Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

In article <qWsDc.4630$Av3.1144@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Fletch F. Fletch <notme31415@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>toto wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 17:43:33 GMT, "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.

>> How many people actually need to be able to factor a quadratric?

>Pretty much everyone in math, science, or engineering I would guess.
>Econonmists too.  I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch.  Of course, that is
still
>a small minority.

They do not really have to be able to factor a quadratic, 
but they probably need to know what it means.  A computer
can do the actual factoring.

People in all those fields, and others, need to know how
to communicate in mathematics, which means to be able to
translate problems into symbols, and translate results back.
They need to understand the concepts used, so they can do
this as more than routine.

Linguists are using probability and statistics, which very
definitely requires this.  People in education claim to be
doing this, but most of them have only learned the formulas,
and few have the understanding.


-- 
This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558