in different areas. The education requirements are much more standardized now across the country than they were thru the

I totally agree with the arguments about rushing kids. In real life, it's so much more important to actually understand math concepts, and algebra than pressure many to take a calculus course. If you don't really get algebra, trigonometry and geometry then basic calculus is just memorizing some formulas that you will never understand or be able to actually apply. Even kids doing AP calc, when they get to university, for the most part what that does is give you a leg up with the true university course, perhaps getting you out of 1 term, or in my case (the school didn't accept AP then) sticking you into an honors I must be crazy to be in this class I'm not a math major. It does help with having put the concepts in front of the student. But dumbed down math just to expose kids kind of short-changes them. Calculus is a great tool, and a gateway to so much, if you do engineering/physics/statistics. But, honestly, it doesn't help you figure out which product to buy in the grocery store, and most people even with college degrees, don't need years of it - but they do need some. Just my nickel's worth.

Ellice