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Copyright © 2012 Bits and Pieces - All Rights Reserved Bad Behavior has blocked 26319 access attempts in the last 7 days. |
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Copyright © 2012 Bits and Pieces - All Rights Reserved Bad Behavior has blocked 26319 access attempts in the last 7 days. |
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I used equations like that in real life yesterday… but of course I’m a college professor.
Remember when our teachers also told us we had to learn how to do math cause we weren’t going to be carrying a calculator with us everywhere we go? Liars! We all have calculators on our phones.
You know, this is actually the BIGGEST problem I see with education. Everything we learn should have an application. Learning something just for the sake of knowing is great … for a hobby, for personal fulfillment, etc. But what we learn in school should be useful, and students MUST be told what it can be used for.
The truth is, I suspect that a LOT of math equations could be used for all kinds of useful things. The problem is, students are taught: well, we do the problem to find the answer. Or it’s: well, this will help you when you get to more advanced problems. But they don’t tell us what THOSE problems could do.
My feeling? This is why kids don’t learn it. If we could apply it, we would use it.
Use it or lose it! I come across a lot of videos that are too small (or too large) with the embed code given. I wanted to be able to easily resize the videos to whatever size I needed. Because I don’t use that math equation very often I’d forgotten how to calculate that. So I took two of my grandkids to lunch and told them if I have a rectangle that is 300 pixels wide and 190 pixels high that I want to enlarge to 575 pixels wide, what math formula would I use to determine the relative height? They gave me the formula which we wrote on a Taco Bell napkin and I brought it home and put it into an Excel worksheet that I now use almost every day. It’s simple.
Any student learning this level of math has probably chosen to do it. Many older kids with an aptitude for thinking logically or scientifically actually enjoy working out these kinds of problems. Sometimes it’s a struggle to get it all right, and you work and work at it until you get the satisfaction of nailing it. I know when I first took calculus, it made little sense to me. Actually it made no sense at all. After some time, little by little, it was quite interesting to realize how it applies to the real world. It’s sometimes even better to discover how things apply to our world without having the teacher tell you. I remember one of the first applications I realized calculus was useful for was speed and acceleration. A little discovery like that is pretty cool to a kid. The entire universe operates on math and for anyone who wants to know how and why has to do the hard and seemingly useless math until it all starts to fit together. Sure we use computers to figure everything out now, and I’ve never used equations like this since I was in school, but I’m glad I did. Of course my high school math teachers were exceptional and the students loved them. I’d say if the majority of the students are not doing fairly well and hate math and complain how awful it is, the school needs to find new teachers. Math teachers (any teacher) should actually be capable of doing what they teach and enjoy it and enjoy teaching kids. I think those things don’t apply much any more.
Besides this example being a math exercise, it’s also a discipline exercise, a thinking exercise, etc. It can also tell you that it really is too hard and you can say at least you tried but it’s not your thing. And sometimes we learn things just because. I bet there have been many kids who thought they didn’t care about difficult math or other subjects and one day something clicked and they actually liked it and perhaps even discovered something new.
We didn’t go to the moon because it was easy, we went because it was hard.
That is simply not punny.
I thought we went to the moon because we just wanted to go there.
I thought we went to the moon just to get ahead of the Russians (aka Soviets).
I always liked to learn, so I did not need encouragement to learn math or any other subject.
These days, I use what I learned in math while shopping (which is the better deal, 2 boxes of 50 each for $3.00 or 2 boxes of 100 each for $6.00? Plus, the boxes of 100 had 20% more free. I bet too many people can’t figure that out and grab the smaller boxes thinking they saved money). I also use what I learned in calculus to solve problems–not what the volume of a vase is but I use the logical problem-solving skills I learned in calculus to solve issues/problems/requirements.
Even if you told kids why they need to learn the subject, many won’t believe you.
I’ve always said you only will use 5% of what you learn in school (at any level). You just don’t know WHAT 5% until you get out there to earn a living. You need exposure to that other 95% so you can communicate with peers/clients.
As for those equations, you are using a product(s) / service(s) all your life that rely on them.
If you ain’t using partial differentials on a daily basis, you ain’t really living.
Seriously, my biggest struggle is trying to get college educated business managers to stop making high dollar decisions based on one data point.
Would a HUNCH be considered a business point?
Nope. Makes a good story if is happens to succeed. Can send you to prison if it fails. Makes poor business practice.
OK, you made one point.
I have the data to prove it.