On Wednesday 06 Oct 2010 7:33:15 am Udhay Shankar N wrote: > I don't really disagree, but you may be at risk of ignoring a couple of > things: > > http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=71048 >
I think this guy is talking about next-to-no-math skills. If you recall I said that for children to go beyond simple math skills they have to be allowed to use logs or calculators simply because of the time constratints. All Indian school children are taught how to calculate the square root of a number manually. In a physics exam the child may be asked to calculate the height of a cylinder whose volume and radius are given. What is required of the child is to know how to apply the forumla and that requires the calculation of a square root. The maunal method is tedious and takes several minutes. The accuracy of the answer needs to be checked and if wrong it needs to be recalculated. When this process is time bound - the child may fail to perfom well in a physics exam not because he did not know the calculation, but because he made a minor arithmetic error that made him spend precious extra minutes in recalculating the square root. A calculator (or log table) at this point removes the need for needlessly taxing a child with an unnecessary skill that he is already familar with. So the child is "not good at physics" because he spends extra time in recognizing and correcting an error. This is what our system does and it astounds me at the fact that a huge number of ostensibly well educated and/or intelligent people are unable to see the problem. Incidentally how many people on Silk can recall how to calculate the square root of a number manually? If you were taught in the first place. How many cooks need to know how to grow wheat or milk a cow? Or slaughter a cow for that matter? shiv
