[Rant] Minor Rant III: For a Few Hollers More

WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

Yes, my darling boy, I know that using 2(l+w) is the easiest way of finding perimeter. You are not wrong. You are, however, learning addition and subtraction of fractions. The textbook does not want you to write your equation with multiplication. You are not wrong, it just isn't how they want it done.
That sounds like I'm saying you're wrong in a round about way, but you aren't. It's just a step past what you're supposed to be learning in this chapter. It's just another way of doing it. I promise in real life you will use your original equation for perimeter.

I hate this.
 
Emrys

Emrys

WasabiPoptart said:
Yes, my darling boy, I know that using 2(l+w) is the easiest way of finding perimeter. You are not wrong. You are, however, learning addition and subtraction of fractions. The textbook does not want you to write your equation with multiplication. You are not wrong, it just isn't how they want it done.
That sounds like I'm saying you're wrong in a round about way, but you aren't. It's just a step past what you're supposed to be learning in this chapter. It's just another way of doing it. I promise in real life you will use your original equation for perimeter.

I hate this.
Click to expand...
:notes:Hurray for new math! New-ew-ew math! It won't do you a bit of good to review math. It's so simple, so very simple, that only a child can do it!:notes:
 
Fun Size

Fun Size

WasabiPoptart said:
Yes, my darling boy, I know that using 2(l+w) is the easiest way of finding perimeter. You are not wrong. You are, however, learning addition and subtraction of fractions. The textbook does not want you to write your equation with multiplication. You are not wrong, it just isn't how they want it done.
That sounds like I'm saying you're wrong in a round about way, but you aren't. It's just a step past what you're supposed to be learning in this chapter. It's just another way of doing it. I promise in real life you will use your original equation for perimeter.

I hate this.
Click to expand...
Overheard frequently helping my son do homework:

"You're not wrong, but the teacher wants to see this."
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

It isn't that it's new math. It's just the simplest form of perimeter. And I know this makes it easier for kids who haven't learned perimeter yet, plus it's practice adding fractions.
I just hate trying to tell my teary-eyed child that he's not wrong when I sound like I'm saying he is wrong anyway.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I disagree with you guys as the person who gets them when they're all grown up.

As much as it is a pain to break the problems apart and make the kids do it the long way, it teaches them why they do it the short way. The problem with the short way is that it leaves you unable to innovate. I have had grad students who couldn't solve simple physics problems because the only thing they learned from calculus was rote integration formulas instead of what an integral actually means, for example.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

fade said:
As much as it is a pain to break the problems apart and make the kids do it the long way, it teaches them why they do it the short way.
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Oh I totally agree! He needs to see why it is this way. The lesson was about adding fractions though, not multiplication or perimeter. He needed to add the fractions, not multiply them. Which makes his answer wrong for this lesson.
But long way or short way for finding perimeter, he technically isn't *wrong* because there are different ways of solving the same problem as in:
l+l+w+w= 2(l+w) = 2l + 2w

That's what I hate. You're wrong, but you aren't really.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
WasabiPoptart said:
Oh I totally agree! He needs to see why it is this way. The lesson was about adding fractions though, not multiplication or perimeter. He needed to add the fractions, not multiply them. Which makes his answer wrong for this lesson.
But long way or short way for finding perimeter, he technically isn't *wrong* because there are different ways of solving the same problem as in:
l+l+w+w= 2(l+w) = 2l + 2w

That's what I hate. You're wrong, but you aren't really.
Click to expand...
Oops, my fault for jumping to conclusions. Too many anti-common-core facebook rants.
 
Bones

Bones

WasabiPoptart said:
Yes, my darling boy, I know that using 2(l+w) is the easiest way of finding perimeter. You are not wrong. You are, however, learning addition and subtraction of fractions. The textbook does not want you to write your equation with multiplication. You are not wrong, it just isn't how they want it done.
That sounds like I'm saying you're wrong in a round about way, but you aren't. It's just a step past what you're supposed to be learning in this chapter. It's just another way of doing it. I promise in real life you will use your original equation for perimeter.

I hate this.
Click to expand...
as a scientist fuck new math and this mamsy pamsy do it in steps bullshit. if a equation is sound its sound fuck off!

Edit: I had to help my younger cousins over Christmas break with their math homework. I find new math to be the most ass backwards way of working an equation I have ever seen. I can now do it but it adds so many different steps that can be easier solved using old math. I dont even want to know how it works once you get to algerbra and trig with this nonsense.
 
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Dei

Dei

Bones said:
as a scientist fuck new math and this mamsy pamsy do it in steps bullshit. if a equation is sound its sound fuck off!

