Homoskedastic

evolutia:

native-detroiter:

satanic2chainz:

madlori:

I bet you did.

Did you estimate what mpg your car is getting?  Did you figure out how many hamburgers you could get for six bucks?  Did you think about how long it would take you to get somewhere given the speed and distance?  Did you plan a meal so all the components would be done at the same time?  Did you encounter anything on sale?  Did you figure out how many groceries you could get for how much money you had?

There are about a million other daily, unconscious tasks that use algebra or at least algebraic thinking.  Just because you weren’t writing out an equation or employing variables doesn’t mean you weren’t using the skills that algebra and other math courses taught you.

Science and math aren’t important because you’re going to need to know the exact steps of photosynthesis or the quadratic formula.  They’re important because they teach you scientific and mathematical literacy and rational thinking, and that is sorely needed in a world where charlatans and cheats or people with a political or religious agenda can get away with all manner of pseudoscience and bullshit because people don’t have enough scientific literacy or critical thinking skills to accurately weigh the arguments or even discern where they fail logically.

So study math and science, and art, and literature, and history, and politics, not because you’re going to need it or it’s going to do something specific for you, but because an uninformed populace is bad for the world.

I can do all those things and it didn’t stop my college from kicking me out because I couldn’t pass algebra (one semester away from graduation I might add)

you can teach people life skills without subjecting them to unnecessary academic tribulations

fuck right off with this 

plus I wouldn’t have minded if they actually taught it to me so I could understand. I didn’t so my teachers said screw you. and if we only had to take one algebra class, but we had to go through geometry, another year of algebra and then physics in natural science. I asked for help way back in the 5th grade when my class was on pre algebra. no one ever helped me.

The TC is stupid. What most are referring to are the useless quadratic equations and testing. All of the things mentioned aren’t even taught in school, I’d hardly give that credit to “Algebra” fuck that shit.

As I’ve noted before, there are things in EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL SUBJECT that people don’t use every day, and it drives me slightly crazy seeing people going off about math like this. I use math every day. And yes, I use the algebra that other people find useless in their everyday lives, because this is the life I’ve chosen for myself.

Similarly, there are subjects I never really took to, had a lot of trouble in, and don’t really use, ever. I admitted today, as a grown person today, that I have no idea where Tunisia is. I know I was forced to learn it at one point. And honestly, I’m totally okay with that because there are some people to whom this information is important for the change they want to make in the world.

People really need to separate the issues they have with the education system as a whole from the problems they have with math education, really. If people had crappy teachers and really terrible learning environments, that sucks, really. And I’m sorry that happened, and we need to work to fix that. And does testing suck? Sure. That has nothing to do with whether algebra is useful.

I can fully appreciate that people may struggle with math. I can happily accept that as a subject, math might be horrible to people. But casting off parts of math that people didn’t like for whatever reason, I think, is a totally narrow-minded way of approaching curriculum reform. People seem to forget that there are plenty of us who did benefit and plan on helping the world with what we did get out of math, even the more obscure parts. And people forget that those of us that are doing this might really think the things other people got out of high school to have been useless. Sure, all curricula could use some reform. But I don’t think giving the middle finger to algebra helps anyone. 

And in general, with any criticism of education (which I’ve said before), I respect people’s right to be mad. I just don’t think we’re going to get anywhere unless people sit down and really pinpoint what they’re actually mad about.

(Source: n3on-nov3mb3rs)

techmeetsclass:

(I blurred out the name and handle because I have no intention of putting this person on blast. Just want to spark a conversation)

What do you all think about this comment about putting the onus of engagement on the students?

I don’t.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a lot of problems with *~*engagement*~* as the essential quality and goal of education. I do think there’s a legitimate question as to how much of the responsibility for learning rests with teachers/students, and I do think students, with increasing age, have to bear more and more responsibility for their personal growth. But I think that’s less about responsibility but more about recognizing students as changing individuals.

ianthe:

Hundreds of Chicago Students Walk Out of Standardized Test

Hundreds of Chicago students are taking up the mantle in the fight against the role of standardized tests in public school closures as they walked out of a state exam Wednesday. Their message: “We are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up!”

Over 300 students from over 25 different Chicago public schools boycotted the second day of a state-wide standardized test.

Ahead of a school board meeting, at which the demonstrators were banned from speaking, the students rallied outside the district headquarters carrying placards and forming a human chain.

“We’re just trying to make a statement that tests should not determine our future or the future of our schools,” said student organizer Alexssa Moore, a senior at Lindblom High School.

Brian Sturgis, senior at Paul Robesan High School and boycott organizer with the group Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS), declared in an op-ed “We are Chicago students and we are here to save our schools!”

He writes:

Mayor Emanuel and his Board of Education want to close 54 grammar schools around the city, all of which are in black and Latino communities: this is racist. These schools are also being judged based on assessments and tests given throughout the year: this is foolish. These school closings will leave neighborhoods dismantled, parents lost, students unaccounted for, and more importantly, will put children in harmful situations: this is dangerous.

Sturgis explains that Mayor Emanuel and the Board of Education

are putting too much pressure on standardized testing and threatening to close schools that don’t have high test scores. When schools are under so much pressure to raise test scores it leads to low-scoring students being neglected, not supported. This is what happened when 68 low-scoring juniors were demoted to sophomore status at a southwest side high school in Chicago last month, right before the state test.

The student boycott follows a protest earlier this month, Occupy the Department of Education, during which teachers and education activists descended on the Capitol to draw attention to the rampant privatization of public schools and the rash of recent school closures.

In February, a nationwide day of action led by the Seattle school teachers’ boycott of a standardized test brought this issue to national attention.

(via optimistic-red-velvet-walrus)