Warp wrote:
>   Btw, some schools and school books in the US are taking the other extreme:
> They are dumbing down basic math to the point where nobody learns anything
> useful.
> 
>   For example, they don't teach the classical way of summing or multiplying
> two numbers on paper anymore *at all*. It's like it's completely censored.
> 
>   Instead, they give a few heuristics on how to deduce the result of a few
> easy cases, and for the rest the rule is basically "if you can't deduce it,
> use a calculator".

	Do you have examples of this?
	
	I know months ago a youtube link was posted on this newsgroup about a 
Seattle woman complaining about the way they teach math these days and 
comparing what she had learned with what they're teaching now.

	If that's what you're talking about, I honestly can't say the "old 
fashioned" way is "better". What she referred to as the new way of
teaching it weren't simply heuristics - they always work and unlike how 
many of us were taught when we were young, actually force the students 
to understand how multiplication and division actually work - rather 
than just following an algorithm to compute the result.

	For me, the only real concerns were: 1) Can kids that age be reasonably 
expected to understand *how* long division works? Some always will, but 
what percentage? 2) Seems if they do it the "algorithmic" way, they'll 
quickly be able to divide faster, whereas with the new way, being able 
to divide faster may take a lot more practice.

	I didn't really understand her complaints. She seemed to just have this 
opinion that the old ways were better. For me, it's best to teach both.

-- 
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it.  Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs." -- Audobon Society Magazine


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