Re: What ???????

Posted by Ryan - WI on October 19, 2011 at 20:20:48 from (66.114.188.148):

In Reply to: What ??????? posted by Old Roy on October 19, 2011 at 04:23:17:

How many of us know how to properly drive a team to plow or plant? I would be willing to bet the answer is not many.

Like it or not technology replaced the team. Like it or not the calculator is replacing the need to know how to do mental math. I imagine back when some people still taught their children how to drive a team because some day they would be at a farm that might not have a tractor. Similarly a lot of argument I hear about the importance of mental math is "what if someday they are somewhere and don't have access to a calculator?" My response to that is, that with modern technology, cell phones, calculators, mp3 players and internet access (Google 73/12) that place doesn't really exist anymore just like the farm that might not have a tractor doesn't exist anymore.

I have to admit I do something similar in my classes. When I teach my students to weld I have them use a standard shade lens instead of the auto darkening helmets that we have. The argument I have always made is that they may need to weld somewhere that doesn't have a solar helmet. However, with a cheap solar helmet available for under $50 I don't know that I have a logical argument anymore. Particularly since the welder was $500+. I haven't seen many people drop that much coin on a welder and refuse to spend the difference between a standard and solar helmet.

With the massive amounts of knowledge that teachers need to pass on to students in a 12 year period (there is a whole lot more than the 3 R's now) spending time on a skill that won't be needed doesn't seem like a good choice. Particularly if the reason for spending time on that skill is "because that is the way we learned it."

Life changes - smart people adapt. I can spend time teaching kids about Computer Numeric Control or we can spend time on hand chiseling mortises. Unfortunately the time doesn't exist for all the new content and the old content. Logic states that whatever is needed less is what loses out. In this case it is mental math and cursive.

Flame away.

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