Tuesday, February 07, 2012

You Belong Behind Bars


Hey you guys in high school.  Stop patting yourself on the back for your math statistics.  You are doing a shitty job of educating the kids.  They are coming in to college, into classes where calculator use is prohibited and they are dying.  They don't know multiplication tables.  They can't divide.   Fractions and decimals are a new language to them.  You've done nothing but put a calculator in their hands and teach them to push a few buttons.  You took ninth graders who knew something and turned them into total dummies by the time they graduated.  You should be ashamed of yourself.

CUNY is now requiring kids to come in with three years of high school math and with a minimum score of an 80 on at least one of these exams.  If they don't have this, they must take a remedial class, a class to teach them everything you didn't teach in the four years you had them.  (Those who got the grade and skipped remedial are in real trouble.)  And, they have to use their brains, no calculators are permitted.  For all of you who pushed them to use the fraction button instead of forcing them to learn, for telling them not to worry about signs, the calculator would do that for them and for all other basic functions, you committed a criminal act.  And, to the AP who pushed the calculator when it came to solving equations, shame on you.  And shame on you too for the way you trained new teachers in your departments.  You threatened them with U ratings if they did not use a calculator every day and you pushed guess and check with multiple choice.  Colleges, as a rule, do not give multiple choice exams.

Kids today are no less intellectually endowed than they were years ago.  But you people setting education policies are.  You've fucked with their minds so much, you have ruined them.  You all got your good statistics.  You bragged and patted yourselves on the back for a job well done, but, you've done the crappiest job imaginable.  And now, the kids are paying.

(Forgive the rant. I get so upset when I see the educational neglect my college students have received all these years.  If a parent did this to a child, there would be major jail time.)

1 comment:

Cara Boutkids said...

I SO hate the calculator OVERuse. I taught LD Resource in middle school. We did have some terrific Math teachers who taught their hearts out in all 3 grades (6-8). These teachers ONLY, ONLY let
the kids use their calcs for more complicated calculation; they had to first PROVE they could complete basic math problems BEFORE they were even ALLOWED to use the calculators! Also--& isn't THIS poetic justice?!--most of the kids who had calculators (T.I. TX-30's were required school supplies for all 3 grades)wound up losing them, anyway. You've gotta love those Math teachers!!! (&, of course, these were the older, experienced teachers--2 have retired & 1 is still going strong!!!)