Edit: I had to help my younger cousins over Christmas break with their math homework. I find new math to be the most ass backwards way of working an equation I have ever seen. I can now do it but it adds so many different steps that can be easier solved using old math. I dont even want to know how it works once you get to algerbra and trig with this nonsense.
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New math builds into old math, and algebra and the like are still taught the way you learned it. [emoji14]

Sorry, I know too many kids who have benefitted from New Math to listen to adults who cry that it isn't the way they learned it so it sucks.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

Bones said:
Edit: I had to help my younger cousins over Christmas break with their math homework. I find new math to be the most ass backwards way of working an equation I have ever seen. I can now do it but it adds so many different steps that can be easier solved using old math. I dont even want to know how it works once you get to algerbra and trig with this nonsense.
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It makes algebra easier because they have learned the rock-bottom basics of algebra since they started math in school. My daughter is in 1st grade and is doing math concepts that, to me, are obviously geared toward algebraic thinking. They are actually learning the mechanics of math instead of just rote memorization of facts and formulas. I feel like the old way of doing math is the same as having a kid who knows how to spell syzygy, but can't give you a definition for it.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Dear translator,

Seriously, it is really obvious when you submit a google translated document. It's also really obvious when you google translate something, and then try to edit it into something resembling a readable document, because the end result is never an actual readable document. We don't pay you to google translate stuff. Anyone can google translate stuff. We pay you to be better than google.

I think the worst part is that I always feel like my intelligence has been insulted whenever I receive a google translated document. It's like catching a kid with his hand in the cookie jar, and he has the audacity to sputter "no I didn't steal any cookies" while chocolate chip crumbs spray from his mouth.
 
Bones

Bones

WasabiPoptart said:
It makes algebra easier because they have learned the rock-bottom basics of algebra since they started math in school. My daughter is in 1st grade and is doing math concepts that, to me, are obviously geared toward algebraic thinking. They are actually learning the mechanics of math instead of just rote memorization of facts and formulas. I feel like the old way of doing math is the same as having a kid who knows how to spell syzygy, but can't give you a definition for it.
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i guess it makes sense, the subtraction rules are where all my ire is going. they make a five step system for finding the difference of two numbers. I dont have any issue with making kids learn the mechanics of math, it just seems counter intuitive to me after multiple decades of learning it the old way.
Dei said:
New math builds into old math, and algebra and the like are still taught the way you learned it. [emoji14]

Sorry, I know too many kids who have benefitted from New Math to listen to adults who cry that it isn't the way they learned it so it sucks.
Click to expand...
well thats relieving to know. I dont think it bad because its not what i learned, i dislike it because it seems counter intuitive to how i go about math, however i will admit maybe some of the steps given by the worksheet i was helping with get combined in to bigger jumps later on.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Bones said:
I dont think it bad because its not what i learned, i dislike it because it seems counter intuitive to how i go about math, however i will admit maybe some of the steps given by the worksheet i was helping with get combined in to bigger jumps later on.
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I assume what happened was that someone said, "They're not learning the concepts! What can we do?" and someone else said, "Break it into more steps!" and suddenly more people started getting it, so they're just doing it for everyone.
However yes, to put it in golf terms, Teachers are unfortunately forced into the following situation:
Teacher: "Today we are going to learn about the 5-iron. Everyone step up to the tee, please..."
(Students shuffling)
Bright Student: "Aren't we going to be hitting it a long ways? Shouldn't we be using a driver?"
Teacher: (crying inside) "I SAID TODAY WE WILL BE LEARNING 5-IRON"

--Patrick
 
fade

fade

Staff member
The problem is--and I mean no insult here--that usually the bright student is going on half-information, outside reading, and gut feeling. I've seen enough of this, too. It's not even a rare thing--the bright students are sometimes the absolute worst to teach because they think they know, and they demonstrably do not. More often, the bright student says "Shouldn't we use a driver?" and the teacher has to stop and say, "No. This is boggy ground. The driver will saturate and fail to properly launch the ball. Also, this is a lesson about the 5-iron, not about proper club choice." This was also something I experienced a lot teaching grad students, who are ALL bright. That's how they got to grad student level. It's like herding cats, because they all think they already know how to do it, and they all think they know a better way, and they really don't. It's like the old saying: you have to learn the rules to break them. And to add a corollary, just thinking you know the rules doesn't mean you really do.

