Confessions of a Dumb Guy

"Eric Miller" wrote in message v.net...
"Veeduber" wrote
- PS -- Reading over that, maybe the joke IS on you. Or on America.
Americans may not be any less intelligent now as then but devoting a full
year
to what every schoolboy picked up in a couple of weeks isn't what I'd call
smart. -- rsh

Yup, this is the difference between rote learning, which is just
memorization, and actually learning, which is knowing the reason behind
things and and how to calculate things yourself.

Couple of possibly-relevant anecdotes.

My dad was a Navy radar tech in WWII. He was teaching a group of
fighter pilots how to use the new low-altitude radar altimiter in
their F6F Hellcats. He explained how the radio signal is beamed down
to the surface, bounces back, and is picked up by the reciever. The
unit then calculates altitude from the time lag. One of the fighter
pilots scoffs, "Man, that's BS. I'm traveling at 400 knots. By the
time that radio wave gets back, I'm long gone!" He may have been good
with farm machinery, but the difference between hundreds of miles per
hour and thousands of miles per second escaped him.

Different times require different skillsets. ironyI'm confident
that today's students, trained in diversity appreciation and skilled
at handling condoms, will be able to function well in a world where
all their clothing, household appliances, and electronic devices are
designed and manufactured overseas./irony

Second ancedote:

It's said that the great educational reformer Thomas Dewey visited the
classroom of a renowned geography teacher. Dewey asked the great
teacher if he could ask the students a few questions. "Of course!" he
replied.

"So, boys and girls," Dewey asked, "who can tell me what it's like at
the center of the earth?"

Silence and blank looks.

"Mr. Dewey," the classroom teacher chided, "you are not posing the
question properly. Class," he intoned, "WHAT IS THE STATE OF THE
EARTH'S CORE?"

In unison the students chanted, "IGNEOUS FUSION."

I use that example with my classes to explain the difference between
memorizing facts and understanding concepts and principles. There's a
place for rote performance - the engine-fire checklist is a good
example - and all high-level understanding must be based on a
foundation of "declarative and procedural knowledge." My fear is that
the "back to basics" backlash against postmodern touchy-feely
"education" will swing too far. I could go on and on - education is
what I do for a living - but I'll spare you the lecture. I am,
however, available for consultation at reasonable rates. ;-)


Re math - I did an prospective-freshman interview at a college of
aerospace engineering many years ago. The dean asked me what math I'd
had in high school. "Two years of Algebra, plus Trig, Geometry,
Pre-Calc, and a year of physics," I said. "Good!" he replied.
"You're ready to learn some math."

Dang, but he was right!


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