RoR: Forum

I found the essay interesting. When I am caught up in something, I still say, "I'm geeking" which I learned from my daughter about ten or so years ago. However, I do not veg. What Neal Stephenson explains about Anakin/Darth makes sense immediately. Anakin has scars on his face, so he must have scars on his soul, right? That's how it works, doesn't it? Similarly, the mechanical hands (his and Luke's) represent something important and are not just niceties like the knobs on a control panel. Not being a Star Wars geek, much of all that Stephenson explained was lost on me until he pointed it out. The Confederation of Independent States, ooops!, "SYSTEMS"... Well, that tries to say something, I guess.

It is true that the recent trilogy has a stronger anti-Objectivist hue than the first. "Trust your feelings." and "Your senses can deceive you." are not the messages we look for. By the same standard, the LOTR films brought home the pastoral utopianism of pre-industrial England. I think that the line in the books says something about the Shire having nice, honest machines like windmills and watermills, but not too many of them. In the National Lampoon parody, Bored of the Rings, the most cutting criticism to me was the way Gandalf never seems to actually know anything.

Suckers for heroes, we roll over for LOTR's right-wrong dichotomy and we talk our way around and through the Jedi versus Sith dualism. So, it is somewhat tedious to see yet another Objectivist tract pass moral judgment on yet another pop phenom.

"I enjoyed it because..."
"I liked it even though..."
"I didn't like it."
"I walked out."

Those statements are rational.

Philosophical reverse engineering is less useful. I don't have the energy to dissect the problems in a Yankee trade cartel confronted by aikido masters.

I thought that it was a big hole in the movie that the Jedi were killed so easily. When the pretty girl is shot in the back by her troops, all I could think was "Boy! She sure didn't see that coming! She should have stretched out with her feelings." On the other hand, to me, the single best scene was Yoda's entrance on Emperor Palpatine's lair when he knocks out the two guards with a wave of the hands as his first step brings him inside. Wow! Yoda's pissed and he's coming this way!

Beyond that, it was George Lucas's movie. I think of the line from Fahrenheit 451 where Montag says that inside each book is a man. He does not talk about the plots and characters and styles. To him, the book is his contact with the author. Inside each book is a man. So, too, is there a man inside Star Wars and I'm pretty much impressed with his depth of character.

Post 1

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 2:15pm

Why do people avoid math classes? This is a subject of high concern to me, because I can make out various reasons. First, it is too difficult. I can understand this, after a certain level, but certainly not on High School. Secondly, they are too lazy to try to cope with it. This is certainly true, but I can't approve of it.
The last reason I can think of is something in the culture, that tells young people maths/physics are boring and bad if you wannt to be cool. This is a movement and standard that is not tolerable but still flourishs in the dark corners of classrooms. In Europe, a newspaper has given it the right name: The Dark Reign of the Bullys.

Post 2

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 2:40pm

Gee, the New York Times and Indymedia think America won't be around in 100 years. Wishful thinking on their part. They think America will fail because on some level they want America to fail.

Post 3

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 5:52pm

Why do people avoid math classes?

I'd say the main reason is the way it's taught--mostly rote memorization, with very little real understanding. Learning and trying to do math that way is a genuinely miserable experience for anyone. I love math, but the way it's taught, I don't blame people for hating it.

Most math teachers, except in college, don't even understand the math very well themselves. They can't prove the theorems, they can't derive the formulas. An important test to see if you really understand something is: if I forgot this formula, or this theorem, or this fact, and I couldn't look it up in a book or ask anyone, would I be able to puzzle it out again for myself? Most math teachers, if they forgot the formulas and lost their books, would be helpless.

I think math education starts to get really bad and painful in elementary school when the students learn to do long multiplication, with the elaborate process of carrying ones, putting a zero here, or putting two zeros there, adding at a certain point...hardly any kids understand why this mysterious process gives the right answer; they aren't expected to. Even for smart kids, it really is a very boring and painful experience to try to do this rote stuff without understanding. These kids get a very clear message at a very young age that this is what math is like. They are rarely led to experience the enjoyment of truly understanding an important math idea, or the fun, the rush, of treating math problems like puzzles and figuring out how to do them yourself.

I think that's far and away the main reason people avoid math classes.

Post 4

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 6:11pm

To expound on Daniel's post, the material taught, in US schools at least, is just repeated year after year. Unless one is specializing in a math intensive field, there's little chance that they'll get to do any of the fun math. Most likely they'll be stuck doing a 13 year old's word problems. I'm not kidding, I helped my little sister with her 8th grade homework and it was exactly what was being taught in the "college" algebra course (required general education for non-math majors) at much university.

