--- James Frysinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Then came the "new math". Students were taught to use arbitrary units
> (beans, paper clips, etc.) in weighing and measuring. They were taught
> number theory topics once reserved for upper high school and college
> courses. Later, Euclidean geometry gave way to "discovery" geometry,
> thus doing away with training in a concrete logic system. High school
> courses stopped teaching logarithms (it fell into the "if time remains
> at the end of the year" bin) once calculators (with log buttons)
> replaced slide rules. This left chemistry teachers the chore of teaching
> it in order to explain the use of pH or physics teachers in order to
> teach decibel scaling.
I believe we learned logs in my Algebra II class in high school. And it wasn't
at the end of the
year. That was the late 1990s. In Geometry class, we also learned what I
think was perfectly
ordinary Euclidean geometry, and it was based on axioms, theorems, and proofs.
That was the first
class where I learned how to write a structured, formal proof. Both of those
courses were
required.
Maybe I went to a weird high school?
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
