perfessor multigeek's Journal: Our Kids Can Tell Us

That this is part of what's still wrong with our educational system. Math especially. I periodically get the chance to look at textbooks and I never cease to be appalled at how consistently they contain more jargon then a high end stereo magazine crossed with a DoD* internal briefing.

The first thought that comes to mind is, "so, all the more reason to support home schooling and alternative educational materials"

Which, in my case, leads to the happy second thought: "cool, I'm gonna make money".

I'm going for a new edition of the poster by June 1 and a new timeline by august. More immediately, I'm hoping to have my for-sale biodiesel guide ready by Earth Day.

Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it.

* DoD = Department of Defense, i.e. the USian vast complex of military departments and those that just pretend to be military.

Rustin

Experience

[johndiii]

I've had two kids through the public school system in our city. Despite being one of the better (if not the best) school districts in the area, the teaching of some subjects (math in particular) was just terrible. Looking at the math books, I was convinced that the students learned in spite of the texts, not from them. High school texts are a little better, but not much.

And then there's the whole "girls can't do math" line of baloney. Pissed me off no end. My mother graduated summa with a major in

It's an American thing

[Iamthefallen]

That this is part of what's still wrong with our educational system. Math especially. I periodically get the chance to look at textbooks and I never cease to be appalled at how consistently they contain more jargon then a high end stero magazine crossed with a DoD internal briefing.

I think this is a mostly american phenomenon. Whenever the subject of mathematics comes up I have a blank look on my face as my (American) wife uses math jargon to describe the problem. When she uses english I have no problem fo

It's an American thing?

[perfessor multigeek]

I think this is a mostly american phenomenon. Whenever the subject of mathematics comes up I have a blank look on my face as my (American) wife uses math jargon to describe the problem. When she uses english I have no problem following her. It almost seems that American math is more focused on teaching the correct names and terms used in the world of math and not the underlying concepts and formulas that produce results.
I truly don't mean to be facetious, but why do you think that is? As an outsider, what

Re:It's an American thing?

[Iamthefallen]

Good question. I can only compare Sweden here as I haven't seen as much of other European nations cultures in this area.

Even if it's not an answer I'll extend the observation, compare your commercials to ours. American car commercials for instance are packed full of TLAs and trademarks which are used as if they were real adjectives, verbs or nouns. It's got a Hemi, it's Jeep Trail Rated, it has the latest this or that proprietary technology. Rarely if ever will they use a generic term or explain the conce

Re:It's an American thing

[Trolling4Dollars]

That's an interesting comment. But, I don't understand how else you can learn something unless you know what it's called and have some common terminology. Computers are sort of the same way. You won't get far learning or teaching Windows, for example, unless you are taling about the "Start Button", "Task Tray", "minimize" and "maximize. Or if you are talking about more advanced computing, it's essential to understand the meaning of the words path, relative, absolute and virtual. Without knowing the term

Re:It's an American thing

[Iamthefallen]

To continue the analogy. Knowing what is the Start Button, what is the Task Tray, what the Minimize and Maximize buttons are, will not help you in learning what they actually do.

However, if you know that there is some place where all programs are gathered, but you don't know where it is or what it's called, you should still be able to find it fairly easily. Likewise if you know that there are buttons that can shrink and enlarge windows, a quick trial and error will teach you where they are and what they do

biodiesel book?

[gmhowell]

How is your biodiesel book better/worse/different from the one from the veggievan guy's book?

Converting a diesel to veggie. We get:

Mathematics, including fractions, if your vehicle uses SAE fasteners. Possibly some geometry if you've gotta design new tanks.

Chemistry and biology. Do I really need to elaborate on these?

Some recycling (not just the fat, but the car and inherent steel, rubber, etc. This latter is one of my big concerns with new, green cars. Let's say I'm driving a 1990 Volvo. Fairly safe, n

Re:biodiesel book?

[perfessor multigeek]

Hoo boy. Very cool idea but WAY beyond my current scope. Our plans are to get out a booklet that retails for under six bucks (considerably less in quantity) fits in a back pocket, and is meant as a quick-and-dirty heads up. If the Veggie Van guy's book is an O'Reilly, then we're Quick Start.

Ideally, our entire pocket guide product line should end up being under THREE dollars per at retail and each both be available as an ebook and be an extension of a copylefted PDF flyer.
On this one the first edition o

Re:biodiesel book?

[gmhowell]

A pocketback book? Interesting. You could release a series of other books of the same size. One dealing with math and cars, one with chemistry and diesel, etc. Not sure if they would be allowed, but I think it could be an interesting addition do Reed and Wright. I should put you in touch with my wife. I have no idea if she'd be interested, but with a degree in education, perhaps writing textbooks for homeschooled kids might be something to do.

And it goes without saying that I'd be interested in the pdf. Fo

Oh boo hoo

[Com2Kid]

That is what, freaking FORTH grade math? (ok ok so until two years ago I couldn't remember which was which either. ^_^ )

The fact is that Math needs to have an exact vocabulary, because it is dealing with an exact topic. Doublespeak, political correctness, and all those other facets of modern English cannot be allowed to come into play.

