Look how far we got teaching "reading righting & rithmetic" (we invented a computer, etc) but now we need to learn how to teach math. I"d say so, kids can't tell time or count change, don't understand a time clock or a pay stub. Sumbody do sumpin. Not saying anything negative about the "TED" videos, they're great but what we have here is a group of intellectuals talking to an audience of intellectuals meanwhile back at the ranch HS kids are totally unprepared and the results will be just that - talk.
I have to agree withyou even as i am able to do some moderately difficult calculations in my head. For the most of the people that is just not a neccessity.
US kids in comparison (to our peers and others): http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf Other no doubt merely coincidental data: <img src="http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/images/educationalscores.png"> <img src="http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/images/dropout.png"> <img src="http://htmlimg1.scribdassets.com/1ei91w8yyomaf3s/images/37-3d1fb3aca6/000.jpg">
Those are really interesting graphs. Thanks. I need to look into what "income" means though. Some people on those countries get paid less, while on the other hand education, health care, even housing etc is free or highly subsidized. The length of work days and number of work days also has to be normalized into "income". Very dangerous to make inter country comparisons. Intra country comparison probably has its own perils as well, but is far safer... I am just making a general statement, not necessarily referring to the usefulness of those graphs...
Mathematics is an art. Just take a look at the work of MC Escher. The man was a brilliant mathematician and he applied his brilliance to dazzling sketches.
========== Great/8 points And while Mr Dewey probably met the Bible definition /old English use of the word ''bastard[infidel or gentile], my parents made sure i could read. Read @ Dad's private library; read @ public library/Dewey/bastard -book decimal system... No wonder some want to outlaw & hate homeschooling so much; homeschoolers usually have such a higher read/math score, it really makes some bastards[infidels ]angry. Got to go to both public & private schools; when i went, you got paddled for doing wrong, English class[public] included the old English King James Version. Math /mean, mode, average; was not taught as much as perhaps publicaly,as should have been, so we got it anyway.Spell checker not used.
I have a new theory. Start out with the simplest definition of a Ring. Next define the Zero ring. Then the real meat begins. Slowly, go on to understand each of the following properties of the Zero Ring. By the end of this course, kids in junior high school will be ready for some interesting Number Theory, and a huge percent of them will fall in love with real math. Properties[edit] The zero ring is the unique ring in which the additive identity 0 and multiplicative identity 1 coincide.[6][7] (Proof: If 1 = 0 in a ring R, then for all r in R, we have r = 1r = 0r = 0.) The zero ring is commutative. The element 0 in the zero ring is a unit, serving as its own multiplicative inverse. The unit group of the zero ring is the trivial group {0}. The element 0 in the zero ring is not a zero divisor. The only ideal in the zero ring is the zero ideal {0}, which is also the unit ideal, equal to the whole ring. This ideal is neither maximal nor prime. The zero ring is not a field; this agrees with the fact that its zero ideal is not maximal. In fact, there is no field with less than 2 elements. (When mathematicians speak of the "field with one element", they are referring to a non-existent object, and their intention is to define the category that would be the category of schemes over this object if it existed.) The zero ring is not an integral domain.[8] Whether the zero ring is considered to be a domain at all is a matter of convention, but there are two advantages to considering it not to be a domain. First, this agrees with the definition that a domain is a ring in which 0 is the only zero divisor (in particular, 0 is required to be a zero divisor, which fails in the zero ring). Second, this way, for a positive integer n, the ring Z/nZ is a domain if and only if n is prime. For each ring A, there is a unique ring homomorphism from A to the zero ring. Thus the zero ring is a terminal object in the category of rings.[9] If A is a nonzero ring, then there is no ring homomorphism from the zero ring to A. In particular, the zero ring is not a subring of any nonzero ring.[10] The characteristic of the zero ring is 1. The only module for the zero ring is the zero module. It is free of rank א for any cardinal number א. The zero ring is not a local ring. It is, however, a semilocal ring. The zero ring is Artinian and (therefore) Noetherian. The spectrum of the zero ring is the empty scheme.[11] The Krull dimension of the zero ring is −∞. The zero ring is semisimple but not simple. The zero ring is not a central simple algebra over any field. The total quotient ring of the zero ring is itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_ring
%% LOL Ricter; and my parents loved me. Plus i figured safe target[. 22 rifle] shooting was quite educational. Target shooting cans- NOT the Target store. LOL But the bears are teaching Target [ TGT store] about stock downtrends + math the hard way.LOL