No, that's wrong, you idiot

[El Nino]

Lol@ the grades and GPAs that have been posted. Seriously, my parents would have beat the **** out of me. There were no tantrums for me at eleven.

 

[Deleted member]

I can read your location, haha

I'm just really interested in knowing how a practical approach to teaching math can fail. I know it can curb the flexibility of the best students but otherwise I have trouble seeing what makes it bad.

1 article will do? Babelfish should make the guess work easier.

http://staff.science.uva.nl/~craats/zwartboek.pdf
this is by Dr. van de Craats, mathematics professor at the university of Amsterdam who is probably the most adamant opposer of the "realistic" approach. (I now notice the date for that is 2008, and it is still a current topic, go figure)

 

[Big-Cat]

The Netherlands, America, Canada, the UK, Australia the rest of Europe/North and South America... we're all in the same boat aren't we=???

Entitled kids. Poor parents as role models (parents are kids' #1 role models still!). Poor friend choices. Poor role models that the media hypes as role models. Poor television show characters as role models. That and mediocre education that teaches kids in only a few selective ways instead of teaching them in multiple ways to build them up their knowledge, decision-making ability, critical thinking, motivation, understanding of the world and history, understand of different people/people groups/cultures, understanding of people with opposing viewpoints, and ability to understand themselves.

In other words, welcome to Early 21st Century education/psychology/math/arts/science/sociology/business/culture/religion/politics!

This reminds me of the key differences between Western and Eastern teaching. Western emphasizes individuality (as does the culture) while Eastern emphasizes more of memorization of facts and test taking skills. Needless to say, both parts of the world are fairly screwed in different areas.

I gotta admit that a good role model goes a long way. Even though they may annoy me, my parents have always been good role models for me and my sisters.

 

[Flayl]

http://translate.googleusercontent....GV.pdf&usg=ALkJrhgAu637pojzt7Qon-D1zmE-6xCfbg

The pdf TPK linked was too big for translators, so here's a rough translation (easy guess work) of another article on the same theme.

edit: It seems to me the trouble there is the same we have in the Bologna Process, schools are giving less practice and are expecting students to practice by themselves. I can agree more practice is better. Sorry if this doesn't have much to do with the original pdf.

 

[Omnicron's Baklava Enterprises]

Lol@ the grades and GPAs that have been posted. Seriously, my parents would have beat the **** out of me. There were no tantrums for me at eleven.

Wait, what do you mean.

 

[Johnknight1]

This reminds me of the key differences between Western and Eastern teaching. Western emphasizes individuality (as does the culture) while Eastern emphasizes more of memorization of facts and test taking skills. Needless to say, both parts of the world are fairly screwed in different areas.

I gotta admit that a good role model goes a long way. Even though they may annoy me, my parents have always been good role models for me and my sisters.

Yeah both individual-based learning in the West and test-taking focused learning in the East has flaws. The Western way hasn't helped many non-English speaking (legal) immigrant children learn English as well as they should have, it hasn't brought America up to standards in math and science (especially math and science they could use in the real world), and it hasn't made up for the fact few America kids are up to their grade level in literacy (like 15% are literate up to their grade level)

I claim to be a sucky reader, and just invented a word to claim how sucky my reading is, but even I was at/above my grade-level literacy. Heck, I was reading Moby **** (before it bore me to sleep; the first 50 pages are boring as heck!) while some of my classmates read Captain Underpants-and I was in the 9th grade...

Meanwhile in the East they often have troubles applying learning just mere statistics and text book knowledge to jobs. Many students in the East come to America to learn how to apply that knowledge into the field of their choice. Statistics and text book knowledge alone won't do crap for you in a job. You have to know how to apply it to a high end job. You have to know many fields (fun fact: 20% of American college graduates don't get a career that their degree or degrees cover). While learning how to be devote like in the East is a good skill to have, basing everything you have on a text book isn't going to teach you everything you need to know.

I will say, though, that the college system (especially the job-centered college system) is a pretty solid in both the West and East, though (corruption aside; *stares down Penn State*).