Journal Chacham's Journal: Verbiage: Kids challenge teacher saying fact is opinion 7
Via a writeup on Fox News, i found this little thing.
Just this week I had a number of 12th grade students (who had all attended the same elementary school) insist that a 40x30 rectangle was, in fact, a square. In fact, the only thing they wanted to call a rectangle was a right-angled quadrilateral with dramatically different heights and widths, like a door or a chalkboard. If the height was close to the width (like a 4:3 TV screen ratio, or even an 8.5x11 sheet of paper) they insisted it was a square.
But here's the kicker: when I tried to actually teach the correct definition of a square, students refused to listen, because they acted like it was just my opinion.
That is actually a life lesson. Though, Ps and Js will get different things out of it.
It's worse than just opinion--it's just language (Score:2)
OTOH, "perfect square" is a precise term--and people are just abusing language if they try and say that a "perfect square" is anything but perfect-angle perfectly-equal sides.
This kind of language shift also happens with colors, though even if we were to erroneously assume that "language is set in stone" we'd
Re:It's worse than just opinion--it's just languag (Score:1)
And the context of a geometry lesson doesn't change this?
Re:It's worse than just opinion--it's just languag (Score:2)
Or, more to the point--once you're dealing with high school students, the only time that you care that squares are equal-sided is in a word problem and they only define one of the sides of the square.
Re:It's worse than just opinion--it's just languag (Score:2)
Because they were specifically discussing shapes. Or so it seemed.
Re:It's worse than just opinion--it's just languag (Score:2)
Could be. Or, it could be that the teacher (a substitute probably, based on their unfamiliarity with the students) was discussing a different lesson (or just filling time--especially likely for a sub), and somehow the topic came up.
My high school experience ended geometry at 10th grade, not 12th--and senior year was mostly empty time, to be spent deciding what the next step in life is. If this was a remedial algebraic geometry class, the
Re:It's worse than just opinion--it's just languag (Score:2)