I thought math was "rAyciSt"?

earthquake

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Minuteman
  • Jul 30, 2009
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    ...but now they're calling the U.S.'s abysmal mathematics performance compared to other countries, a "national security threat". 🤔


     
    If you have tried helping school aged kids do their math homework in the last 10 years, you’ve seen firsthand why they are falling behind. I have kids from a 9.5 year old stepdaughter to 25 and their math books are written by liberal psychos. They are very confusing, even though I have an engineering degree from Texas A&M, and teach them to do math in a way that’s not remotely translated into the real world. Hence the falling behind when compared to countries that still teach the real world in relations to math.

    We need to have a book burning and go back to math books from 40-50 years ago.
     
    Math today is confusing as hell! Have been helping my 12 year old and I have it confuses me to the point where I have to google what is going on. Showed him the way we learned it and the teacher made him redo his work because he found the answer the wrong way. Mind you the answer was correct, but he didn't use the correct way to find it.

    Needless to say I had a talk with his teacher and as long as the answer is correct he is fine.
     
    If you have tried helping school aged kids do their math homework in the last 10 years, you’ve seen firsthand why they are falling behind. I have kids from a 9.5 year old stepdaughter to 25 and their math books are written by liberal psychos. They are very confusing, even though I have an engineering degree from Texas A&M, and teach them to do math in a way that’s not remotely translated into the real world. Hence the falling behind when compared to countries that still teach the real world in relations to math.

    We need to have a book burning and go back to math books from 40-50 years ago.
    I could have written this same thing, word for word, except my EE degree is from Louisiana Tech. 😁
    I had to teach my kids how to do math the right way, then I had to help them learn to do it to pass their tests. I had my son working multiplication, division, and square roots in second grade.
     
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    Cloward-Piven, all by design.

    In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion. By the end of that same year all but 3 of the old slave states passed laws making it illegal to teach slaves how to read or write. Some states even outlawed teaching free blacks.
    If you send them to school and give them diplomas even though a sizable portion can't read or do math at anything approaching a12th grade level, what changed?


     
    My favorite author, Heinlein, spoke often about the sad state of education. In the early 80's, he gave a speech about this. At the time, even the top high school seniors in the state had about half of the incoming freshmen requiring Remedical "Bonehead" English before they could advance to college level.

    When we came to Texas in 1974, I was still a boy. Early the next year, when I was 11, my step-grandfather was teaching me single variable differential and integral calculus, both long version and shortcut. Later, in college, I was also a EE major and a teacher marked a question wrong because I used a different letter of the alphabet to name the variable than he did. But hey, he was diverse.

    Back to Heinlein. His grandfather grew up on a farm outside of Butler, Mo in the 1850s and went to a one-room schoolhouse with chalkboard and books. And a teacher and town that did not put up with bad behavior for a nano-second. When his father passed away, he had to leave school at what we would call the 8th grade level. He had to take care of the farm, which was a family business. As an 8th grade "dropout," he could read, write, and speak English and German and some Latin.

    He also picked up on how to read some greek and Hebrew, having been interested in the Holy Bible and not always trusting of King James.

    He had multiplication tables memorized. And some trig function and tables memorized. When you string a guy wire to steady a pole, that kind of helps.

    He also had read Shakespeare and many books of the day.

    We have college graduates today that cannot do any of those things well. Except, so far, for the top STEM schools but even those are being eroded by this DEI religion.

    In some ways, this might be Darwin Award on a grand scale. People stupid themselves into failure.
     
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    What did earlier generations NOT have that later generations did?

    Television.

    What did Heinlein’s father and grandfather have to do in the evenings besides listen to the radio?

    Read.

    That’s what we lost, reading. And with it imagination, vocabulary, and language. Oh, and patience.

    I don’t blame the iPhone, that just made it worse. I blame TV.




    P
     
    Sounds like @woogie_man is the only one of you that has experienced "common core" math.

    That shit is just flat out wrong.

    I have an MSME from way back and to say it was math intensive would be the worst understatement ever made in the english language.
    We used slide rules and not calculators or computers, everything was pen/pencil and paper.
    Common core should be banned.
     
    n2ishun is right...... common core should be banned out right.