Indeed, many mathematicians are quite irritated over the word "imaginary" being used for "imaginary numbers", precisely because this term was historically chosen as a sla

You're in it too...

[Interrobang]

Interesting, a post that critiques overuse of jargon with the phrase "than a DoD briefing." For those of you not Americans nor Amerophiles in the crowd, he means "military." (And while you're editing, Rustin, change "stero" in the same paragraph to "stereo.")

There are indeed, I think, ways of teaching math that are less jargon-dependent. While I understand that eventually acquiring a full specialized vocabulary of math-related terms is important, I don't believe it's necessary to confuse a reluctant (o

Re:You're in it too...

[perfessor multigeek]

Firstly, amendments made. Oops and thanks.

Beyond that, yes, much American writing has become that predictable product of officious first generation members of the white collar classes run through a shoddy educational system. People act on the faulty assumption that bigger words and longer phrases must be somehow classier, resulting in a pompous clodhopping style I'ld call Runyonesque if that weren't an insult to Damon Runyon. Haigesque?

Personally, every time I hear some uniformed dimwit say something like

You're doing it *again*! ;)

[Interrobang]

Who's Damon Runyon? For that matter, are you referring to Alexander Haig in your second term of the type, and what's his rhetorical style? Seriously. Not only am I not an American, despite being a relative political animal when it comes to American and Canadian politics, but I'm enough younger than you to only really know "Alexander Haig" as a name mentioned passim in a Dead Kennedys song... :)

A humourous example of the problems of discourse suddenly springs to mind: The late Max Ferguson, formerly of

Re:You're doing it *again*! ;)

[perfessor multigeek]

Who's Damon Runyon? For that matter, are you referring to Alexander Haig in your second term of the type, and what's his rhetorical style?
DAMMIT! I HATE when that happens. I have the most maddening time trying to guess what is or is not common knowledge.

Damon Runyon was a midcentury author of stories and various performance pieces including, most famously, Guys and Dolls. he wrote about "small-time con artists, racetrack touts, Broadway characters, and guys who are "just around."" (from an Amazon review) but the key point here is that many of his characters, for all their tough guy behavior, were trying desperately hard to be upwardly mobile and spoke in a sort of odd, awkward, mock-respectable cant. I have long believed that the ability of an actress to deliver a convincing "A pois-son could develop a cold" song is one of the best tests of her light touch and respect for those who are NOT smart, ethical, or particularly successful.
Runyon's characters, while their speech may have been an exaggeration, were still based on a deeply sincere and very common stiltedness in spoken language that shows the insecurities in play of the sorts I'ld described earlier. They want *so hard* to be "classy", to be "swank", but they simply don't know how, so they just haphazardly replace their "me"s with "I"s, "use" with "utilize" and all those saxon-to-latinate switches you mentioned earlier.
In terms of musicals, a happier interpretation of this is the "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" song in Kiss Me Kate.

Haig spoke in a nightmarish, utterly impersonal, hardcore bureaucratspeak that I don't feel confident to even imitate. Carlin, Trudeau, and just about every other political satirist worth reading would quote exact bits from transcripts and be accused of belittling exaggeration.
A quick googling of "Al Haigspeak" found this cite (italics mine) from Lew Rockwell.com [lewrockwell.com]

But the army bureaucrats --

glorious in their Haigspeak, mouthing big words they didn't understand, straining to sound more professional -- had a real problem with the soldiers who "shot rockets at people twenty miles away," and weren't even sure how many people they had killed.

The soldiers "feel bad" about all that killing, said one bureaucrat, and "we have to eradicate that myth" before it "takes root."

On the contrary: the soldiers know they have killed. Not "feel," but "know." Feelings, like all passions, change. That stark fact, the mass, impersonal, distant death, will never change. All the therapy the government can supply will not wash that reality away.

I'm sorry. I can never tell what "everybody knows" and what is obscure. If you of all people know neither of these references then, yep, I've screwed the pooch again.

Well, I guess that that is what editors are for.

Rustin

Silly Rustin, Editrix are for Kids!

[Interrobang]

Well, anyway, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I can say something cogent: It's awfully hard to avoid all references, all words that are going to drive your readability index over 12.2, all allusions, metaphors and analogies, idioms, and other imparsable figures of speech, and that sort of thing. It's also really difficult to judge popular culture references. For instance, I might say someone had a Dreiseresque prose style, and you'd know what I meant, more than likely, but 99% of everyone on

Socialization

[whig]

The purpose of elementary and secondary school is IMHO the socialization of young people. This is not a good thing at all if you want your kids to learn how to think for themselves, however it can be taken advantage of if the parents understand this.

Education should take place in the home, as much as possible. This is why many people choose to homeschool. However, this deprives kids of the social benefits of school.

I've come to the conclusion that parents ought to send their kids to school, and educate them at home. Teach them to read and write, don't wait for the school to do it. Show them how to do math, and how to research, help them to broaden their knowledge about any subject that interests them. Don't let the school dictate your child's progress.

If you're doing your job at home, the purpose of school is for your kids to make friends and learn how to get along well with others.