Where is balance? -- Re: Academic priorities
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From: Stan Barr on 1 May 2005 16:14 On Sun, 1 May 2005 11:12:03 -0400, Bill Leary <Bill_Leary(a)msn.com> wrote: > >> But then, I learned out to learn. > >"out" should be "how" Strangely enough the original makes a sort of sense in North of England dialect! I learned owt (ie nothing) to learn... -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com (Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.) The future was never like this!
From: Steve Richfie1d on 1 May 2005 17:07 Barb, > [frustrated emoticon here] I've been trying to explain for a > thousand posts but can't seem to manage. If a person is not > aware of a piece of knowledge, then that person will never > learn they need it when they could use it. Less than 1% of such knowledge is ever taught in schools. Sure it might be nice to have this particular 1%, but at what cost?! Certainly at the cost of NOT learning SEVERAL percent (with plenty of overlap) by other means. > An example [may the bit gods forgive me if this attracts gnats] > > People never use general relativity nor special relativity. > Some people even believe that this is all nonsense and refuse > to learn about it. However, their lives depend on people who, > not only know about it, but use it in their "real life". If > the principles and theories are never encountered by home school > kids (and in some case they are not), then none of these kids > will know that their geometric assumptions and knowledge are > wrong. All their lives they have used Euclidean geometry > without any problems. How are they going to know that their > real life experiences are based on wrong assumptions? I believe that either of my kids could diagram an atomic weapon, and reasonably estimate blast and flash distance from yields. They certainly understand special relativity as we have discussed how ridiculous shows like Star Trek are in completely ignoring Lorentz transformations and other aspects of relativity in their plots. The kids could get credit for *EDUCATIONAL* TV time by explaining the holes in the physics in the plots of the shows (like Star Trek) that they watched, so this became a bit of a competition between the kids to see who could first find the holes. No holes - no credit. Similarly, when watching shows like "Cops" the competition is to call out the causes of action as the police go around violating people's rights. In short, TV here is NOT an entirely passive exercise. Have you watched the Discover and Science channels on TV? The material there is generally MUCH better than I ever had in school, and there is considerably more of it each day. There is generally a better science education to be had on TV than there is in our schools! Steve Richfie1d
From: Andrew Swallow on 1 May 2005 17:26 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: [snip] > People never use general relativity nor special relativity. > Some people even believe that this is all nonsense and refuse > to learn about it. However, their lives depend on people who, > not only know about it, but use it in their "real life". If > the principles and theories are never encountered by home school > kids (and in some case they are not), then none of these kids > will know that their geometric assumptions and knowledge are > wrong. All their lives they have used Euclidean geometry > without any problems. How are they going to know that their > real life experiences are based on wrong assumptions? [snip] Euclidean geometry assumes a flat surfaces. Hill sides are not flat so farmers ploughing and builders need to be able to use triangles whose angles do not add up to 180 degrees. Andrew Swallow
From: glen herrmannsfeldt on 1 May 2005 18:06 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: [snip] > People never use general relativity nor special relativity. > Some people even believe that this is all nonsense and refuse > to learn about it. However, their lives depend on people who, > not only know about it, but use it in their "real life". They might use systems that depend in it, though. GPS only works because, I believe, both special and general relativity are taken into account. -- glen
From: Bernd Felsche on 1 May 2005 21:33
Roland Hutchinson <my.spamtrap(a)verizon.net> writes: >Bill Leary wrote: >> <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message >> news:pcydnR8gjrM7UOnfRVn-gg(a)rcn.net... >>> In article <OpWdndY2Se6aOe7fRVn-rA(a)giganews.com>, >> I don't think so. I've raised three now, and the number of cases >> where they had to do anything beyond very basic math (usually >> money related) before they got into their twenties approaches >> zero. The few cases where they did were school assignment >> related. >>> <sheesh> To have somebody learn something without examples >>> is useless, and this includes pure theory. >> He was using examples. The ones they encountered day-to-day >Obviously if you want your kids to lean calculus and physics, you >should move to a farm or someplace, where the environment is rich >in leaking conical storage tanks, falling anvils, populations of >hawks and rabbits in dynamic equilibrium, tractors vainly but >heroically struggling against the coriolis force to plow true >north-south running furrows, etc. Engineering, other than the cook-book and human manglement variety, frequently requires an understanding of calculus. The decision of exactly how to solve a particular problem comes down to the situation and the urgency. At one stage at a PPOE I "solved" an insoluble problem; in part using differential equations for the general case (with an infinite solution space); and using numerical solutions of the same for particular cases where boundary conditions defined the value of parameters. A purely numerical solution would have been possible; albeit at much greater computing power reequirements than available while at the same time not providing an insight into exactly how the various factors coupled to provide a solution. A consultant subsequently verified the particular cases by using a ready-made computer program. -- /"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia \ / ASCII ribbon campaign | I'm a .signature virus! X against HTML mail | Copy me into your ~/.signature / \ and postings | to help me spread! |