    I was taught to put numbers on top of each other and add the column and put the extra tens number at the top. That isn't what they are being taught now. My son a few years ago was about in tears trying to learn this crap. I showed him the easy way we were taught and he understood it within 5 minutes. Between the shit math they have been teaching and the gender studies teachers..... yeah it has been a fun few years.
     
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    The official opinion of mankind (and the bear pit) is that book learnin is for suckers, nerds and losers.

    And I have the scars to prove it. Until we value intelligence again, don't expect anything to change. Any gun venue I show up to, I don't whisper a word of who I am or what I do. I'm just some hick farmboy
     
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    If you have tried helping school aged kids do their math homework in the last 10 years, you’ve seen firsthand why they are falling behind. I have kids from a 9.5 year old stepdaughter to 25 and their math books are written by liberal psychos. They are very confusing, even though I have an engineering degree from Texas A&M, and teach them to do math in a way that’s not remotely translated into the real world. Hence the falling behind when compared to countries that still teach the real world in relations to math.

    We need to have a book burning and go back to math books from 40-50 years ago.
    I don't have my own kids, but my nieces and nephew, all 3 in gifted programs, ask me for help with their math homework every time I come over. Most of the time I can't make hide nor hair of the methods they're being taught. Occassionally I'm able to help them to an answer on their own, but I don't understand the way they've been taught.

    I have a BS in Mathematics.
     
    Math today is confusing as hell! Have been helping my 12 year old and I have it confuses me to the point where I have to google what is going on. Showed him the way we learned it and the teacher made him redo his work because he found the answer the wrong way. Mind you the answer was correct, but he didn't use the correct way to find it.

    Needless to say I had a talk with his teacher and as long as the answer is correct he is fine.

    BSEE here and you tell no lies and are 100% spot on. Also, they typically do math on ipads/computers and its multiple choice! What the fuck.

    This shit been going on for a long long time and got even worse during covid...

    Lastly, its nearly impossible to pronouce the names within the word problems, but you know...its better that way.
     
    BSEE here and you tell no lies and are 100% spot on. Also, they typically do math on ipads/computers and its multiple choice! What the fuck.

    This shit been going on for a long long time and got even worse during covid...

    Lastly, its nearly impossible to pronouce the names within the word problems, but you know...its better that way.
    YES! All of my nieces & nephew's math homework is submitted on some dumb ass app. And not only is there this new fangled way of math these kids have to "learn" but they have to learn the particular input format this app expects.
     
    "Tyrone has three 19-round mags for his gat, plus one in the chamber. If he shoots 10 rounds at his first driveby, 11 at his second driveby, and 13 at his third driveby, how many rounds does he have at the end of the night? Extra credit: how many magazine changes must Tyrone make?"

    A question from the Chicago unified school district's AP math exam ;)
     
    I taught jr. high students math. You men have no clue how hard it is to try to teach the most simple of math equations to young people who have used calculators all their life. The have no conception of adding and subtracting. Even adding 2+2 is beyond them. They simply don't have a basic understanding.

    An equation such as 2-x=1 or x+1=2 is beyond their comprehension. Tried every method possible. My favorite method was to put two pencils on the table, put a piece of paper down with a minus sing, then put a box, next put a piece of paper with an equal sign. Finally put one pencil to the right of the equal sign. I thought this was brilliant. (tried it with every type of simple equation including both listed above.) No joy, never got it.

    I was dumbfounded. Sad, sad, sad. If I was in charge, I would eliminate the use of calculators in any math class. Only when the students had mastered math (all the way through differential calculus.) Then, they could use calculators for their practical classes.

    Of course, if I was in charge, I would eliminate the federal department of education. All they do is generate worthless paper work that causes good teachers to waste time, effort and energy. Not one bit of this paperwork ever seemed to really benefit the students.

    Final thought, please don't confuse these big time union leaders and their big state and big city pseudo teachers with the majority of teachers in this nation. Most are hard working, dedicated citizens who have to fight the feds, asshole parents and the unions who don't represent them (also not to be confused with the many good, concerned parents.)
     
    The official opinion of mankind (and the bear pit) is that book learnin is for suckers, nerds and losers.

