A recent article in Education Week discussed the hows of teaching math in elementary school. More specifically, the discussion was about the teaching of fractions. The content of the article itself is not what I'm here to comment on. Rather, it was one of the comments (yeah, I know, big surprise):
I'd like to point out that the amount of times I've needed to add or
subtract or multiply or do ANYTHING with fractions in my adult life is
absolutely zero. Never. Never, ever.
I'll ignore the fact that the woman who wrote this post needs a grammar refresher and stick to her overall message.
Never? She's never used fractions in her adult life? So she doesn't cook? Doesn't shop sales? Doesn't tip in restaurants? Doesn't ever use cash (because what are coins but fractions of a dollar)?
This brought to mind an actual conversation I had with an actual person I actually know regarding algebra. The person was attempting to point out to me the folly of having to learn algebra, the ridiculousness of learning to solve for x. According to this person, this is simply not a skill that regular people ever need.
My response: seriously? You're kidding me, right? You've never figured out how much gas you can get with your last $20? Never figured out how many slices of pizza each person in your family gets? Never needed to figure out how many pizzas to buy for your super bowl party? Never calculated how long it will take to get from your house to your grandma's house based on number of miles and approximate speed? Or how much gas you'll need to get to grandma's house?
Every day. Every frickin’ day. And that you don't get that you are essentially solving for x for all of these routine tasks makes me very sad. Because clearly, you missed the actual point of learning it! You missed the actual, overall lesson. And I’m guessing you didn’t do that well in algebra either, because when you miss the point, you kind of suck at those story problems.
And now you go around telling kids in school that algebra is stupid and there’s no reason to ever learn it, and those kids listen to you and so they don’t pay attention and learn the point either and so… and on and on and on it goes…
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
I need feminism because...
"I need feminism because..." is a very interesting campaign by students at the University of Cambridge. In short, they gave people a white poster that said "I need feminism because..." and then the people would fill something in and a picture would be taken. There's a Facebook page that includes many of the pictures. Some are funny, others are very much not, and all of them are meaningful.
I first learned of this project via an article (a blurb, really) on msn.com. As usual, I made the mistake of reading through some of the comments. It's somewhat amazing to me that in the year 2013, so many are still so clueless about what feminism is. Take the author of this comment, for instance: I need feminism so my wife will mow the yard, change the oil, wash the car, etc.... Oh the ignorance.
Here is my response to those people:
Feminists don't want to be like men; we don't want to be men. We want to be treated as though men and women are, on balance, equal. Like we're worthwhile human beings. We do not want to be treated like property or like second class citizens. We want equal pay for equal work. We want to have opportunities available to us that are outside of the traditional female opportunities. If we want to work outside of the home as, say, an engineer, we want that to be an okay choice. If we want to stay home and raise the kids, we want that to be an okay choice, too. How husbands and wives divvy up the household chores is up to them. If the two decide between them that the husband is on trash, lawn, and car duty while the wife is on kitchen, laundry, and shopping duty, that's up to them. If they decide that the wife is on kitchen, car, and lawn duty while the husband is on laundry, shopping, and trash duty, that's up to them. Feminism doesn't mean a woman has to do her share of the traditional male duties around the house while a man has to do his share of the traditional female duties around the house. Feminism means that the wife is not obligated to be barefoot in the kitchen while her man is hunting. If wife and husband want that arrangement, that's cool. But if they don't, that's cool, too. That's feminism.
So, sorry, but having feminism in the world does not necessarily get you out of changing the oil in your car.
I first learned of this project via an article (a blurb, really) on msn.com. As usual, I made the mistake of reading through some of the comments. It's somewhat amazing to me that in the year 2013, so many are still so clueless about what feminism is. Take the author of this comment, for instance: I need feminism so my wife will mow the yard, change the oil, wash the car, etc.... Oh the ignorance.
