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Thread: Why are we still teaching algebra?

  1. #166
    Billy works in an automotive shop and he changes oil. He gets paid .3 of an hour (on piecework). He is saving for a trip that will cost a total of $3000. He only works five days a week but his daily expenses are $35. He will be gone for a week so he needs to cover those expenses as well. This is Monday at the start of his shift. He leaves in 6 weeks to the day. How many oil changes does he need to do if he makes $30/piecework hour in the next six weeks? And how many will he need to do per day?
    Last edited by Matt Mattingley; 09-20-2018 at 11:09 PM.

  2. #167
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlie Velasquez View Post
    You would probably not have liked some of my tests. Sometimes they already had all the answers on them. They only got credit if they showed how to get it. And just to make it more fun, sometimes I put the wrong answer on 2 or 3 problems and they had to find them.
    Charlie, I wish I would have a teacher like you. I probably would have done better in school. We need more like you! Bob Glenn
    Life's too short to use old sandpaper.

  3. #168
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Mattingley View Post
    Billy works in an automotive shop and he changes oil. He gets paid .3 of an hour (on piecework). He is saving for a trip that will cost a total of $3000. He only works five days a week but his daily expenses are $35. He will be gone for a week so he needs to cover those expenses as well. This is Monday at the start of his shift. He leaves in 6 weeks to the day. How many oil changes does he need to do if he makes $30/piecework hour in the next six weeks? And how many will he need to do per day?
    Lets make it real. Billy will charge the trip on his Chase Visa card and pay it off over time with minimum required monthly payment, and he will likely miss a payment every now and then
    Now you figure out the real cost of that trip assuming a 19.8% interest rate and $30 penalty charge for missing a few payments over the next 4 years.

  4. #169
    Quote Originally Posted by Pat Barry View Post
    Lets make it real. Billy will charge the trip on his Chase Visa card and pay it off over time with minimum required monthly payment, and he will likely miss a payment every now and then
    Now you figure out the real cost of that trip assuming a 19.8% interest rate and $30 penalty charge for missing a few payments over the next 4 years.
    Lol don’t forget Billy is 33 years old and still lives in his parents basement. His mom which is 65 years still cook his meals, packs his lunch, does his laundry, cleans up after him and makes his bed.

  5. #170
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Mattingley View Post
    Lol don’t forget Billy is 33 years old and still lives in his parents basement. His mom which is 65 years still cook his meals, packs his lunch, does his laundry, cleans up after him and makes his bed.
    All because he didn't pay attention in class when he took algebra in high school! See how important it was?
    Last edited by Charlie Velasquez; 09-21-2018 at 1:59 PM.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  6. #171
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Glenn View Post
    Charlie, I wish I would have a teacher like you. I probably would have done better in school. We need more like you! Bob Glenn
    Thanks. I was lucky, every morning I would get ready for school and say to myself, "Today I get to be a teacher!" Not everyone finds a job that makes him/her happy to wake up.

    Even after I retired from the classroom, my wife let me teach her math and science lessons. I still get to teach as I work with at-risk kids in an after-school program.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  7. #172
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Glenn View Post
    Charlie, that was great, I don't think I could have sorted that one out on my own. Maybe you can help me out with this classic puzzle:

    Three guys go into a hotel to spend the night, but there is only one room left, so they decided to share the last room. The hotel manager said that will be thirty dollars for the room, so each man paid ten dollars to make up the thirty and they went up to the room. Soon after, the hotel manager realized that he had charged the men five dollars too much, so he had the bell boy refund the five dollars. However, the bell boy didn't know how to split the five dollars three ways, so he just gave each man a one dollar refund and kept the two dollars left over as a tip.

    So now, each man paid ten dollars then got a dollar back, so now each man paid nine dollars. So the total the men paid was twenty seven, plus the two dollars the bell boy kept, make it twenty nine dollars. What happened to the other dollar?
    It's $30 - $3 - $2 tip = $25. Don't forget that I wanted fries and a Big Gulp with my double bacon cheeseburger.
    Bill

  8. #173
    Why Algebra?

    Because its the foundation of advanced math and science. Want to do physics? yep, need algebra. Chemistry, engineering, computer science, medicine, yep those all require algebra as well.

    The real question is why do we wait so long to introduce it to kids, it should start in elementary school

  9. #174
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyler A Anderson View Post
    Why Algebra? Because its the foundation of advanced math and science. Want to do physics? yep, need algebra. Chemistry, engineering, computer science, medicine, yep those all require algebra as well. The real question is why do we wait so long to introduce it to kids, it should start in elementary school
    The NCTM have had the basics of algebra as standards starting in 3rd or 4th grade for a long time.... decades. But change in education comes slowly.