    And I have the scars to prove it. Until we value intelligence again, don't expect anything to change. Any gun venue I show up to, I don't whisper a word of who I am or what I do. I'm just some hick farmboy
    You didn't get picked on because you can do math.

    R
     
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    I taught jr. high students math. You men have no clue how hard it is to try to teach the most simple of math equations to young people who have used calculators all their life. The have no conception of adding and subtracting. Even adding 2+2 is beyond them. They simply don't have a basic understanding.

    An equation such as 2-x=1 or x+1=2 is beyond their comprehension. Tried every method possible. My favorite method was to put two pencils on the table, put a piece of paper down with a minus sing, then put a box, next put a piece of paper with an equal sign. Finally put one pencil to the right of the equal sign. I thought this was brilliant. (tried it with every type of simple equation including both listed above.) No joy, never got it.

    I was dumbfounded. Sad, sad, sad. If I was in charge, I would eliminate the use of calculators in any math class. Only when the students had mastered math (all the way through differential calculus.) Then, they could use calculators for their practical classes.

    Of course, if I was in charge, I would eliminate the federal department of education. All they do is generate worthless paper work that causes good teachers to waste time, effort and energy. Not one bit of this paperwork ever seemed to really benefit the students.

    Final thought, please don't confuse these big time union leaders and their big state and big city pseudo teachers with the majority of teachers in this nation. Most are hard working, dedicated citizens who have to fight the feds, asshole parents and the unions who don't represent them (also not to be confused with the many good, concerned parents.)


    You know, we all have calculators in our pockets and on our wrists? 🤣



    I can say my kids aren't half bad at math. Because they get to use it practically all the time. They get to use tape measures, have to use fractions, and most importantly scope reticles.

    But I get apprentices that not only can't read a tape measure, they don't even understand it.

    I had to explain to a 22 year old that there were 12 inches in a foot one day. I made so much fun of him he didn't come back. My wife calls it bullying, I call it retaining the little piece of sanity I have left.
     
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    YES! All of my nieces & nephew's math homework is submitted on some dumb ass app. And not only is there this new fangled way of math these kids have to "learn" but they have to learn the particular input format this app expects.

    Just this morning I was helping my stepdaughter with math; adding fractions. It’s the most bizarre nonsense I’ve ever seen. You are spot on about having to put the answers in the format the program wants. One of the answers was 26, but you had to input it as 25 and 10/10th 🤪. Explain to me how that’s ever going to be useful in life not to mention how are they going to use this format when they get to algebra?? I can wait to see the new algebra!! These books must be written by the same possessed people who think gender pronouns are a good idea.
     
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    What did earlier generations NOT have that later generations did?

    Television.

    What did Heinlein’s father and grandfather have to do in the evenings besides listen to the radio?

    Read.

    That’s what we lost, reading. And with it imagination, vocabulary, and language. Oh, and patience.

    I don’t blame the iPhone, that just made it worse. I blame TV.




    P
    Read this,

    It is all about how TV has rotted the brain. Some real golden quotes in there I post up from time to time.


    1708530529073.png
     
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    Not only does St. Paul schools in Minnesota have abysmal rates of kids that can actually read and perform math functions, but some national group gave the superintendent an award for it.

    The blue parts of our state make Minnesota a fucking joke.

    But, this all fits into their plan.

    Raise retards so they vote retarded.




     
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    Just because you're knocking on diabeetus don't hate the player.
    Hate the game.


    R
    Band news champ.

    Blood Sugars back down to normal. Hard Work does wonders. Try it some time. I can (and have gotten) get healthier. I'm gonna be pissing in your cheerios for a LONG time.

    You can't fix stupid though.

    Edit: For the rest of you--look at this sad sack of shit...he comes in here, picks a personal fight off topic, goes after my health and whatever else because "he doesn't like me" or I irritated him in the past. I've got a whole gang of camp followers like that and I've seen them my whole life. Pathetic wastes of oxygen who will sabotage their own "group" members from some perceived slight. If their dicks got any smaller, they'd identify as women.
     
    Last edited:
    Band news champ.

    Blood Sugars back down to normal. Hard Work does wonders. Try it some time. I can (and have gotten) get healthier. I'm gonna be pissing in your cheerios for a LONG time.

    You can't fix stupid though.

