Leave those kids alone

[Francis]

Twice now Luke's maths teacher has rung to tell me he's only managed a D on his test paper when his target grade's a C. Yeah well, if you'd set his sights a bit higher he might have managed a C or even a B. What earthly use is Pythagorus' theory ever gonna be to him anyway? Why don't we teach them something more useful like raising children/ eating healthily/ fixing leaking taps/ choosing the right mortgage.

It makes me seethe.

[Loki]

Very sensible words Francis, and I totally agree. However, without Pythagorus' theorm, I'd never of discovered Bloc party.

I rest my case.

[Thea]

Call the teacher back, give them an F in "having a life".

[lazarus corporation]

Very sensible words Francis, and I totally agree. However, without Pythagorus' theorm, I'd never of discovered Bloc party.

I rest my case.

*cough* theorem *cough*

[Francis]

And cosines, logarithms, quadratic equations and calculus. Bollox the lot of it.

[Thea]

And cosines, logarithms, quadratic equations and calculus. Bollox the lot of it.

I like your style.
It's just one long waste of my valuable time.

[Francis]

Call the teacher back, give them an F in "having a life".

I'd love to but they seem to be giving him such a hard time I wouldn't want to give them any more reasons. Besides, I'm sure he has their best interests at heart.

Or maybe his bonus if they meet his targets.

[Francis]

I think those 'he's and 'they's got a little confused there.

At least he doesn't have a one-in-ten dole queue waiting for him.

[Thea]

Call the teacher back, give them an F in "having a life".

I'd love to but they seem to be giving him such a hard time I wouldn't want to give them any more reasons. Besides, I'm sure he has their best interests at heart.

Or maybe his bonus if they meet his targets.

Pah! If they were that worried about his work, they'd do a better job of teaching him

I'm just bitter at maths teachers anyway. There's one out there who owes me some serious cash...

[Francis]

I'm just bitter at maths teachers anyway. There's one out there who owes me some serious cash...

No doubt s/he can come up with some newfangled equation which proves you're the one in debt.

And what is that thing you're clinging onto in your avatar?

[Thea]

They've been trying that one... Fortunatly I quickly came back with an equasion involving seven days, my beclogged feet and their arse.

And that would be the legandary d00mbat. As seen here doing evil things to Timsinister's hat.

[Dark]

I can't stand Maths.. you know my group is told to get As and A*s in the GCSEs next year, and that would mean getting 65%.
This doesn't sound like a very high grade, however, the average score is around 45-50%.
Now, someoen tell me when I'm EVER going to need to know how to factorize quadratic equations, or work out the height of two similar 3-D objects using direct proportionality?

NEVER!!!

[emilystrange]

fortunately, my teaching involves the relating of number concept to graphemes and physical representations, followed by number bonds up to ten. with some basic shape and space thrown in.

[Dark]

fortunately, my teaching involves the relating of number concept to graphemes and physical representations, followed by number bonds up to ten. with some basic shape and space thrown in.

So basically your lesson consists of:
"Two times table, class!"
"This is a triangle."
"This is called graph paper"

?

[emilystrange]

graph paper? not that advanced.. they can count in twos now, but its too early to call it multiplication.
bless em. they know what a triangle is, tho. we checked that.

[aims]

I can't stand Maths.. you know my group is told to get As and A*s in the GCSEs next year, and that would mean getting 65%.
This doesn't sound like a very high grade, however, the average score is around 45-50%.
Now, someoen tell me when I'm EVER going to need to know how to factorize quadratic equations, or work out the height of two similar 3-D objects using direct proportionality?

NEVER!!!

Show me this exam where 65% is an A*. I want to take it!

On a serious note, some people are going to need to know that for their chosen profession and they might look down on your preferred subjects. It's all a matter of giving a reasonably broad background so that you can take the subject you want to a higher level (or indeed go off in a completely different direction, but still have a basic knowledge of the concepts in question - you'd be surprised where they come up in real life). Some of us (read: a few masochists) do actually want to take maths at A Level and beyond

[emilystrange]

i want to know why number lines hadn't been invented when i was at school

[Chairman Bux]

Some of the world's greatest thinkers come from a Mathematics background. If you cannot see a practical application for some of the theories your son is studying, then you need to read more. As they say.

By putting a greater importance on the purely practical side of education then you are in danger of consigning him to a life of ordinaryness.

The "hard of thinking" brigade are already making serious in-roads into the UK's education system, dumbing down the nature of what children are taught.

Replacing science, mathematics and other such purely "academic" courses with practical and domestic classes will be the ruination of the nation. I'm not saying such courses don't have their place but when classes in cashing one's giro cheque are introduced at the expense of learning about abstract thought, then somehing is very, very wrong.

[andymackem]

Could you have music without maths?

Discuss .....

[lazarus corporation]

Could you have music without maths?

Discuss .....

you certainly couldn't quantise a drum beat without it

[canon docre]

Some of the world's greatest thinkers come from a Mathematics background. If you cannot see a practical application for some of the theories your son is studying, then you need to read more. As they say.

By putting a greater importance on the purely practical side of education then you are in danger of consigning him to a life of ordinaryness.

The "hard of thinking" brigade are already making serious in-roads into the UK's education system, dumbing down the nature of what children are taught.

Replacing science, mathematics and other such purely "academic" courses with practical and domestic classes will be the ruination of the nation. I'm not saying such courses don't have their place but when classes in cashing one's giro cheque are introduced at the expense of learning about abstract thought, then somehing is very, very wrong.

.. and your kid will never be able to develop an interest in solving this:

David Deutsch:

In what class of 4-dimensional spacetimes does there exist a real, non-constant scalar field φ with the following properties:
It obeys the wave equation: ◻φ=0
Its gradient is everywhere null: ∇φ.∇φ=0
(I would like the answer to be: “almost none�, but don't let that influence you.)

(for the ones interested, I strongly recommend the homepage of this lovely man.

[emilystrange]

teaching thinking skills is really being pushed atm..

[Obviousman]

Mathematics... Don't I love it

Next month I'll have a lovely exam covering all kind of definitions which you don't use anyway, like Taylor series, matrixes, whatever, and some terrible statistics too...

I guess you just have to go through it all when you want to pass at a decent level of study which has something to do with sience in the slightest kind of way (don't have a clue why they take Applied Economics for a sience though )

[aims]

Next month I'll have a lovely exam covering all kind of definitions which you don't use anyway, like Taylor series, matrixes, whatever, and some terrible statistics too...

Surely that's an Eldritch series?

[emilystrange]

i've only just got over fibonacci.