OT Economics

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they are
taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are more important
but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if I ever
used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for higher math I
better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher complain that I was
taking too much time doing problems and I refused to use a calculator. My
dad told him why you mad that he can work it out and you can't. I got
transferred out of that class quick

scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look at the
change part only the dollar amount


"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
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From: ScratchMonkey

The prevalence of innumeracy, even among the well-educated, is appalling.
Seems like only nerds value numeracy.

I've been amazed by the number of adults who can't even make change for
a dollar.

I blame the goddam school systems. Some (most) of the math teachers that I
had
in public school were terrible. One thing that always seemed missing from
the algebra,
geometry, calculus, was an answer to the question "What can I do with
this?".
The usual attitude was "I gotta teach this ****, you gotta learn this
****".
When my wife took HS geometry, the teacher opened the class by saying
"Most
of you will never use this stuff". WTF?
That was in the early 70's. I'll bet it's a LOT worse now with this stupid
"No child
left behind" policy (Which should be called "Slow down the whole herd").

I've often said that if I were teaching Math and Science, I'd open the
class with
"Have you ever wanted to be able to predict the future"?
(8 second pause)
"Well, this semester I'm going to give you some tools to do just that" !

And this BS political correctness.
When I was in High School, we had an annual event called "seminar day"
where
students requested 1-2 hour seminars on non-traditional subjects.
Year after year, one course stood out in popularity. And was "standing
room only",
with 3 repeats during the day.
The title....................."The chemistry of explosions"
It concluded with a walk out to the football field to blow some stuff up.
Interesting.......Educational.......And it could never be done in todays
environment.







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"Matthew" wrote in
g.com:

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they are
taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are more
important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if I
ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I refused
to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he can work it
out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class quick

scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look at
the change part only the dollar amount



Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?



ok ok just kidding.

"outsider" wrote in message
...
"Matthew" wrote in
g.com:

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they are
taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are more
important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if I
ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I refused
to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he can work it
out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class quick

scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look at
the change part only the dollar amount



Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?



ok ok just kidding.

Remind me to hurt you when I get to New York ;-)

Matthew wrote:
"outsider" wrote in message
...
"Matthew" wrote in
g.com:

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they
are taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are
more important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if
I ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I
refused to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he
can work it out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class
quick scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look
at
the change part only the dollar amount



Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?



ok ok just kidding.

Remind me to hurt you when I get to New York ;-)

Memory not what it was? ;-)
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy, Bagheera & Shadow)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

"Adrian" wrote in message
om...
Matthew wrote:
"outsider" wrote in message
...
"Matthew" wrote in
g.com:

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they
are taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are
more important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if
I ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I
refused to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he
can work it out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class
quick scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look
at
the change part only the dollar amount



Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?



ok ok just kidding.

Remind me to hurt you when I get to New York ;-)

Memory not what it was? ;-)
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy, Bagheera & Shadow)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk
raspberry

What is this pick on the old man day ;-)

"hopitus" wrote in message
...
On Feb 17, 10:26 am, "Matthew"
wrote:
"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Matthew wrote:
"outsider" wrote in message.

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they
are taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are
more important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if
I ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I
refused to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he
can work it out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class
quick scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't
look
at
the change part only the dollar amount

Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?
ok ok just kidding.

Remind me to hurt you when I get to New York ;-)

Memory not what it was? ;-)
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy, Bagheera & Shadow)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

raspberry
What is this pick on the old man day ;-)
Not I, Matt. Changing the subject as noted in topic:
1. Anniversary of F. Castro's takeover as Premier of Cuba, a month and
a
half after toppling dictator F.Batista from power....
and
2. He's here! Signing the Stimulus thing...less than a mile from where
I am!
Relative's house...near the park where that Museum is. Obama landed
this
am in an AFB near my home, and streets around the park/museum are
packed
with people on sidewalks surrounding the place on all 4 sides. I am
not even
bothering as I consider that park is no doubt so loaded with S.S.
employees
among the ducks and lakes therein, that no one could get near the
park, even,
unless an invited bigwig; paper says it's "Invitation Only" inside the
Museum.
I still can't fathom why he chose to do this here...don't believe the
hype that
it's all because MileHigh is using his recommended uses of Fed $$ to
do
environmentally friendly things locally; using windmills for power (I
can see
them not far from my residence, blowing in the wind, which is strong
today)
has NO result in our utility bill from local power provider, for one
thing. I do
understand tangible results much better than quoting figures and
stats. As
I have never made a secret of....was and am much better at languages
than
"math" per so.
Matt, you are my fave joke poster. Inform me if you ever wander west
to
MileHigh.

gladly I am made the decision I will go on vacation at least once a year
even if I have to give up stuff which does not include anything furball
related

I am thinking this fall somewhere out west just as it starts to get cool. I
have to go to NY soon I promised a friend but probably will drive since gas
is still cheap and I am a big guy so two plane tickets each way it is
cheaper to drive and stay with them. Hopefully I will get to catch up with
OUTSIDER I owe him a nuggy



And then the.......

