I think public schools do a terrible job with math, so I don't feel you're being unreasonable at all. High School students should graduate with a testable body of knowledge about math concepts. Adults, I think, should at least be able to identify and look things pretty easily. For instance, I was able to articulate, "I need to find the circumference; can I get that from the diameter?" While Jason's ability to walk in and do it all in his head in ten seconds was intimidating for me, I do think I would have gotten it myself eventually because I knew what I was looking for. A lot of people I know would literally have no idea how to solve that, except, "Go to the jewelry store and ask for a ring sizer." Which I really think is sad.
I don't think the article was that bad, but I did bristle at this part:
If many of our state's best students are mathematically illiterate, as shown by this exam, can you imagine what is happening to the others--those going to community college or no college at all?
For many years the only college I had was two years of community college, and it was amazing to me how to many people (like this blogger) that seemed to be equivalent to no college at all. When I was interviewing endlessly (I think I had five meetings altogether) for a sales position at lucy.com, I finally reached a meeting with the CIO, and we had great rapport. Eventually he asked what I majored in, and I said I had a couple years of work at PCC (Portland Community College) but I hadn't completed a 4-year degree.
The guy in the fancy suit made this big show of being impressed, and then said, "REALLY? Well that's just AMAZING! You're so well-spoken and intelligent for someone who never went to college!"
I was completely stunned. I ended up getting the job, but I ran into that attitude over and over. What's funny is that now that I've gotten into two universities and I have a half-finished Bachelor's degree in an Actual Declared Major, I get a lot more respect, even though the classes at the university were not nearly as challenging as some of the classes I had at community college, and my classmates were not any smarter (see: the girl who openly admitted to our professor how she'd cheated on every test so far that quarter). If anything, they were a little better dressed, and I paid three times as much to do the same level of work.
Which brings me to: I'm frustrated with how an "education" is seen to be the same as "educated". It means so such thing. I live with two senior-level engineers who never finished college but can both solve just about any real-world math problem that comes their way. I'll probably get my degree before either of them, but will that make me more "educated" than Greg, who could probably outline for you on the back of a napkin every major historical event since the fall of Rome without batting an eye, or Jason, who when I said he should get an air filter, went and built one? I don't think so.
I wish I'd been taught math in a way that was relevant to my life, and I wish it had been designed to encourage the average student to succeed, instead of (at least in my painfully white high school) making math into this elite subject that only kids bound for college should really worry about - and if you are bound for college and you're not doing well in calculus, you're DOOMED. You aren't doomed, you're never doomed. I doomed myself with my own all-or-nothing thinking about it, and now that I have kids learning math at school and at home, I'm amazed at how fun it can be.
And now Miles has to go to Taekwondo and I need to go! :) I'll try to be more succinct later. I've gotten interrupted a hundred times already.....
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 01:18 am (UTC)I don't think the article was that bad, but I did bristle at this part:
If many of our state's best students are mathematically illiterate, as shown by this exam, can you imagine what is happening to the others--those going to community college or no college at all?
For many years the only college I had was two years of community college, and it was amazing to me how to many people (like this blogger) that seemed to be equivalent to no college at all. When I was interviewing endlessly (I think I had five meetings altogether) for a sales position at lucy.com, I finally reached a meeting with the CIO, and we had great rapport. Eventually he asked what I majored in, and I said I had a couple years of work at PCC (Portland Community College) but I hadn't completed a 4-year degree.
The guy in the fancy suit made this big show of being impressed, and then said, "REALLY? Well that's just AMAZING! You're so well-spoken and intelligent for someone who never went to college!"
I was completely stunned. I ended up getting the job, but I ran into that attitude over and over. What's funny is that now that I've gotten into two universities and I have a half-finished Bachelor's degree in an Actual Declared Major, I get a lot more respect, even though the classes at the university were not nearly as challenging as some of the classes I had at community college, and my classmates were not any smarter (see: the girl who openly admitted to our professor how she'd cheated on every test so far that quarter). If anything, they were a little better dressed, and I paid three times as much to do the same level of work.
Which brings me to: I'm frustrated with how an "education" is seen to be the same as "educated". It means so such thing. I live with two senior-level engineers who never finished college but can both solve just about any real-world math problem that comes their way. I'll probably get my degree before either of them, but will that make me more "educated" than Greg, who could probably outline for you on the back of a napkin every major historical event since the fall of Rome without batting an eye, or Jason, who when I said he should get an air filter, went and built one? I don't think so.
I wish I'd been taught math in a way that was relevant to my life, and I wish it had been designed to encourage the average student to succeed, instead of (at least in my painfully white high school) making math into this elite subject that only kids bound for college should really worry about - and if you are bound for college and you're not doing well in calculus, you're DOOMED. You aren't doomed, you're never doomed. I doomed myself with my own all-or-nothing thinking about it, and now that I have kids learning math at school and at home, I'm amazed at how fun it can be.
And now Miles has to go to Taekwondo and I need to go! :) I'll try to be more succinct later. I've gotten interrupted a hundred times already.....