Here is my response to those people:
Feminists don't want to be like men; we don't want to be men. We want to be treated as though men and women are, on balance, equal. Like we're worthwhile human beings. We do not want to be treated like property or like second class citizens. We want equal pay for equal work. We want to have opportunities available to us that are outside of the traditional female opportunities. If we want to work outside of the home as, say, an engineer, we want that to be an okay choice. If we want to stay home and raise the kids, we want that to be an okay choice, too. How husbands and wives divvy up the household chores is up to them. If the two decide between them that the husband is on trash, lawn, and car duty while the wife is on kitchen, laundry, and shopping duty, that's up to them. If they decide that the wife is on kitchen, car, and lawn duty while the husband is on laundry, shopping, and trash duty, that's up to them. Feminism doesn't mean a woman has to do her share of the traditional male duties around the house while a man has to do his share of the traditional female duties around the house. Feminism means that the wife is not obligated to be barefoot in the kitchen while her man is hunting. If wife and husband want that arrangement, that's cool. But if they don't, that's cool, too. That's feminism.
So, sorry, but having feminism in the world does not necessarily get you out of changing the oil in your car.
Where are we going...
Just ran across an article in The Columbus Dispatch that some of you may find interesting. Seems the head of our waterways at the Ohio EPA (George Elmaraghy) is resigning. And the story on the street is that he is pretty much being forced out by Kasich & His Cronies. Why, you may ask? (Or perhaps not as we've all heard this tune before.) Elmaraghy does not just roll over and let the coal industry have their way, and of course coal has a lot of money, a decent chunk of which it has shared with K&C. Now mind you, there are all kinds of problems with the water in this state. Don't think that Elmaraghy is some kind of aging hippie. Again, see the water in this state.
But even more interesting -- and the reason I'm actually posting -- was one of the comments to the article. I won't copy over the whole thing here. If you want to read it all, follow the link to the article and read it for yourself. This person's entire comment was quite thoughtful, but this is the part that really stuck with me:
We must abandon the "corporate ethic" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) of immediate gratification/what's going on this quarter and start planning for our future, or we will join the other societies of the Earth who vanished- the Mayans, Romans, etc.- all very smart, very powerful people who lost sight of their future. -- Pete Myer
That, in a nutshell, is the source of so many of our problems today: we don't look to the future. We are concerned only with the now. Granted, the live every day as though it were your last notion is a good one. On an individual level. On a societal level it spells disaster. On a societal level it is complete suicide. Societies are supposed to want to continue long into the future. Societies are supposed to want to grow and improve. Societies are supposed to want to leave the world a better place for future generations.
We as a society are not very good at that. We have gotten greedy and lazy and we have stopped caring about each other. Unless and until that changes, I see doom and destruction in our future. Humans as a collective are frickin' brilliant. There is nothing we cannot achieve. There is no problem we cannot solve.
The key, though, is that we have to listen to each other. We have to work together. We have to acknowledge/admit the problem before we can make real progress on the solutions. And as long as we continue to bicker and fight and point fingers, we continue down this path of destruction. The farther down that path we go, the more difficult it will be to turn back. Eventually, it will be too late.
As individuals there are things we can do. And one of them is to vote. Voter turnout is abysmal, even in years when a president is being elected. That has to change. We have to take our responsibilities seriously and turn out at the polls. And when we are deciding who will get our votes, we need to look beyond the commercials. Advertising, we should all know by now, is not about spreading truth. Rather, it is about selling a product. When it comes to political commercials, the point is to buy your vote. Don't let yourself be bought and paid for. Pay attention and learn something and vote from your heart and your brain.
Also remember that your responsibility as a citizen and a society member does not end when you cast your ballot. Whether your guy/gal wins or loses, stay on top of them. When they do things you don't like, when they submit or support bills that you think just aren't right, tell them. These days it is incredibly easy to contact our elected officials and give them feedback. You may be surprised at the number of personal responses you'll receive. Yes, there will be many form letter responses. But mixed in with those, you really will find thoughtful responses from the man himself (or woman herself… I hate "gender equality" in writing!).
How this turned into a lecture on voting, I do not know. But there you have it. It's not hard to stay informed and it doesn't actually take all that much time. So do the future a favor and become an active citizen.
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