And take this from someone who was and is the asshole with the high IQ.
 
strawman

strawman

I don't mind new math. I use it as an opportunity to teach my children, "Sometimes you gotta do it the way the boss told you even when it's slower, boring, and depending on your perspective, stupid and wrong. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll finish, and the sooner you can start figuring out how to avoid terrible bosses like this."

New math is great for those kids that need it, but it continues to reflect one of the worst aspects of our educational system, which is that we teach to the lowest common denominator, and teachers are permitted little time (nevermind latitude) to customize lessons to different learning styles.

Everyone gets the same learning style, and in the absence of a 504 or similar special need, students and parents can either like it or lump it. You're not attending school to learn to your maximum potential - you're there to learn the minimum society demands you learn, and to indirectly (and badly) learn how to navigate a complex social structure and deal with other people.

New math is near the bottom of the list of problems we need to fix in our educational system.
 
Dei

Dei

One of the things I like about the Colorado assessment system is that schools are scored by student growth, not by meeting grade level standards. So if your kid starts 4th grade at a 5th grade reading level, they are expected at minimum to be at a 6th grade reading level by the end of the year. My daughter gets tested on 5th and 6th grade math because she already aced all of the 4th grade math, for example.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
If you view it as a way to help people get something that they didn't know how to do, sure, it's redundant for those who don't need that. But that's not how I see new math. I see it as a whole separate lesson that wasn't taught at all before. Every kid _is_ the lowest common denominator (another concept almost no one comes out of school understanding the reason for, only the rules on how to do it) simply because they have not been taught it at all. Zero is zero for everyone.
 
Squidleybits

Squidleybits

bhamv3 said:
Dear translator,

Seriously, it is really obvious when you submit a google translated document. It's also really obvious when you google translate something, and then try to edit it into something resembling a readable document, because the end result is never an actual readable document. We don't pay you to google translate stuff. Anyone can google translate stuff. We pay you to be better than google.

I think the worst part is that I always feel like my intelligence has been insulted whenever I receive a google translated document. It's like catching a kid with his hand in the cookie jar, and he has the audacity to sputter "no I didn't steal any cookies" while chocolate chip crumbs spray from his mouth.
Click to expand...
We sometimes write out reports in French. We have a limited bilingual capacity. My old director wasn't bilingual. I would review the file and report in French and when it was time for him, he'd pop it in Google translate and then make corrections to wording in English and then put those in google translate and drop them back in the report in sort of French.

Double google translated hell.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Squidleybits said:
We sometimes write out reports in French. We have a limited bilingual capacity. My old director wasn't bilingual. I would review the file and report in French and when it was time for him, he'd pop it in Google translate and then make corrections to wording in English and then put those in google translate and drop them back in the report in sort of French.

Double google translated hell.
Click to expand...
:eek::Leyla::mad::confused::aaah::eww::cry::rage::minionevil:
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Gadzooks, a second google translated document from a translator. That's two in two days.

What sort of delusion goes through these people's minds, thinking that we'll pay them to just plug something into google and then copying and pasting it into our file? Do they seriously think we won't notice a machine translated document? They're working as translators, do they seriously not realize that google translate's output is not good enough as a translation? Do they not care that when they submit that google translated rubbish as a completed translation, someone else has to fix their mess? (in this case, me)
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

These translators are your employees, yes? There should be ways to deal with that so they know not to do it if they value their job.

If it's a contractor, take the cost of your wasted time out of their fee. So they will know not to do it if they value their job.
 
strawman

strawman

Cheesy1 said:
"Oh, my God, this is my point of confusion stupid anger. I would be surprised that it's a small crime angry people to acquire the point of tears, I felt disgusted."
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FTFY[DOUBLEPOST=1452865635,1452865586][/DOUBLEPOST]btw, google is getting better. I had to push that through 6 languages to get it to this point, and as bad as it is, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

stienman said:
FTFY[DOUBLEPOST=1452865635,1452865586][/DOUBLEPOST]btw, google is getting better. I had to push that through 6 languages to get it to this point, and as bad as it is, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
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Matter of choosing your languages. Object-oriented vs phrase-oriented, different positioning of verbs, different usage of adverbs....You can GT between French and Italian a dozen times and hardly change the message. Throw in some Russian or German and it deteriorates. Best effect is to alternate different types of languages.[DOUBLEPOST=1452867946][/DOUBLEPOST]Only two languages and I get this from Cheesy's post:

"God I pot, it is foolish actions mind confusion of Czech to me mad people. It is surprising that a good's and men the smallest touches. Fell no more than angry to get tears were warning to me that it powerfully not help the truth every day."

(I used Hebrew and Birman, for the curious)
 
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