- 2092 - Math through the Decades. - The US share of high tech exports fell during
the last two decades from 30% to 17%.
Our share of manufactured goods fell from $33 billion to $24 billion in
2004. Our growing consumer consumption
habits for better and cheaper foreign products made overseas is funded by the
foreign money that is coming back and buying up America. By the time the Americans can do the math,
foreigners will own the whole country.
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----------------------------- 2092 - Math
through the Decades
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- Math is the same
, but, how we teach it in our schools has changed dramatically. When I was going to high school in the 1950’s
teaching math was much more fundamental.
A typical math problem would look something like this:
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- Teaching Math
in 1950’s: A logger sells a truckload of
lumber for $100. His cost of production
is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
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- Teaching Math
in 1960’s: A logger sells a truckload of
lumber for $100. His cost of production
is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his
profit?
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- Teaching Math
is the 1970’s: A logger exchanges a set
“L” of lumber for a set of “M” money.
The cardinality of set “M” is 100.
Each element is worth one dollar.
Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set “M”. The set “C” , the cost of production,
contains 20 fewer points than set “M”.
Represent the set “C” as a subset of the set “M” and answer the
following question: What is the
cardinality of the set “P” for profits?
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- Teaching Math
in the 1980’s: A logger sells a
truckload of lumber for $100. Her cost
of production is $80 and her profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the
number 20.
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- Teaching Math
in the 1990’s: By cutting down beautiful
forest trees, the logger makes $20. What
do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the question:
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- How did the
forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.
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- The
performance of US students in middle and high schools on international math and
science exams is below the averages of 38 other countries. Even advanced American math and physics
students score near dead last among students in 20 countries tested.
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- Since 1990
the number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering has declined 8%, in mathematics
20%.
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- Only 32% of
US students make it through school to get a degree in science or
engineering. In China 59% of students graduated.
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- In the late
1970’s the US dominated both Europe and Asia in the number of science and
engineering degrees. There were almost
24,000 Ph.D.’s per year. After 1990 the
US has trailed both these regions and worse yet, 30% of the students getting
science and engineering degrees at US universities are foreigners.
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- Teaching Math
in the US in the beginning of 21st Century: By laying off 40% of the loggers , a company
improves its stock price from $80 to $100.
How much capital gain per share does the CEO make by exercising his
stock options at $80? Assume that
capital gains are no longer taxed in order to encourage investments.
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- Teaching Math
in 2002: A company out-sources all of
its loggers. The firm saves on benefits,
and when demand for its product is down, the logger work force can easily be
cut back. The average logger employed by
the company earned $50,000, had four weeks vacation, a nice retirement plan and
medical insurance. The contracted logger
makes $30 an hour. Was outsourcing a
good move, yes, or no?
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- Teaching Math
in 2005: A laid-off logger with four
kids at home and a ridiculous mortgage and an alimony from his first failed
marriage comes into the logging-company corporate offices and goes postal,
mowing down 16 executives and a couple of secretaries, and gets lucky when he
nails a politician on the premises collecting his kickback. The laid-off logger is now serving time in
Folsom taking math courses under the No Child Left Behind program that was
extended to prisoners in California in 2004.
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- The No Child
Left Behind program started in 2002 to put public money into math and literacy
education. In 2007 it is to start
measuring the progress of students in science programs as well. Progress is already slow and late.
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- In the
meantime the academic community has gone totally Hollywood. Liberals have taken over the entire academic
community. The teacher’s union is the
biggest union in the state promoting more politics than education.
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- Higher
learning courses now include human geography, example the professor that
compared George Bush to Adolph Hitler after the President’s inaugural speech,
was teaching human geography and mind mapping to his high school students.
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- Higher learning (?) institutions contribute to
society by holding classes of mock trials for the impeachment of the
President. English is taught as a second
language and kids graduate high school unable to read their own diplomas. Just wait, next diplomas will be printed in
Spanish.
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- The US share
of high tech exports fell during the last two decades from 30% to 17%. Our share of manufactured goods fell from $33
billion to $24 billion in 2004. Our
growing consumer consumption habits for better and cheaper foreign products
made overseas is funded by the foreign money that is coming back and buying up
America. By the time the Americans can
do the math, foreigners will own the whole country.
-
- The shirts
from the 2 cowboys in the movie Brokeback Mountain sold for $100,000 on
e-bay. When the buyer was asked what
the average cost per shirt was he said “I don’t know, I don’t do Math”.
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------------------------- Tuesday, May 8, 2018
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