[modeleng] Re: Swarf! O/T Teaching
- From: Allen Messer <al_messer@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 06:47:21 -0800 (PST)
Peter, about 25 years ago, I had occassion to do some
substitute teaching in our local school system and I
was amazed at the percentage of students that were not
motivated in Reading and Math. During Reading
classes, if one of them mis-pronounced a word and I
gave the correct one, the attitude was "Well,
whatever", and sometimes, they would even say that
phrase aloud. I was appalled as I had always wanted
to "do things right." The same thing was true in Math
class--many in the class did not care one way or the
other if they solved the problems correctly. This was
at the beginning of the video and computer game age
and this was all that they had on their collective
minds. Now, instead of having to memorize the
multiplication tables as I had to do, they sit them
down in front of a computer and it "teaches" them.
BAH!
Al, the Grump, Messer
--- peter.chadwick@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Jesse said:
> >My son teaches machine shop and many of
> his students are functionally illiterate and
> innumerate,<
>
> In my innocence, I would have thought that you just
> CANNOT do much - if
> anything - in a machine
> shop without being relatively numerate. Except maybe
> sweep the floor and
> fetch the tea. I'll admit
> to using a calculator (although my favourite
> calculator is my old HP41,
> using Reverse Polish
> Notation - I've had that for 19 years now, having
> shamed my boss into
> buying it for me for work by
> going into a customer meeting with a slide rule in
> hand!) which was about
> 2 UKP and isn't RPN,
> so I have trouble driving it for anything other than
> very simple
> calculations. But I find that for a lot of
> the simplest marking out, I need to do a bit of
> calculation - things like
> PCDs, distances between
> gear centres and so on. Even have to use
> triganometry occasionally.
>
> So is this lack of numeracy the reason that the kids
> don't do well in a
> machine shop course?
>
> And is it perhaps why there aren't that many younger
> people entering model
> engineering?
>
> Peter Chadwick
> Swindon
>
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