So tonight I go to the parent's night for my son's sophomore year of high school. I live in a conservative Republican county - so much that the Republican primary elections determine most of the local offices. And even here, the dumbing down of schools is now reaching absurdity.

My son is taking AP Statistics and non-AP Physics this year. The statistics teacher told us that they would focus on "conceptual" understanding of the material and her handout showed longhand written essay answers explaining the problem and solution, but not actually solving it.

Then the Physics teacher said they would start on the "conceptual" side of physics with less math at first. Again, explaining the properties of physics but not actually calculating anything.

Seriously?

Gee boss, I can conceptually explain in an essay how to do my work, but I can't actually do it! Getting the right answer isn't the goal, understanding how to explain it but not do it is!

Be it engineering, statistics, accounting, finance, or anything else involving math. This is what we are doing to our kids. And the industries and jobs that depend on actually being able to do the work and get the right answer are going to be turned over to kids in or from other countries that actually care about teaching math and science.

Where in Indiana are you? The big push here is STEM, almost to the point where the liberal arts are ignored. I guess they do not care about college entrance and low SAT scores.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Where in Indiana are you? The big push here is STEM, almost to the point where the liberal arts are ignored. I guess they do not care about college entrance and low SAT scores.

Avon High School in Hendricks County. Due west of Indianapolis.

It’s been around for a while:

“But in the ‘new’ approach, as you know, the important thing is to understand what you’re doing, rather than to get the right answer.” … “The idea’s the important thing.”
— Tom Lehrer, The New Math (song ca. 1965)

Thanks. I am originally from Chicago and attended college in Indiana. I would spend time investigating who is responsible for curriculum development. Some of this happens at the state level, some at the local level. I am not aware that Engineering schools are moving in the direction of conceptual engineering. I would also speak with other parents about your concerns. Good luck.

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Getting the right answer isn't the goal, understanding how to explain it but not do it is!

Understanding is the first step in learning something...it has always been so when dealing with more complex subjects

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Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:

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Getting the right answer isn't the goal, understanding how to explain it but not do it is!

Understanding is the first step in learning something...it has always been so when dealing with more complex subjects

I need a hole dug. I need someone that CAN DIG ME A HOLE.
I don't need someone that can "explain how" to dig a hole.

Granted, there's probably a little less math involved in digging a hole than there is building a airplane, submarine, sending a rocky to the moon. But the end theory is still the same.
I need something done, by someone.

I don't need someone who really knows how to explain how to get something done.


I realize that the understanding of the concept is important. But if that's all that's getting taught, its kinda useless.

What are the school's passing rates on those two tests? Wouldn't that be the indicator of whether or not they taught it well? AP Stats and Physics are not quite the same as digging a hole.

I'm also from Indiana, and we're seeing this same BS even at the lower grade levels...and our kids go to private school! About 3 years ago, our kid's school brought in an administrator who came from the public school system, and she started implementing a lot of these changes.

First it was a new grading scale with different grades that are supposed to "better reflect" where the student is at with understanding concepts. Problem is, it essentially is exactly the same thing as A,B,C,D,F except with letters that nobody really understands. But it's new, so it must be better.

Then she implemented new policies about direct contact between teachers and parents, wanting parents to go through her rather than directly to the teacher. I get that this protects the teachers somewhat from helicopter/bulldozer parents, but it also causes us to lose touch with what's going on with our kids in the classroom. Some old-school (good) teachers that went around this and kept talking to us directly did not get their contracts renewed for this year.

Then they started doing this new math that focuses on the process rather than the answer, and after a year it has become aparent that my daughter can't do math. We almost pulled her and homeschooled her this year, but my wife talked to the teacher and was told that they are going to do traditional math facts this year, so we left her in.

Families are pulling their kids left and right, and it's easy to see why. If I wanted to send my kids to a school run like a public school, I'd just send them to public school...it's a lot cheaper. People have talked to the board, and they don't seem to care. My wife and I have been exploring homeschool curriculum...if things don't improve this will likely be the last year our kids go to that school.

My wife is a high school teacher and says that in math, calculators are not only permitted, they are required, and the students are tested on entering the equation into the calculator correctly. The students don't figure out the equation on their own.