    Regardless of standards, many teachers tend to teach the way they were taught.
    They see some students struggle as they introduce a new focus of instruction (the relationship between numbers instead of the computation of numbers), so they revert to what "worked" for them when they were growing up.

    Or, maybe the teacher doesn't understand or embrace the new focus him/her self.
    Alas, my experience is a lot of elementary teachers fell in love with teaching because they loved to read, not because they loved math (many of those ended up as math teachers in middle and high school). So, their focus is often on teaching the kids to find a specific answer to a specific problem, not understanding the how or why.

    Common Core standards incorporated much of the NCTM work, and you can read about the backlash in the news on a regular basis. Change comes slowly.....
    Last edited by Charlie Velasquez; 09-21-2018 at 8:35 PM.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  10. #175
    Quote Originally Posted by Charlie Velasquez View Post
    All because he didn't pay attention in class when he took algebra in high school! See how important it was?
    Charlie I appreciate everything you have said in this thread. It touches home with a grand slam. In grade school I was in the top 5% for math. When I hit high school my math teachers turn me the other way. In grade 11 I found a physics teacher. Who took the time to really hone my skills. He used to say to me I think you stay after class for about half hour. In 3 to 4 weeks he fixed and caught me up. I kept pushing for the extra help. (I took its course because I was on his track team and had a good feeling how he would treat me). I took his gr12 & pre-university course gr13. And never advanced on the training. I never went to university. I went to a pretty decent college as I liked working with my hands. I took automotive and machine shop. I became a fixture maker comet tool and die maker and partially a millwright. This one teacher had the desire to teach. He provided me with the steppingstones and the desire. I partially finished a automotive apprenticeship. Built 6 houses from the ground up. And worked for 25 years carving metal.

    I Somewhat retired three years ago. Now I teach in a college. I push my kids hard, but I like to stop for second and remember where I once was, and try to give back. So three days a week I now stay for half hour on my own time for those who wish to get extra help.

    I usually have 3 to 4 students staying. One of them is a mature student. The mature student is the top kid in my class, but he’s trying to find out the little extra tricks to remembering, and takes advantage of the free time.

    Charlie you seem like a teacher that I would’ve respected as a student or now a coworker!

  11. #176
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Mattingley View Post
    Charlie I appreciate everything you have said in this thread. . . .

    Charlie you seem like a teacher that I would’ve respected as a student or now a coworker!
    Thanks. Every life has its high and lows. Teaching, especially math and science, always got me through the lows. In fact, one of those lows was when my wife asked me if I loved teaching more than her . . . and I hesitated...
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  12. #177
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Mattingley View Post
    Lol don’t forget Billy is 33 years old and still lives in his parents basement. His mom which is 65 years still cook his meals, packs his lunch, does his laundry, cleans up after him and makes his bed.
    A Billy that works as a mechanic doing $30/piecework hour would not be likely to be still living in his parent's basement. The Billy living in his parents' basement at 33 would need to figure out how much income-based repayment of his $150,000 student loan debt for his underwater basket weaving degree slows down paying off his credit card. Bonus points if he figures out how much he'd actually have to pay on that student loan debt and *if* he'd ever pay it off.

    The mechanic Billy's calculations would need to calculate how much he actually gets to take home after paying $600/month for health insurance to heavily subsidize his 65 year old parents' Medicare and how much he has to pay in income and payroll taxes for their Social Security.

  13. #178
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    I was a shop teacher after graduating from college. I only lasted a couple years and moved on to something else after realizing teaching wasn't for me. You are a special breed.
    Life's too short to use old sandpaper.

  14. #179
    I heard algebra is taught in middle school because the ability to conceive abstractly about unknowns develops in the mind during puberty.

    Not sure how much fact there is to that.

  15. #180
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prashun Patel View Post
    I heard algebra is taught in middle school because the ability to conceive abstractly about unknowns develops in the mind during puberty.

    Not sure how much fact there is to that.
    Pretty accurate according to many educational psychologists. Formal operations (abstract thinking) starts about 10-12 years for most kids according to Piagetian theorists (a leading educational psychologist in the 50's-80's). But there have been cases of kids reaching that stage much, much earlier. But that is for completely abstract reasoning. Basic concepts can be introduced earlier, but needs a lot of concrete manipulation and/or visual representation.

    So, at about 5th grade you can see kids start to handle a little more abstract thinking. Research suggests that by and large you can't do a lot to speed up that cognitive development but if you have a kid on the threshold of formal and concrete operations, you can give him/her a nudge with adequate novel experiences.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

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