Re: Parents, kids don't see need for math, science skills

On Sep 30, 9:34 am, morrisjc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Heh. Parents and kids are resisting attempts at setting higher
standards and increasing rigor for high school math and science.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?ArticleID=7380&page=1

Sounds like they have figured it out, unlike our
"leaders". There are jobs that require subjects like
calculus, as a specific example used in the article,
and those that don't. Those that don't are are
decreasing in the U.S., so people without knowledge of
higher level math won't have jobs anyway. The fraction
of jobs requiring higher level math is so small most
people wouldn't be able to get such jobs even if they
had those skills. Flooding the labor market with
supply just drives down wages (not that that won't
happen anyway as such jobs also move offshore). If
the argument is that we have to compete with other
countries, our leaders have to do something to make
it worthwhile. Why should anyone work their butts
of to learn calculus to be unemployed when they can
goof off in school and be unemployed?

There is an argument that learning such subjects makes
employees "better". In what way and what evidence is
there for that? Will some calculus-enabled, low
level employee use that knowledge to discover something
that will make a company much more profitable? Maybe.
I'd like to hear about some cases when that actually
happened. The way many of our companies work, an employee
with an idea would be told be his supervisor to shut up
and do his job, figuring out improvements is the boss's
job. Sure, there are other management theories out there
(I've read some of the books), but how often are they
even paid lip service, not to mentioned really embraced?
[I recently read the biography of Heaviside. He was a
calculus-enabled employee of a British telegraph firm.
He fought all his career to get his ideas adopted by
telegraph companies. Of course, his personality didn't
help his effort, but neither did his bosses thinking they
knew more about the subject than he did.]

There is an argument that learning about such subjects
makes one a better citizen. Maybe, but there is a whole
lot that can, and should, be done to improve the body
politic before we worry about how knowledge of calculus
would help. If someone wants to study the subjects,
great. I encourage that. I've derived great pleasure
from learning about the workings of the universe. But
high schools have enough trouble keeping the bored
students interested without boring them more. The IQ
of half the students is below median, the motivation of
half the students is below median, so assuming independence
a quarter of the student population is below median in
intelligence and motivation. It is a shame that all
students are not curious, motivated learners (and no
doubt part of the problem is that schools and teachers
are far from perfect), but it has always been and will
always be so, IMO. Today some students are goofing off in
shop class (OK, similar students goofed off in shop class
when I was in school). Can you image these students
concentrating with rapt attention in calculus. So maybe
if we want more people who take science and math we
should do more to encourage those who will naturally be
inclined to take it and probably will profit most from it.

Finally, why do high school students need to take calculus
anyway? I had an intro to some of the concepts in my high
school senior year math course (the stuff we went through in
about the first week or two of Calc I) and it didn't hurt me
to wait an extra year to learn it. Despite my jobs in
science, I have not actually had to use calculus in over 15
years. I have to work a few problems on my own every so
often just to knock a bit of the rust off.

Cheers,
Russell

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