miss usa delegates asked, "should math be tought in schools..
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Interesting, can you elaborate? I'm not attacking, would like to know more from someone that has "been there".
Sure thing. I live in an area with a whole bunch of pacific rim immigrants here on tech visas etc. (major telecom hub here)
So basically you have a number of indian, pakistani and then some chinese, korean etc. You also have maybe 5% black and a decent amount of hispanic but the majority is pretty much typical suburban white kids.
First you have the parental component where the pak rim group is overwhelming comprised of highly educated people that beat out millions of others to be here in the US working. So this group has an inclination towards education and values it but more importantly aren't caught up in US culture where it's sports, sports, sports, sports and hey I can always get a good job at the factory. (which used to be true)
At the major local math competition the top 10 finishers and huge swath of competitors (you have to be one of the better students in your school to go in the first place) will almost all be pac-rim kids. I think I saw 1 black kid there out of 1000 kids or so...and white students were in short supply relative to demographic % too.
Now if you go to a basketball camp, traveling baseball team, advanced soccer leagues then you get a complete demographic reversal because that's where US society and the parents are directing kids interests.
This is nothing new. In highschool I was an "ok" athlete but a pretty beastly student. I am one of the only national merit finalists in my schools history and the article about it in the small town paper was about 3 inches long on page 6. Meanwhile, if someone placed 4th in state in wrestling or pole vault there would be a 1/3 page article on it, front page of the sports section and mention on the front page. (note that if you did this at my po-dunk highschool you still weren't actually good enough to get any sort of scholarship) If the football team made it to the final 16 or 8 in state there would be entire caravans, pep-rallies, locker decor etc etc etc. I was state ranked in a sport my senior year and got A LOT more press for that than when I won the school math competion that year (for the 3rd year in a row).
Hey, I'm not down on sports they are actually very important as are the arts and sciences. I just look at the incredibly warped priorities in our society and shudder at our idiocracy. (movie reference)
I saw that in college from a different perspective. In general the non-revenue sports like swimming attracted the brighter students, many of whom were attending school on academic scholarships. At one time I believe the swim team at my college had an overall 3.5 GPA (compare that to a 2.3 overall GPA for the footbal team).
I tutored for the football team at a Big10 university, you are preaching to the choir.
Again, I'm pro-sports....just amazed at the emphasis on them especially in these economic times.
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Hey, I'm not down on sports they are actually very important as are the arts and sciences. I just look at the incredibly warped priorities in our society and shudder at our idiocracy. (movie reference)
Thank you for the thoughful post. It's interesting and ties in with a conversation that I was had this morning. IIRC, a short time back there was an article in the local paper about the X highest paid state employees. Think it would be the governor? No, not even close. Maybe a senior professor at one of the colleges? One of the brightest people in the country, perhaps leading a team researching cures to cancer or future energy sources? Nope, but if I remember correctly some did make more than the governor.
The highest paid state employee is the freekin' football coach for the state university! A glorified gym teacher. Yeah, we have some warped priorities, not just on what we focus on, but on where we spend the taxpayers money. IIRC, his pay was several times the next highest paid person.
But the way the schools are getting "dumbed down" and with the emphasis on feelings over learning and testing, I gotta wonder if this won't happen some day. After all, math is hard.
No problem! Just merge the two concepts, and have school kids explore their feelings about math. (Have they got multiple feelings? Are their feelings divided? What can they add to the discussion...and does emotion have to be subtracted?) Before you know it, you'll be able to slip geometry and calculus in there--and they'll never realize they've actually learned something!
It's really scary that people this dumb do exist...and worse yet vote. Guess what, her vote counts the same as yours! Do you think she'll try to ban dihydromonoxide?
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