Sarah

(Edited by Sarah House
on 6/29, 6:12pm)

Post 5

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 9:04pm

An interesting thing came up on slashdot: Apparently Britan has a Jedi as a member of Parliament now (go to page and if it doesn't pop up where it should search for Jedi to find quote). Is this just British humor or is he serious?

Post 6

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:24am

This anti-math tendency is what an accountant friend of mine called "a crabby statistic." He used that phrase when I said that one-third of all new businesses fail (or whatever the numbers are). He pointed out that "businesses" often "fail" when the owner gets a job.
By that standard, I would like to point out the following.

Nothing is taught well in any school. Government schools are only the ugly sister in the family who makes everyone else look good. With the gradual uplifting of educational methodologies since Elizabeth Montessori, we are making progress in understanding how to facilitate learning. I state here explicitly that the process is learning not teaching.

Not only do public school teachers not teach mathematics well, they do not teach anything else well. Personally, I always loved English grammar and grammar was the reward for learning German for me. German literature and English literature left me cold. I could claim many reasons why grammar anxiety permeates our society. I could point to teachers who are not grammarians or do not appreciate grammar themselves even though they claim to be language teachers, and so on. The fact is I liked it. I also liked diagramming sentences. Not many other kids shared my enthusiams. Whose "fault" is that?

When my daughter was in high school she asked me if I actually use any of the mathematics I learned. At the time, I was teaching robot operations and programming to skilled trades workers. I had to confess that I did not. If Bill can mow a lawn in 3 hours and Bob can mow a lawn in 2 hours, how long will it take them to mow a lawn together? Well, you know what? Whether or not they like working together might be more important.

Math? Who cares? It is pretty easy all in all and I really liked it. Even when I failed calculus in college (though I passed it in high school), I was undaunted and took it again. How can you not. Do you not go out on a second date just because you didn't get lucky on the first? The pleasure is in the company, as far as I am concerned. Where I think the schools have failed -- all of them public, private, alternative, charter, home, whatever -- is in not teaching SHOP and HOME ECONOMICS.

We had to take shop classes for four semesters in junior high. I had woodshop, drafting, metal shop, and printing. They could not fail us because that would keep us out of the academic honor society. Printing was the only shop class I actually earned an honest grade in. (That worked out well. As a writer, knowledge of printing is not a trivial interest.) Guess what? No one in 1965 predicted that in 1991, I would be disassembling and rebuilding industrial robots: six-axis, servo controlled, AC motor driven with patented flex splines and proprietary reduction gears. Oh... It took me two years to get good enough at it that I could actually write the manual.

We might say that in the Leave it to Beaver world of 1965, no one thought that men would be homemakers. However, I cite the 1930 song, Making Whoopie: He washes dishes/and baby clothes/ (or: /he washes clothes/) he's so ambitious/he even sews...

By what standard is knowing synthetic division more important than knowing how to sharpen a saw? Who says that making a question out of a sentence is more important than making a smock out of a shirt?

Education at most schools is defined by anti-life, anti-man, anti-material mysticisms that claim a higher plane, a superior existence and certainly a demonstrable social status for those who learn the the unreal, the impractical, and the irrelevant. It might be that claiming a practical need for high school algebra is as objectively validatable as claiming a need for understanding dialectic materialism. After all, that was the road to the top in the old USSR, and still is at many nominally private schools in America.

Post 7

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 10:12am

But I don't understand why liking math needs to have anything to do with how it is taught?

To me, and to many people I know, if we like certain subjects, be it math, language, music, drawing, sport, or whatever, it is because that we...er...just like it! Isn't the subject itself interesting enough?!

I remember that when I was in junior high, I could do plane geometry or algebra proofs for hours and hours. I'd study one theorem, solve some tasks, then move on to the next, all by myself. It was the most exhilarating thing in the whole world. One of the most enjoyable things that I played with my best friends was to exchange interesting and rare math problems that we could get our hands on. Or maybe we were just geeks?

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 6/30, 10:40am)

Post 8

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 10:33am

Michael,

Now hold on there, bub.

Education at most schools is defined by anti-life, anti-man, anti-material mysticisms that claim a higher plane, a superior existence and certainly a demonstrable social status for those who learn the the unreal, the impractical, and the irrelevant. It might be that claiming a practical need for high school algebra is as objectively validatable as claiming a need for understanding dialectic materialism.

