Gets it right, sorta halfway
Levitt, the 'Freakonomics' dude, is pushing for a better way of teaching math. He's a Sorosian asshole in general, but he's MOSTLY RIGHT about this. He's saying all the things I've been saying for 50 years.

The history cited in the article is CORRECT for fucking once. US math teaching was generally useful before 1900, then turned into Kraut theory and memorization. Sputnik made things even worse by losing the last vestige of reality and turning to Set Theory, which has NO CONNECTION TO ANYTHING AT ALL. Common Core tried to regain reality. If taught as outlined, it would have solved the situation. Unfortunately it isn't being used, and nothing has changed.

The article partly recognizes that math in schools is primarily formed by the haute-fashion theorists for their own benefit. The existing curriculum is designed to select out and delete normal humans who need to use math for real life. Normal people are frustrated and lost, and never want to touch math again. Only the autists and Orientals who can compete with other autists and Orientals are encouraged to continue. This setup has been in place since 1900, and has been recognized as harmful by some educators ever since, but the academicians have always won the battle to feed their own ranks. Parkinson.

Levitt sees the funnel as an undue focus on calculus, which isn't really the main point. The basics of calculus, rate of change and integrals, are a crucial element of REAL math, and can be mastered by anyone through graphing and job-based experience. Beyond that, the fine points of partial differentials and curls and divs are only needed by engineers, who can master them when needed.

Unfortunately Levitt's effort seems to be centered mainly on Die-Versity and Inclusion. His reform committee is headed by an Endowed Chair Which Identifies As Gender With All The Pronouns And Accoutrements Thereof.

None of this is needed, and I suspect some of it will make matters worse.

GODDAMNIT, COMMON CORE ALREADY FIXED THE PROBLEM.

It was a complete solution, astonishingly close to perfect. If the goals and purposes and outline had been used properly to train teachers and form curricula, the funnel would be gone by now, and real-world math would be real.

I don't know what slipped twixt the cup and the lip, but most likely the Teacher Unions knocked the cup out of the room. They hated Common Core and blocked it at every stage, EVEN THOUGH it was firmly associated with the Best Democrat Ever. That's some serious hatred.

Labels: AI point-missing, Experiential education, Parkinson, Real World Math

  ¶ 6:20 AM