Xref: utzoo comp.ai:1363 comp.edu:900 comp.cog-eng:482 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!tlh From: tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L. Hausmann) Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.edu,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Becoming CAI literate Message-ID: <3231@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 17 Feb 88 19:32:25 GMT References: <26@dogie.edu> <3340@killer.UUCP> Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University Lines: 97 Summary: wrong In article <3340@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: > in article <26@dogie.edu>, edwards@dogie.edu ( Mark Edwards) says: > > In article <3316@killer.UUCP> elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: > >>>>In this regard, they surpass classroom teachers. > >>> didn't have computers. Why train humans to emulate machines if > >>> you have adequate machines? > >> Hair-brained things such as > >>multiplication drills in an age of $5 calculators are just plain silly.... I > >>know that in grade school, I, at least, would have been FASCINATED to know WHY > >>the multiplication algorithm worked. > > > > I for one am certainly glad that I was drilled in multiplication tables and > > so on. I use them everytime I go to the SuperMarket. > > Wow. What an old argument. So what, so are proofs of the Pythagorean theorem and the infinite number of primes; they are still valid. > ... I grew up before the era of cheap calculators, and > I STILL heard that argument from 90 year old math teachers (most of whom are > still teaching the same thing that they taught 50 years ago, despite that the > world has changed an aweful lot since then!). I, too, go shopping. Estimation > skills are more useful than multiplication skills (gee, is 16oz at $1.73 a > better bargan than 12oz at $1.34?). Can you say "straw man argument"? How did you arrive at your ability to do estimation? Hmmm ... oh I don't know... SA- er ah PRACTICE? > > Spending hours and hours improving your speed of computing numbers was > worthwhile before the advent of $5 calculators. I contend it is still worthwhile. Can you say rational arithmetic? If I had a buck for everybody I have met who could not determine if 3/5 was greater than 4/7 without a calculator... Trivial operations like those taught in grades 5 and 6 are largely forgotten by people using calculators to the extent that mixing recipes for 12 people instead of 5 (for example) become a chore. (Hmmm let's see I need 4.128 cups of this...dang, is that right?) What has changed the MOST in the last 50 years is not MATHEMATICS, but TECHNOLOGY. I contend the best mathematicians today were educated in the same fashion as the best mathematicians 40 or 50 years ago. > ... But I would much rather that > our school children be taught MATHEMATICS for those multitude of hours. Sure, > teach them computation skills. But don't make mere arithmetic computation the > only thing taught to our students, like it is today (at least in this state... > from grades 1 through 6, adding, subtraction, multiplication, and division, > day after day... blech!). Is it any wonder that the majority of the students > in the local "gifted and talented" program despise "math" class, calling it > boring and repetitive? Do you then propose that we do NOT teach children to do long division? IF that is the case, when they are exposed to synthetic division of univariate polynomials in junior high, the generalization is not as simple. Also, I am almost sure you were exposed to elements of geometry, rational arithmetic and unit conversions while in elementary school. Long multiplication and division are taught in 4th grade (Minnesota) leaving time for more than just ARITHMETIC in elementary school. Likewise, knowing the multiplication facts leaves me more time to THINK about MATHEMATICS and I don't have to dink with ARITHMETIC. Similarly, memorizing integral tables my freshman year leaves me more time to think about MATHEMATICS and not CALCULUS. > > Hey, has anybody read Heinlein's novel "Tunnel in the Sky" anytime in the last > 30 years? Gosh, if only the future of math education had been so sparkling! > Instead, we're still stuck in the 19th century.... > No, I confess to not having read this book. However, you have piqued my curiosity. > -- > Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Asimov Cocktail,n., A verbal bomb > {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg detonated by the mention of any > Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 subject, resulting in an explosion > Lafayette, LA 70509 of at least 5,000 words. My feeling is that elementary teachers often spend too much time having to discipline the kids. Further, el ed majors have spent too much time with pedagody and sometimes possess attitudes about math that then get communicated to the children. I have overheard conversations about how "I am no good in math, ...but I like children so I am in el ed...") But that is a whole new issue. .^.^. Tom Hausmann . O O . tlh@mordred.cs.purdue.edu ( ARPA ) . v . ...!purdue!tlh ( UUCP ) / | | \ ./ \. "Whooo do ya think you're foolin' " ______mm.mm_____ \_/