Yes, understanding the concept is important, especially with complex subjects, but ultimately getting the right answer is what matters. I readily admit that when I was being taught arithmetic and higher level mathematics there wasn’t a lot of emphasis on the “understanding” part, and a little effort along those lines would have helped. But to reiterate, ultimately what matters are the right answers.

Someone (Richard Dawkins?) commented about the concept of “different ways of learning” things and asked whether an educator or social justice type (my term, not his) who was flying across the ocean to an international conference would rather be in an airplane designed and built by “western” practices or one that was designed by people who learned things “differently” than through scientific principles and study.

I'm a mathematics major and my kids would bring home their worksheet for pretty simple stuff like division, multiplication, etc and have some wacky way of doing it that takes 5x longer.

I would show them them 'the way' and they loved it. Like normal long division, etc.

But as long as they understand the concept of building a bridge, other things are more important...

Ever heard the phrase, the ones that can do and the ones that can't teach?

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Originally posted by Excam_Man:
Ever heard the phrase, the ones that can do and the ones that can't teach?

Aaannndddddd those who can’t teach, administrate.

I'm pretty sure I've posted some version of this rant before, but...

I would absolutely BAN use of calculators and severely limit the use of computers until around the 6th grade. Learn to do math with a pencil and write without spelling/grammar checkers before letting machines do it all for you. Rote memorization of multiplication tables, long division, flash cards etc...all that 50's shit I grew up with.

Even in high school, if you choose to take algebra and other higher math courses, learn to manipulate the equations with pencil and paper BEFORE breaking out the calculators and just typing it all in. They say you need to grasp the concept? If you can do it on paper, I'm pretty sure that's an indication that you have the concept...

Just go to wolfram alpha

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Originally posted by PHPaul:
I'm pretty sure I've posted some version of this rant before, but...

I would absolutely BAN use of calculators and severely limit the use of computers until around the 6th grade. Learn to do math with a pencil and write without spelling/grammar checkers before letting machines do it all for you. Rote memorization of multiplication tables, long division, flash cards etc...all that 50's shit I grew up with.

Even in high school, if you choose to take algebra and other higher math courses, learn to manipulate the equations with pencil and paper BEFORE breaking out the calculators and just typing it all in. They say you need to grasp the concept? If you can do it on paper, I'm pretty sure that's an indication that you have the concept...

Algebra would be the on-level math. Higher math courses top out with multi-variate calculus, with students doing remote attendance in a Georgia Tech classroom.

As a sophomore, my oldest is in pre-calculus and already past my senior year in high school math (trig... rural Al public school).

A school district, zone, cluster will reflect those involved in it.

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Originally posted by SigJacket:

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I'm pretty sure I've posted some version of this rant before, but...

I would absolutely BAN use of calculators and severely limit the use of computers until around the 6th grade. Learn to do math with a pencil and write without spelling/grammar checkers before letting machines do it all for you. Rote memorization of multiplication tables, long division, flash cards etc...all that 50's shit I grew up with.

Even in high school, if you choose to take algebra and other higher math courses, learn to manipulate the equations with pencil and paper BEFORE breaking out the calculators and just typing it all in. They say you need to grasp the concept? If you can do it on paper, I'm pretty sure that's an indication that you have the concept...

Algebra would be the on-level math. Higher math courses top out with multi-variate calculus, with students doing remote attendance in a Georgia Tech classroom.

As a sophomore, my oldest is in pre-calculus and already past my senior year in high school math (trig... rural Al public school).

A school district, zone, cluster will reflect those involved in it.

As far as SATs go, I think being that far in math penalized my oldest son when he took the SAT. He actually regressed a little bit on math when he took the SAT cold as a sophomore vs last year in his jr year. I asked him why and he said because he was a couple years past SAT math at that point, he was a little rusty on the SAT math. We got him into a good prep class and got it cleaned up but apparently it can be a thing.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
I am not aware that Engineering schools are moving in the direction of conceptual engineering.

Thank goodness.

One way to end civilization as we know it would be training engineers not to care about correct answers.