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From: hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Summary: me too, me too!
Message-ID: <1088@bird.ldgo.columbia.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 89 15:10:08 GMT
References: <605@ucrmath.EDU> <6578@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <1791@pur-phy>
Organization: Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory N.Y.
Lines: 45

> In article <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> troly@math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes:
> ->In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes:
> ->>My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative
> ->>number.  It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I
> ->>did, I was furious for a month.
> ->
> ->  My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her.
> ->I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She
> ->pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show
> ->the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so
> ->there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the
> ->encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually
> ->inferior.
> ->
> ->-Bret

Not all Americans are intellectually inferior.  When I was first
 taught subtraction in school (second grade?) the teacher went
 through her spiel and ended with, "Now how many people think 
 you can subtract 3 from 2?".  I raised my hand, along with
 a handful of others.  She went through her spiel again, 
 demonstrating with apples.  Then she asked her question again,
 and I was the only one with my hand up.  When she asked me
 to explain, I said you'd get a negative number.  She
 agreed on the existence of negative numbers (!), but explained
 that you couldn't have a negative number of apples.

American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality:
 Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught
 right.  Rather than ship the less promising students off
 to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass
 your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes
 up to at least eighth grade.  Is anybody surprised that
 the country that gave you Wonder Bread and Budweiser also
 gives you least-common-denominator education?

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I never respected anyone who could spell   --Mark Twain   :o)

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Sue Hough				***if these are opinions,
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory		they must be mine***
Columbia University
Palisades N.Y.  10964          email:hough@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu
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