Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

> It was well recognized in the "old days" that the one real
> mathematics course below the upper division college level
> was the "Euclid" geometry course, teaching axioms, theorems,
> and proofs, NOT memorizing facts and computational methods.
> This got perverted, and the algebra course got lowered, by
> the aim to have everyone take the same programs.  Also, the
> previously mentioned changes made memorization, routine, and
> regurgitation the process, and getting grades the only goal
> which anyone could see.

There has been a kind of holy war in the ed schools against ANY
memorization
(usually dismissed as "drill and kill") with the ultimate result that many
elementary school students can't absorb anything and have no foundation
upon
which to build. Would anybody argue against memorizing the alphabet?

The 1990 California "framework" do***ent for the math curriculum did not
even
make a statement on the question of learning the multiplication tables.
The 2000
framework finally used the phrase "committed to memory" with respect to
elementary operations on numbers, but couldn't plainly state "memorize the
times
tables". If you don't know the times tables, when you get to algebra you
can't
construct the various possibilities involved in factoring equations with
an "X
squared" term in them.

If you go to the web site for the U.C. Berkeley School of Education, you
can read
a study financed by an $11 million federal grant where they watched jr.
high
students do math problems in hopes of figuring out why there is a
persistent
"achievement gap" between blacks and everyone else, especially in math.
The
eggheads at Berkeley conclude....it's racism! Whitey won't lemme do mah
homewoik!
They are so dead-set against admitting that there ever was a "basics" that
was
gotten away from that they can't recognize a lack of basic skills when
they see
it. So, the taxpayers are subsidizing a $9500/year lobotomy (that's 150%
of the
state average) for the kids who were supposed to be helped by all the
special
attention they have been getting since the 60's.

Interestingly, these same students seem to be able to recall every "rap"
music
lyric they've ever heard. So maybe some enterprising educator could come
up with
some math jingles; the problem is finding enough things that rhyme with
"*****"
"ho" "mofo" "nigga" etc.