    Edit: For the rest of you--look at this sad sack of shit...he comes in here, picks a personal fight off topic, goes after my health and whatever else because "he doesn't like me" or I irritated him in the past. I've got a whole gang of camp followers like that and I've seen them my whole life. Pathetic wastes of oxygen who will sabotage their own "group" members from some perceived slight. If their dicks got any smaller, they'd identify as women.
    You've entered the deep water, bear pit, slung some disparagements and now play the victim when given same.

    R
     
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    You've entered the deep water, bear pit, slung some disparagements and now play the victim when given same.

    R
    Remind me again who follows who around? Seems you're a fanboi and don't like be identified as such. Did I address you, no, you came in here and started shit and don't like getting called out for the asshole you are.

    That's how to deal with assholes, and you can watch the way the bitch and moan and complain. Big shit talking internet thug. Giant Real Life Pussy has been.
     
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    Remind me again who follows who around? Seems you're a fanboi and don't like be identified as such. Did I address you, no, you came in here and started shit and don't like getting called out for the asshole you are.

    That's how to deal with assholes, and you can watch the way the bitch and moan and complain. Big shit talking internet thug. Giant Real Life Pussy has been.
    Are you upset?

    R
     
    The official opinion of mankind (and the bear pit) is that book learnin is for suckers, nerds and losers.

    And I have the scars to prove it. Until we value intelligence again, don't expect anything to change. Any gun venue I show up to, I don't whisper a word of who I am or what I do. I'm just some hick farmboy
    A lot of people mistake education for intelligence. When it’s mostly indoctrination these days

    Piled Higher and Deeper is a thing. As is people who are dumb as a post , think they are smarter than everyone else , and have their mind closed / won’t listen to people that don’t have the right amount of indoctrination papers

    9D04C1B9-A99C-43A0-8ED5-FC1B50C33A74.jpeg
     
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    The official opinion of mankind (and the bear pit) is that book learnin is for suckers, nerds and losers.

    And I have the scars to prove it. Until we value intelligence again, don't expect anything to change. Any gun venue I show up to, I don't whisper a word of who I am or what I do. I'm just some hick farmboy
    Weren't you the one who told us about how you were sedating COVID patients and putting them on ventilators to avoid quarantineing hospital staff?
     
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    Weren't you the one who told us about how you were sedating COVID patients and putting them on ventilators to avoid quarantineing hospital staff?

    WTF!?!? Pass the pipe bro. That's some good shit.

    I did pose the question "What if you need surgery and are forced to wear a mask--does that make you a 'Traitor'"

    Ironically, and without noticing, I was unmasked post surgery 100%. Didn't seem to be a problem.

    I know that surviving surgery was a disappointment to all of you. Your hate fuels me. 64oz of Bear Pit tears per day to stay hydrated.

    If everyone around you......

    One of these things is not like the others.....

    Ever wonder if it's not everyone else that it's you?

    4-5 people is not everyone.

    Math is hard yo. 5 << 7 Billion

    @BurtG I'm upset that you can continue to be an asshat who shat on his own friend's funeral post specualting about dying from Covid. I'll get over it. Point being we were talking about how 'education' has' gone downhill, and IIRC correctly you were all cheering when I assraped the guy on the statistics with his std dev vs the other std dev. Its just mob mentality. I'm cool when you need me to be. A bug when you don't. And then you proved the very point I made. That's an extra kind of stupid.

    In my current field, I'm self taught. Along with all the fancy degrees. Education is about more than school, but you guys will NEVER get that.

    And Rthur going after my health is about as classy as you (Burt) shitting on your friend's funeral post. It got cleaned up, but peppridge farm remembers. Stay classy fellas.

    You Creedmoor boys just can't quit me. Go have some pudding and talk about you sexuality or something.
     
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    You Creedmoor boys just can't quit me. Go have some pudding and talk about you sexuality or something.

    That's a fair point, regardless of anything else in this series of posts.

    JK.

    I walked up to a guy at the range who had a 6.5 CM. I said, "Those are nice looking pants."

    He said, "Thanks."

    I asked, "Do they make those for men?"

    JK

    But he did drink his oolong tea with one pinkie raised.

    Just stop, Ron, just stop ....