To my knowledge, there is no normal pupil in continental Europe that would
graduate without knowing this long word by heart:
pikonanomikromillicentidekahektokilomegagigatera.
When I had to memorize those names of powers, it was even longer having myria
between kilo and mega. I guess learning foreign names of numbers was always a
prerequisite for a contact among Europeans before the euro, and we thought
nothing of learning these too.
In the US, it is a rare teacher that would not teach "converting" between
prefixes. As if anyone were converting among ten or hundred and thousand.
Learning metric means learning a language (of measurement). No wonder the
countries most resistant to foreign languages, England and the US, are still
not metric.
Teachers should stress that there are NO CONVERSIONS in SI. But then, how to
justify the teaching hours?
Stan Jakuba
----- Original Message -----
From: John M. Steele
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: 09 Apr 08, Wednesday 09:15
Subject: [USMA:44479] Re: Algorithm
I would agree with that advice through the elementary grades, and
probably through 7th grade. Somewhere in grades 8-12, it might be good to
teach basic conversions to everybody, and more specialized conversions to
students on certain "college prep" tracks. (I am not fond of the "priests of
knowledge," only an expert can answer that syndrome)
While dissuading teachers from teaching conversion to young children, I
would also discourage "stupid" problems like how many nanometers in a
kilometer, and instead teach proper selection of prefix, conversion from
inappropriate prefix to an appropriate one, and conversion to and from prefixes
and unprefixed with scientific notation. Using youthful apprehension about
large, unwieldly numbers to make metric seem frightening is worse than
conversion.
--- On Tue, 4/7/09, Bill Hooper <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Bill Hooper <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:44469] Re: Algorithm
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 10:16 PM
Here's the way I put it to my Metric Classes and to my seminars/talks
for teachers:
"Don't teach or do conversions from one system to another. That is
the most difficult and the most useless thing to learn.
"Yes, there will be some conversions that have to be done as we adopt
the metric system, but they will be done by experts or specialists in the
field. It will not need to be done by the everyday consumer. When you need to
know a converted value, these experts will provide it for you."
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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Make It Simple; Make It Metric!
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