Is that computer you're using to type that crap unreal or impractical? Just because the concepts are presented in lawn-mowing form doesn't mean they're impractical or unreal. They just shouldn't stay in lawn-mowing form. In hindsight, I can't say there's a completely useless thing I've learned in my math education. At the time it seemed like most of it was useless, but five years later I kick myself for not remembering such a simple thing that turned out to be foundational. While the concepts can arguably be taught better, they are anything but irrelevant.

As far as I know shop and home ec. are still taught in public schools. I certainly didn't get four semesters of it, but I took enough to generalize what I learned to know my way around a kitchen and workshop.

Sarah

Post 9

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 10:39am

Hong,

Yes, for those of us who like the subjects it matters little how they are taught (and yes, we are geeks :) ). I was thinking more about people who aren't inclined to like math and how they react to poor teaching. I know that, as much as I enjoy reading, I hated literature classes in school. It wasn't until my junior year in high school when I had a teacher who wouldn't patronize students that I enjoyed literature in the classroom.

Sarah

(Edited by Sarah House
on 6/30, 10:39am)

Post 10

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 11:27am

SARAH --
You are saying that the abstract math was necessary for the invention of the computer. I say that it was not. Once invented by whatever means, it is the programming, not the machinery, that matters.

I learned to do arithmetic in different bases in the 7th grade in 1961. We had three stints of it over three terms. It was pretty darned useful for a few years around 1990 or so. I understand and appreciate the usefulness of applied number theory.

A variety of computering devices have been invented, some even decimal and electric. We just have the ones we do. Similarly, Tesla was a greater scientist than Edison because Telsa had univesity calculus and Edison did not. So, Edison was mired in brainless routine, while Tesla leapt from idea to idea. That said, my electric power comes from Detroit Edison, not Detroit Tesla. In fact, most of electrical power distribution was created in the absence of a correct theoretical understanding. I mean, no one seriously believes that "electrons" actually "move" along a "wire." That is babytalk. On the other hand, we babytalked our way to electrifying a three continents.

Even as a professional programmer from 1977, though, I have worked almost entirely in high level languages, with the hex and octal just being useful for some projects. They also taught us to do other bases, such as 12 and 7. Duodecimal arithmetic had some marginal utilility conceptually, but base-7 was just an abstract exercise

I take your point that abstract math or classical music or whatever can prove to be "useful" later. However...

HONG --
I agree 100% that there is pleasure in the exercise. I am not a big fan of arbitrary puzzles. Life has enough challenges without wasting your time on nonsense, but for work, I was handed a geometry puzzle to put shapes in a square and it was kind of fun to work out the answer. So, like watching Star Wars or whatever, the time was well-spent.

You liked math and you ended up a scientist. That does not mean that everyone must study mathematics or suffer horrible consequences.

I agree, also, that whether you enjoy learning may have nothing to do with your teachers. I said that. Learning is about learning. Learning is not about teaching. Teaching facilitates learning -- or not. A good teacher can help. A bad teacher cannot hinder. People who blame bad teachers are like workers who blame poor tools. Your success proves that.

SARAH --

I am willing to concede that you think you are pretty handy in the kitchen. I submit, however, that since you had no formal training, you do not know that for sure. I might easily claim that you are "incucinate" (bad in the kitchen) just as people are illiterate and innumerate even though they think they get along fine.

I submit also that your ability to learn how to cook and sew, etc., without formal education, only shows that you could have learned mathematics and science on your own as well, as Hong did. It is the learning, not the teaching, that matters.

Post 11

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 11:57am

Michael,

I'm saying that abstract math was necessary for the understanding and betterment of computers. Sure, one can happen upon a technological advancement, but "babytalking" will only get us so far and that we "babytalked our way to electrifying a three continents" just shows how much we have left to understand. Electrifying three continents was nothing compared to the challenges ahead of us. Does the average Joe need to understand a computer on this level to make it work? No, of course not. However, if he chooses not to it becomes a magical thinkin' box, which I dare you to argue is a good thing.

I fail to see the importance of "It is the learning, not the teaching, that matters." Quality teaching keeps us from having to reinvent the whole of mankind's knowledge to make progress. Just as important is a student's willingness to learn. I don't seem to understand what you're arguing for.

Sarah

Post 12

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 1:57pm

But I don't understand why liking math needs to have anything to do with how it is taught?

