Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!killer!elg From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Re: Computer Science: where it belongs Message-ID: <2232@killer.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Nov-87 21:07:11 EST Article-I.D.: killer.2232 Posted: Fri Nov 27 21:07:11 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 30-Nov-87 01:37:34 EST References: <3355@ames.arpa> <3807@eecae.UUCP> <16216@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Reply-To: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) Organization: Bayou Telecommunications Lines: 62 In article <16216@bu-cs.BU.EDU> cd@bu-cs.UUCP (Clarence K. Din) writes: >In article <3807@eecae.UUCP> lawitzke@eecae.UUCP (John Lawitzke) writes: >>Any body feel like commenting on the causes of the lack of math skills >>of incoming freshman? Primarily those who get to college and can't do >>trig or basic analytical geometry? > I know of several individuals in the computer science and engineering >programs in Boston University who have never taken trigonometry in high >school. These same individuals cannot grasp even the basic fundamentals >of abstract math theory, including induction and fixed-point calculation. Most probably because their math teachers in elementary and high schools could barely count their toes on their feet, and certainly would not have been able to explain oddities like the fact that digits are not numbers, etc. etc. etc... if one has never before encountered the abstract, facing the abstract becomes quite a challenge. All in all, most experts agree that math education for the average U.S. child is abysimal (see various studies contrasting U.S. students against e.g. European students). > I'm sure you've heard of Brooklyn Technical High School in New York. >I received a good education there; my schedule usually included approxi- >mately 7 subjects a day every day distributed over 8 periods of 45 minutes >each. Among my courses were mathematics, three "pre-engineering," social >science (such as economics or history), english, and an elective (which >was usually forced upon the student). Unfortunately, only 2% of the U.S. lives within hour's distance of Brooklyn, and there are no such schools in the 2% of the U.S. that I live in (Louisiana). Trigonometry is offered here, but that's the highest that it goes. As for "pre-engineering", etc., HAH! Teachers here are hard pressed to teach their students how to read and write and add 2+2, except in the elite schools in the suburbs which get all the money because rich politician's children go to school there (thankfully, 60% of La. school funding is state-provided under a strict per-student formula, or things would be even worse). The biggest challenge is the lack of qualified teachers in non-elite schools, due to the salary inequities and crumbling lab equipment and large student-teacher ratios etc... no matter how much dedication and perseverence a teacher has, he/she must eat, too. The only thing a parent can do currently, besides politicking (and parent pro-education groups are hot'n'heavy here), is move to the suburbs. It concerns me greatly that the lower 30/40% of the income bracket doesn't have that option, dooming their children to, at best, a merely adequate education, despite whatever talent that child has. Many of my friends are from overseas (about 60% of the CS enrollment at my university is non-American). I was talking to one person from a mid-east country (before all the troubles there that led to the retraction of most of those students), and he mentioned that by the time he had graduated from high school, he'd taken two years of Calculus. He started taking Algebra etc. in either the 6th or 7th grade, I don't remember which. I think it's a shame that we take 8 years to teach our kids just how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and that many of our "gifted and talented" students are turned off by "math" because it is "repetitive and mechanical" (a quote from the co-ordinator of the Lafayette Parish Gifted & Talented Program). Until we start teaching our elementary school teachers mathematics instead of arithmetic, and until we expect them to challenge our best students instead of boring them, I think you'll continue to find that the majority of American students simply are not prepared to take mathematics courses on the college level. -- Eric Green elg@usl.CSNET Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Lafayette, LA 70509 Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk withordeordeoh ih i