On 28-5-2011 14:36, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> If you don't know them by heart a large part of our culture is
>>>> inaccessible to you.
>>>
>>> Such as?
>>
>> basically most of the mathematical knowledge.
>
> I don't see why you need to memorise multiplication tables to understand
> mathematics.

You can not understand long division or long multiplication without 
those tables. That means that e.g. the whole concept of prime number 
becomes void. As will be most things in number theories. Not that you 
actually need them, but not having a feeling for numbers will reduce it 
to a collection of unrelated facts.
How to understand how to do long division with polynomials or binary 
numbers without knowing how to do it with base 10 infinite precision 
numbers?

What I am trying to say is not that the multiplication tables are 
important, but that they are needed for the next steps. Long 
multiplication and long division are among the first algorithms kids 
learn. Skip them and everything in maths and physics (and ...) that uses 
algorithms will suffer greatly.

> Indeed, one of the most important things I learned at college is that
> mathematics is *not* just about memorising multiplication tables.
> There's actually far more to it than that. The fact that my school
> education completely failed to mention this is... rather worrying.

And that relates to the other thing I want to get across: maths is part 
of our Culture. As a teacher your task is to get across how beautiful it 
can be.
ATM the problem is that some decades ago a process was started by which 
the teachers teachers were selected on other grounds than knowledge of 
the subject. Being taught by people who equated maths with boring sums 
and stupid tables, the next generation was even worse. With time the old 
teachers resigned and the young generation took over. In short: we are 
in a downward spiral.
At the same time also politicians were recruited more and more from the 
humanities departments (IIRC none of the politicians of our ruling 
parties have a degree in any science of technology subject. In the 
largest opposition party we have one real scientist (was professor in 
biology, became minister of education and lost the election). In total 
we have 150 members of parliament.) Culture is redefined as anything but 
science by these incompetents. Not understanding maths is now considered 
something to be proud of by those who think of themselves as the elite 
of this society. That spiral will make have to make a few more turns 
before it goes up again.
I hope Asia will be the guardian of this piece of human culture this 
time, like the Arabs in mediaeval times. In the western world science is 
on it's way to become extinct with very few changes of stopping the process.



-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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