This horror does not deserve a title

[Paul's Here 0]

[L-C 0]

It might seem odd mentioning the computer game BioShock (famously inspired by Atlas Shrugged) in this context, but in it there's a lesser villain who's a surgeon gone mad. Instead of correcting flaws and helping people's appearance, he set out to, and this is expressly stated by him, do to people via surgery what Picasso did to them in his paintings.

Whoever taught this reminds me of him.

[piz 0]

Investigations math is brilliant! Whoever came up with it is a certified genius. It will teach children exactly what they need to know in today's world and for the future. Millions of students will develop precisely the kind of knowledge they will need as adults because of this curriculum. I can't think of a better way to prepare today's children for what they will face when they grow up.

Because people who are unable to think will do whatever they're told.

[R.M.Alger 0]

This has to be one of the most stunningly ridicules things I’ve ever seen; why not just teach kids how to calculate with Roman Numerals and call it “conceptual learning.”

Actually, the comparison to Roman Numerals is spot on. This poor kid was taught symbols that represented certain numbers (a cube for 1000, a box for 100, a line for 10, and a dot for 1) and asked to stack and add these symbols, in a very similar fashion to how Roman Numerals where calculated. This is just a recreation of more primitive counting systems, before humanity developed some brilliant ideas; like the concept of zero.

(Sumerian/Babylonian numerals worked on similar principles. Have a look:)

You know, with all the talk out-there about ‘improving education’, I rarely hear people talking about methods of teaching; or more importantly, the philosophy of education.

No, all I hear about is how schools are under-funded and how longer hours is a step in the right direction; when over-and-over again studies have shown that neither of things are the most important determining factors in quality education.

I’m afraid, with no guiding principles behind education, and a public still bought into the myth that the government is the best shepherd of our children’s minds, travesties of education like this one will continue long into the future.

[alann 0]

That is child abuse. The little girl in the video, judging from her attempt to be flexible and use the method of sticks and rocks that she has been hobbled with at school, as well as her ex post facto analysis, appears very smart. Enough of this crap and she will develop the aversion to math that, as Piz says, will properly prepare her for work at the University of East Anglia Hadley Climate Research Unit, where she can create computer models which demonstrate that cooling is warming and it's head Phil Jones is a scientist and not an utter lying sleazebag.

[Carlos 0]

This has to be one of the most stunningly ridicules things I’ve ever seen; why not just teach kids how to calculate with Roman Numerals and call it “conceptual learning.”

Actually, the comparison to Roman Numerals is spot on. This poor kid was taught symbols that represented certain numbers (a cube for 1000, a box for 100, a line for 10, and a dot for 1) and asked to stack and add these symbols, in a very similar fashion to how Roman Numerals where calculated. This is just a recreation of more primitive counting systems, before humanity developed some brilliant ideas; like the concept of zero.

A youtube commenter made a very interesting comment, similar to what you said above:

Notice how if the kid had written an M instead of a cube, a C instead of a sheet, an X instead of a line and a short line instead of a dot then she would have been doing mathematics in roman numerals. There's a reason we don't use roman numerals anymore: it's because they're rubbish next to the arabic numerals.

Like most 'progressive' suggestions this is actually *regressive* - it is taking children away from using concepts (denoted by arabic numbers) back to using percepts (pictures).

Very sad.

dannidandannikins

[Carlos 0]

You know, with all the talk out-there about ‘improving education’, I rarely hear people talking about methods of teaching; or more importantly, the philosophy of education.

No, all I hear about is how schools are under-funded and how longer hours is a step in the right direction; when over-and-over again studies have shown that neither of things are the most important determining factors in quality education.

I’m afraid, with no guiding principles behind education, and a public still bought into the myth that the government is the best shepherd of our children’s minds, travesties of education like this one will continue long into the future.

What Thomas Sowell pointed out in his shocking book "Inside American Education", is that "Education" has become something that aspiring teachers "specialize" in apart from actually bothering to master the content they will be teaching. Hence, "Education Theory" has become this grand theoretical abstract that is completely detached from the practical details involved in mastering a given subject, favoring the construction of exotic pet-theories about how "kids really should learn" that is divorced from reality. Since the teachers never actually master the essential knowledge of their field they are unable to distinguish practical teaching methods from fashionable nonsense, and further propagate these exotic unproven methods onto crowds of unsuspecting children.

The individuals who actually seriously study and understand math/science are working as scientists or engineers, and can only roll their eyes as people with Master's degrees in "Mathematical/Physics Education" pretentiously lecture about the "right" way to master a field that they've never really understood.

[Henrik Unné 0]

The individuals who actually seriously study and understand math/science are working as scientists or engineers, and can only roll their eyes as people with Master's degrees in "Mathematical/Physics Education" pretentiously lecture about the "right" way to master a field that they've never really understood.

Reminds me of modern Swedish "democracy"! I.e. voters who by their own admission are unable to take responsibilty for their own lives, pretend that they possess the ability to manage the whole economy. On the one hand, they are pathetic dolts who need to be taken care of by a nanny welfare state in order not to starve to death. On the other hand, they are supermen who can direct scientific research, run multi-billion dollar business concerns, control education, tell the doctors how to cure patients etc. That is just about the most colossal logical contradiction I know of. Apart from Kant´s.

[L-C 0]

Apart from?

[jasonlockwood 0]

I studied to become a French teacher at a university in Quebec in the 1980s. I actually mastered the language and could speak it like a native well before the education element started my last year of university.

An interesting thing occurred during my student teaching. All the people in my program were native French speakers and I was one of two students who wasn't. We were all assigned schools and classes where we would do our student teaching for the year. During one session with the organizer of the program, he mentioned a common complaint coming from the schools: the student teachers almost universally had poor spelling and grammar when writing on the chalk board, with one exception: me. It turns out the teacher I was working with noticed that my grammar was not only acceptable, but flawless. He made it a point to report that to the organizer of the program for two reasons: 1) it was a rarity in the student teachers he'd seen over the years and 2) it was surprising that a non-native would have mastered the language to that degree.

The above is not meant as a boast, but as illustration that subject matter expertise in the education field is considered exceptional and surprising. This was in the 1980s in Quebec, no less! I shudder to think what it's like these days.