Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

"Fletch F. Fletch" <notme31415@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>How many people do you figure are on the earth that don't know their
times
>tables to say twelve, but can factor a quadratic?  I'm guessing it hovers
>around zero.

I dunno.  My kid passed algebra this year (not easily, but he did
pass), and he doesn't know the times tables to ten solidly.  I ran him
on flashcard programs for a few years, and he could get 98% on 100
multiplication facts in under 3 minutes 3 days straight.  But a month
after stopping the flash cards, he would be back at 50-60% and 6-8
minutes.  Addition was only somewhat better.  We tried this for four
years with the same results and then realized he would never really
master them.  He counts on his fingers when he doesn't have a
calculator.  He'll never be a math whiz.  But algebra is required to
graduate, and he seems to have managed it. (He actually got better
grades in algebra than in middle school pre-algebra cl*****).

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             lojbab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org