I watched the video and although I think the message is clear, as an
occasional (non fiction) author I must question the validity of the
underlying assertion, namely that in an educational sense, American
children are less advanced than their counterparts in other countries
because we don't use the metric system.
I doubt that the argument is sustainable. Certainly some time is spent
(wasted) learning and dealing with an outmoded measurement system but to
blame the educational lag on it is stretching the bounds of credulity.
To carry that argument, some statistics and supporting evidence must be
provided.
I suspect that the reasons for the standards disparity are far more
complex than not using the metric system and have more to do with
American schools emphasis on social development rather than on
computational, literary and scientific skills. I grew up in a country
which, at the time, used UK imperial measurements but I do not feel that
it hindered my education at all. In a far-off land I learned more about
world geography and economics than any of my neighbours today, to the
point that I seem to know more about the USA and Canada than they do.
(This is not intended as a boast, just a counterexample of the supposed
disadvantage of using an old measurement system.
David King wrote:
http://homepage.mac.com/scott_hudnall/just_that_simple.mov
You should upload it to Google, they will host it for free, and then
it is likely more people will see it.
http://video.google.com/
Sign up for an account if you don't have one already. If you need an
invite to join, I shall send you one from my Google email account,
just let me know.
David King
Buy UKMA's report "A Very British Mess" ISBN 0750310146
http://www.ukma.org.uk/Docs/pubs.htm
Avoid confusion with conversion, just learn to think metric!
http://www.thinkmetric.org.uk
Nat Hager III wrote:
Scott,
I think it's very good. Makes the point very effectively. How do we
get this on TV?
Nat
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*On Behalf Of *Scott Hudnall
*Sent:* Saturday, 2006 February 04 14:32
*To:* U.S. Metric Association
*Subject:* [USMA:35959] Video Podcast - Request for feedback.
Hello to everyone here on this listserv. I have created a video
podcast on the subject of the President’s new Competitiveness
Initiative and would like to ask readers here for constructive
criticism about content, verbiage, et cetera before I give it a final
render and submit it to video podcast sites. (Please let me know if I
have not caught any typographical, grammar, or math errors)
Since video files are usually large, I recommend that you only
download the file if you have a broadband connection. The file is 23
MB and can be downloaded at
http://homepage.mac.com/scott_hudnall/just_that_simple.mov .
Thanks for your input.
--
Scott Hudnall
