[Edu-sig] A fact on the ground

[Kirby Urner]

At 10:51 AM 01/05/2001 -0500, Michal Wallace wrote:
>On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Kirby Urner wrote:
>
>> I think any fork in the road between being a "math head" or a
>> "programmer" could/should come later in life.  In K-12 at least,
>> we don't want to overspecialize.  Synergy, integration, making
>> connections, is what's good for young and growing neural nets.
>
>Maybe... But.. You could just as easily say programming ought to be
>tied in with writing. 

Good post Michal, plus I even agree with a lot of it.

When I write about "math through programming", it's not about
grafting programming onto existing math while not changing 
math at all.  Math, as taught in schools, needs to change,
big time.  For one, it should include more music (with computer 
tools), and more writing.

I'm more interested in developing a kind of fluency in students 
where they're not afraid of and/or turned off by technical 
communications.  And by "technical communications" I mean 
everything from computer manuals to instruction booklets to 
memoranda and reports to articles on technical subjects.  

There's a kind of comfort level that needs to be reached with 
technical stuff, in order to operate successfully in a highly 
technological society.  

I'm sort of assuming the high tech is here to stay, even if you 
live in the words and raise goats (you still have those fuel 
cells and biodomes to manage). 

The "math" that I push includes a lot more operations with
alphanumeric stuff than contemporary math textbooks will 
include.  Like, check out my concluding paragraphs under
"Math makeover in the Silicon Forest" at
http://advisor.com/Articles.nsf/ID/FA9903.URNEK01
if interested.

Ultimately we're talking mega-trends here.  I'm not the
world's boss, nor have I met or learned about anyone who 
is.  

Math is whithering on the vine in a lot of ways, is a 
sinking ship, with bitter recriminations going on (the
acrimony on the Association of Mathematics Teacher 
Educators was so high they had to close the list).

Teachers are leaving the field for computer science in
droves and new recruits are hard to find.  Math as we 
know it is struggling for its very survival -- and I 
think it will die (math as we know it, from early school 
days).  

Something else will rise in its place, like a phoenix 
from the ashes.  So when I talk about teaching math
with programming, it's not the math you learned in 
school.  Some elements in common of course, but in 
some ways it's rather alien (I call it "ET math" in 
some posts). 

Kirby