There are certain very rare kids who will like math no matter how poorly it's taught. But surely you agree that good teaching can help make a lot more kids like math. And even the ones who like math despite bad teaching, would probably love it even more with good teaching.

About the importance of advanced math for technological applications...Everyone knows how important math is for technological development, right? I'm a grad student in applied math; my advisor is working with a team of people who are trying to make some progress towards figuring out how to build a quantum computer; the math he uses for this (and that a lot of other professors use for similar projects) is pretty advanced. For another example, understanding quantum mechanics involves a lot of hard math, and I wrote another post recently that described how important the technological applications of quantum mechanics have been already.

Post 13

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:25pm

RANDROID_667.ON
TONGUE_IN_CHEEK_MODE.ON

void rant_marotta(int);

Michael: "You are saying that the abstract math was necessary for the invention of the computer. I say that it was not. Once invented by whatever means, it is the programming, not the machinery, that matters."

Turing != bystander AND von Neumann != bystander

"...Tesla was a greater scientist than Edison because Telsa had unive[r]sity calculus and Edison did not."

Calculus != Vision

"I mean, no one seriously believes that 'electrons' actually 'move' along a 'wire.'"

CHARGE = NEGATIVE

"That does not mean that everyone must study mathematics or suffer horrible consequences."

BOOT ROBOTOID_IRS


main(void)
{
  int boole_value;

  do {
      rant_marotta (boole_value);
      printf ('boole_value', %d);
     } while boole_value > 0;
}

Compiling.....

Abort, Retry, Fail?
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Abort, Retry, Fail?
..........

PS: :-)

Post 14

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:39pm

Funniest post I've ever read here, num+++. Sanctions on your way.

num+++ > Marotta

num+++ != hilarious

CHARGE = BIG

Post 15

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:58pm

Thanks for the bonk Robert!
<I bonk back in COBOL.>

ADD FOUR TO ROBERT_B

Post 16

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 11:21pm

Michael,

Teachers have everything to do with learning; in that they control the learning environment. Students such as Hong, who have a love for mathematics are the product of a supportive learning environment; and unless she was home-schooled, a teacher was responsible.

As long as children are the captives of the classroom they have the potential for becoming victimized by ineffective teachers. Compulsory schooling that is unresponsive to a child's goals is definitely the cause of a child's failure. Not everyone can become a scientist like Hong; but everyone is able to learn something; and that is the teacher's challenge.

Mathematical incompetence comes from early childhood. Children who are able to memorize easily; but lack the basic thinking skills, are able to fool incompetent teachers who are looking for correct answers only. These children, often highly verbal girls, have immediate success with their memorization of facts; and develop a false confidence which is shattered when algebra is introduced without proper background, and the shallowness of their learning is brought into the cold light of day.

If the teacher does not become aware of this, and the child fails to grasp the new concepts; the child's confidence declines into a "math anxiety". I agree that rote learning is at the root of this; but good teaching can find the gaps in the child's reasoning and lead the child to correcting the errors.

In another thread I argued that immoral teachers are at the root of eneffective schools. Teaching is a covenant between the teacher and the learner. If the teacher does not "feel" autonomous, she will not assume her proper responsibility for the learning environment; and will blame the child or the school board, rather than her own lack of skill and commitment to the child.

Heroic teachers are the obvious solution to the problems in the public school systems. Teach Objectivism in the Colleges of Education, and develop heroic teachers who will honour at all costs, the covenant they make with children when they enter the teaching profession.

Teachers should be obliged to pledge their allegiance to the innocent child.

Sharon

Post 17

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 8:43am

Sharon et al.,
I must clarify that I have outmost respect for teachers, especially good teachers. I have now become a teacher myself, and knows how difficult it can be. I also become much more appreciative of good students, who would go and explore everything that's out there and the teacher only needs to point to the direction...Comparing that with some kids who only get 10 or 20% of what you try to tell them. Urrrgh.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 7/01, 1:03pm)

Post 18

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 3:16pm

Daniel O'Connor:

...my advisor is working ....towards figuring out how to build a quantum computer; ....I wrote another post recently that described how important the technological applications of quantum mechanics have been already.

Are you or your advisor involved with this?

HP cites progress on quantum computer

Optical Quantum Computers... Yeah!!!

...last year Darpa had considered financing an ambitious "moon shot" program for quantum computing research, but scaled back that program after some researchers warned that there was a high likelihood of failure.

Less funding... Booo!!!

Maybe they can "tunnel" some funding from PBS...

Post 19

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 12:56pm