Where is balance? -- Re: Academic priorities
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From: Bill Leary on 1 May 2005 11:06 <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message news:nuadnbBSmeBeQ-nfRVn-qA(a)rcn.net... > In article <7cqdnYVvCdkOTunfRVn-jA(a)giganews.com>, > "Bill Leary" <Bill_Leary(a)msn.com> wrote: > ><jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message > news:pcydnR8gjrM7UOnfRVn-gg(a)rcn.net... > >> Reread what he said. Steve said that _he_ couldn't find > >> real world problems for his kids. > > > >I saw that. The context was learning by things they encountered. > > Exactly. The range of knowledge they're going to be exposed to > is a minimum. My whole point is that it should be a maximum so > they have a list of things they do not know. The knowledge > that gets lost is all the knowledge that people don't know about. > The knowledge has no caretakes and nobody to hand it down from. But he also said that he taught them, using this method, how to learn what they needed when they needed it. > >.... Using that > >method, he'd have to find examples that THE KIDS would encounter as they > went > >along. > > NO. At grade school level, sure. But not as pre-college > training. That would fall under "learn what they need, when the needed it." If the knew how to do this well, it would work. The "when," by this definition, would be to look over the pre-requisites for the courses they wanted to take, then study those subjects in preparation for doing so. It would NOT be sitting in class and discovering they didn't know how to use a cosine. > > .. That is, see them encounter some issue, then help them learn from it. > >In that context there aren't many situations a kid will run across in > >their normal lives which will require anything but rather basic math skills. > > EXACTLY!!! That is my point. > > Go reread that 3000-post long thread we just finished. I particpated in it. I'm not not understanding you, I'm disagreeing with you. You (seem) to be saying that knowing these bits of information is of paramount importance. I'm saying that knowing how to manipulate the bits is paramount. A person who knows how to think, how to learn, how to "find out," can do so in any situation. A person who only knows the bits can't get anywhere if the situation doesn't fit what they know. > >> I don't expect the kids > >> to find them, but he sure could have, especially if he > >> was so hot at math. > > > >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. > > EXACTLY. His kids are home-schooled so they didn't get the sniffs > that your kids got through school assignments. But my kids forgot that stuff as soon as they handed in the paper. And their ability to learn what they need to know when they discover they need something isn't very good. I'd have far preferred them to have learned HOW to learn than to have learned to just get a series of check marks on a paper next to problems which were meaningless to them. > >> <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. > > And he limited their education severely. What's "education"? I'd want kids to learn to BE problem solvers rather than just solve a predefined set of problems. Note that the former is what is SUPPOSED to happen from those lessons in school. The later is what actually DOES happen far too often. Assuming that his representation that they can learn what the need quickly and efficiently is accurate, I think they probably got a pretty good "education." > One of the problems > with home-schooling is that these kids are limited to the biases, > beliefs, and knowledge of parents and are never exposed to > other kinds of thinking, experience and knowhow. On that point we agree. This can be countered (thought, I think, in a limited way) by involving the kids in other activities which encourage this sort of interaction. On the other hand, just because he didn't mention taking steps to deal with this, doesn't mean he didn't do it. - Bill
From: Bill Leary on 1 May 2005 11:12 "Bill Leary" <Bill_Leary(a)msn.com> wrote in message news:AeGdnXi0xIIbcOnfRVn-og(a)giganews.com... > "Roland Hutchinson" <my.spamtrap(a)verizon.net> wrote in message > news:ry5de.3130$c86.2761(a)trndny09... Sigh. I may have "learned how to learn," but I'm still not too good and proof reading my own material. From my previous message... > But then, I learned out to learn. "out" should be "how" > I just which I'd learned that in school rather than > being forced to pick it up later. "which" should be "wish" And Lord alone know what I've typo'd, and can't see, in THIS message. - Bill
From: jmfbahciv on 1 May 2005 09:10 In article <3dhnr3F6ufpn6U1(a)individual.net>, Steve Richfie1d <Steve(a)NOSPAM.smart-life.net> wrote: >Barb, > >>>... If only I could have found more math-intensive >>>real-world problems for them to work on. > >> You have got to be kidding. You can't help but trip over >> tons of real-world problems. It sounds like you have >> done your children a great disservice. > >Suggestions? Each step of a formal proof. > >Remember, while I had plenty of influence, the kids made up their own >minds what to work on. When are they going to learn how to work on stuff they don't want to do or is distasteful to them? <snip> /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
From: jmfbahciv on 1 May 2005 09:14 In article <ry5de.3130$c86.2761(a)trndny09>, Roland Hutchinson <my.spamtrap(a)verizon.net> wrote: >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. > Exactly. Since he couldn't find any examples in real life, he wasn't looking outside his city slicker box. Farmers do analytical informal thinking all the time. They went to school to learn how to put that all down on paper so others could learn second-hand. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
From: jmfbahciv on 1 May 2005 09:16
In article <AeGdnXi0xIIbcOnfRVn-og(a)giganews.com>, "Bill Leary" <Bill_Leary(a)msn.com> wrote: >"Roland Hutchinson" <my.spamtrap(a)verizon.net> wrote in message >news:ry5de.3130$c86.2761(a)trndny09... >> Bill Leary wrote: >> > 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. > >Hmmm. Sure, but only if you need to work the math to come up with solutions to >the problems these presented. > >The "solutions" to most of these problems, in a day-to-day way, are usually >non-math oriented. My folks did the math in their head. But they couldn't tell a child or another adult how to do this calculation on paper. <snip examples> Ideally, there should be a mixture of the two. Knowing when to use each style is also crucial. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. |