MY Wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels.
She asked, 'What's on TV?'

I said, 'Dust.'

And then the fight started

Nomen Nescio wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: ScratchMonkey

The prevalence of innumeracy, even among the well-educated, is appalling.
Seems like only nerds value numeracy.

I've been amazed by the number of adults who can't even make change for
a dollar.

They don't teach them HOW, any more. (What SEEMS self-evident to those
of us who learned in childhood, evidently is NOT, to people used to
being told the amount of change by their cash register!)

Matthew wrote:
Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they are
taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are more important
but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if I ever
used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for higher math I
better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher complain that I was
taking too much time doing problems and I refused to use a calculator. My
dad told him why you mad that he can work it out and you can't. I got
transferred out of that class quick

scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look at the
change part only the dollar amount

I once had to do accounting reports for a client whose checkstubs
recorded the checks he wrote rounded to the closest dollar! The checks,
themselves, were written for the correct amount in dollars and cents.
(Try reconciling THOSE bank statements!)

outsider wrote:
"Matthew" wrote in
g.com:

Nomen Why would most adults need to know how to make change they are
taught by their teenage jobs like McDonalds that pictures are more
important but they still get the order wrong ;-)

I know when I was in school My father God rest his soul told me if I
ever used calculator for simple math I would regret it. And for
higher math I better bring a lot of paper. I had a math teacher
complain that I was taking too much time doing problems and I refused
to use a calculator. My dad told him why you mad that he can work it
out and you can't. I got transferred out of that class quick

scary fact that men when given changed 95% of the time don't look at
the change part only the dollar amount



Are you trying to say that calcualtors existed when you were in high
school? Are you sure you're not thinking of an abacus?

Well, they certainly EXISTED when I was in high-school, but they
definitely were not allowed in any math classroom!

ScratchMonkey wrote:

The prevalence of innumeracy, even among the well-educated, is appalling.
Seems like only nerds value numeracy.

And lord knows, they sure like to remind everyone else of their superiority
in this area, every chance they get.

A number of years ago, I read two books at about the same time. One was
called The Universe and The Teacup, by KC Cole. It was a lovely book of
ruminations about mathematics, physics, the nature of the universe as it
is currently understood, and the human race's relation to all of the above.
The other was Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos, all about how the average
person has very little sense of numbers and what they really mean.

The two books were very different, but they did share one story in common.
The story was about a math class - I forget whether this was high school
or college - where the teacher drew a long horizontal line across the
blackboard, labeled one end "zero" and the other end "one billion", and
then asked students to come up to the board and mark where they thought
one million should be. People were marking the line at one-third the
distance from the left, or one-tenth, etc. It seemed that nobody had any
sense of what proportion of a billion one million actually is.

The conclusions each author drew from this story were striking in their
differences. Paulos used the story to show how ignorant most people are,
and how the world is going to hell in a handbasket because most people
are (unlike Paulos himself) too stupid to do simple math.

KC Cole's conclusion was that human brains simply did not evolve to
grasp the concept of huge numbers in any intuitive way. We had no need
for that understanding in order to survive. It's not that we can't learn
these things in a left-brained way, and certainly many people do. But
for most of us who are not dealing with huge numbers as part of our
everyday lives, one huge number is barely distinguishable from another
huge number, even if the two numbers are vastly different in proportion
to one another.

The first time I read that story (I think I read Cole's book first), I
had to stop and think about it a minute - where *did* that million mark
go? It didn't come to me immediately, and I have a degree in math/computer
science!

So the conclusion I take away from all this is that we need fewer of the
John Allen Paulos sort, heaping scorn upon the populace and browbeating
everyone about how lazy-minded and stupid they are, and more of KC Cole,
reminding us that there are good reasons why many things - which might be
quite logical once you understand them - do not necessarily come to us
naturally, and this does not make us idiots.

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)