I can complete a square. Okay, its not like finding the cure for cancer or creating world peace, but its a skill I mastered more than once. Its like the joke about quitting smoking, it can't be all that hard - I've done it numerous times.
I've never smoked, but from time to time I find myself mired in a mathematical curriculum that defies my usually effective sense of mathematical reasoning- the mathematical acrobatics I put myself through, because it serves some purpose in my life. For instance, Macy's had gloves on sale yesterday. The marked price was $48, the sign said 40% off, I have a deal with Macy's I keep buying things and they keep sending me coupons, so I knew that the gloves would cost me a number that is less than the predicted low temperature for tomorrow.
I bought the gloves. (For the record it came to $28 with tax and the predicted low tomorrow is 14 degrees)
The Algebra I curriculum includes figuring out percentages of things and coming up with what things should cost. Of course last week's Regents, postponed by the prediction of a historic snowstorm that never came, included a question that gave the final price after a 20% discount and the deal was to figure out the original cost.
I'm sure I'll hear lots of complaints about that- we never practiced that scenario.
And what difference should it make- either you want the dress at the sale price or your don't.
If you have to know the original price to think its a good enough deal to buy- you don't really need the dress. (My father used to say, if you need to ask the price, you can't afford it).
In my humble opinion.
I was watching the Big Bang theory last week. My cousin is always amazed that a show about a bunch of brainy nerds is the most popular show on TV. Sheldon stood in front of a white board and whined about something or another in his self important life. But behind him was a reduction of simple radicals, another skill I mastered in my year of not the most basic concepts of high school math. I had written something very similar on our very own white board just a few weeks back. The joke being, that most of the viewers would have no idea that Sheldon's scratching were the mere exercises of the Algebra II curriculum and not the genius level pondering he purported
Every semester I listen to poignant posing of the same the question.
Why am I taking this math? - I'll never use it.
True, you probably don't remember how to figure percentages that will give you the original cost of an item in Macy's quickly either, though there's most likely an app for that in the cell phone in your pocket if you really want to. If you need the current cost, there's a station where you can scan it quickly.
But completing the square or reducing a radical? Other than realizing that the people who provided the props for Sheldon's whining monologue- its hard to imagine a situation where that's needed- and anyone who actually would require such calculations at work, would undoubtedly have software that would instantaneously do so.
Teacher Koi, my carpool companion once asked me what would we do if all the computers in the world stopped working at once.
Not being able to solve a quadratic equation would be the least of my problems. It would rank far behind not being able to get money out of the ATM and not having the digital thermostat control the central heating in our home and this February -the temperature would rapidly sink to a level where no gloves on sale or not would suffice.
The new semester begins on Tuesday. I will click on the Algebra II curriculum that arrived in my e-mail box yesterday and again try to learn, plan, adapt and teach the carefully constructed lists of skills and concepts listed in the course curriculum. (Hopefully in that order) Some will get it, some will try, others will whine that the don't need to put much mental energy to these abstractions, they'll never use them. I expect they are right. But the in the end we will pass most of them anyway. The principal told us to. But that's a story for another day.
I've never smoked, but from time to time I find myself mired in a mathematical curriculum that defies my usually effective sense of mathematical reasoning- the mathematical acrobatics I put myself through, because it serves some purpose in my life. For instance, Macy's had gloves on sale yesterday. The marked price was $48, the sign said 40% off, I have a deal with Macy's I keep buying things and they keep sending me coupons, so I knew that the gloves would cost me a number that is less than the predicted low temperature for tomorrow.
I bought the gloves. (For the record it came to $28 with tax and the predicted low tomorrow is 14 degrees)
The Algebra I curriculum includes figuring out percentages of things and coming up with what things should cost. Of course last week's Regents, postponed by the prediction of a historic snowstorm that never came, included a question that gave the final price after a 20% discount and the deal was to figure out the original cost.
I'm sure I'll hear lots of complaints about that- we never practiced that scenario.
And what difference should it make- either you want the dress at the sale price or your don't.
If you have to know the original price to think its a good enough deal to buy- you don't really need the dress. (My father used to say, if you need to ask the price, you can't afford it).
In my humble opinion.
I was watching the Big Bang theory last week. My cousin is always amazed that a show about a bunch of brainy nerds is the most popular show on TV. Sheldon stood in front of a white board and whined about something or another in his self important life. But behind him was a reduction of simple radicals, another skill I mastered in my year of not the most basic concepts of high school math. I had written something very similar on our very own white board just a few weeks back. The joke being, that most of the viewers would have no idea that Sheldon's scratching were the mere exercises of the Algebra II curriculum and not the genius level pondering he purported
Every semester I listen to poignant posing of the same the question.
Why am I taking this math? - I'll never use it.
True, you probably don't remember how to figure percentages that will give you the original cost of an item in Macy's quickly either, though there's most likely an app for that in the cell phone in your pocket if you really want to. If you need the current cost, there's a station where you can scan it quickly.
But completing the square or reducing a radical? Other than realizing that the people who provided the props for Sheldon's whining monologue- its hard to imagine a situation where that's needed- and anyone who actually would require such calculations at work, would undoubtedly have software that would instantaneously do so.
Teacher Koi, my carpool companion once asked me what would we do if all the computers in the world stopped working at once.
Not being able to solve a quadratic equation would be the least of my problems. It would rank far behind not being able to get money out of the ATM and not having the digital thermostat control the central heating in our home and this February -the temperature would rapidly sink to a level where no gloves on sale or not would suffice.
The new semester begins on Tuesday. I will click on the Algebra II curriculum that arrived in my e-mail box yesterday and again try to learn, plan, adapt and teach the carefully constructed lists of skills and concepts listed in the course curriculum. (Hopefully in that order) Some will get it, some will try, others will whine that the don't need to put much mental energy to these abstractions, they'll never use them. I expect they are right. But the in the end we will pass most of them anyway. The principal told us to. But that's a story for another day.
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