Education

[Keith and Company]

Quote:Arithmetic: What about story problems like this:What about them? THe possibilities are endless, indeed, what's your point?I would hope the editors of textbooks don't strive to give the kids nightmares, but story problems that reflect their daily lives not only help them with skills they'll use, but helps 'sell' the idea that math skills will apply in their immediate futures. Number of ragheads killed by christkillers armed per Yankee dollar isn't a ratio most American teens will be asked to compute in the next decade.The electoral vote difference between 'skin of his teeth' and 'mandate from the people' might be. But that's more of a vocabulary issue than math.Calories per french fry, or advertising dollars per halftime second, or contract bucks per spoken word on screen, on stage, on tour might be worthwhile. Cubic feet of beer per keg vs. stomach capacity; hours of high per dollar per pill; how many contraceptives in a year's supply; percentage effective rate of contraceptive method; number of penetrations per baud of porn; all these are also possibilities. When we taught Fire Control, we had an advantage. We had a number of topics that were mind numbingly boring. Tracing ones and zeroes through the instruction fetch register of the basic processor sucked the life right out of them. But it was determined by NAVTECHTRA that they had to know it. To spark their attention, every so often we through in some classified material. It was from another part of the course, but we could barely justify bringing it in in connection with the computing section. "Okay, this doesn't go in your notes, it's classified. The instruction fetched in this process goes with..." and after a tidbit of confidential or secret information, we segue back into AND and OR gates. Math textbooks should be as politically and socially neutral as possible, while the instructor should be free to tailor his examples to the students as necessary. The discussion of the 'sex life of the atom' grabs teens attentions...except in Logan, Utah, where they're offended.