Education, schooling, learning...

[vakkotaur]

A few things happened in the last several days that all seem to be related by way of dealing with learning or lack of learning.

1. There is an intersection near work that for years had a set of stop signs for north-south traffic, but none for east-west traffic. This past summer, while there was bridge replacement work going on not too far away, signs for a 4-way stop were put up. Not just two additional signs for a total of four, but a thing with stop signs on it placed in the center of the intersection, making it that much harder to claim "What sign? I didn't see any sign. There was never a sign there."

After the new bridge was open, the intersection went back to the old way of stopping only north-south traffic. This lasted a few months and then a proposal was heard and agreed to make the stop a four way stop permanently, for safety reasons. (There is just enough of a rise that a turn from the north can be tricky in lower vehicles.) So the signs went back up, even the center thing, to let folks know that it was a four way stop again.

A couple weeks later the center signs, and only the center signs, were removed. People had a couple weeks, at least, to get used to the stops again. There was e-mail about the signs. There were front page articles in the paper. There were the usual set of stop signs. But "there were never stop signs there" seems to have won, for the centerpiece of the intersection is back. I wonder for how long. I have a suspicion that when it is removed again (likely with the next real snowfall) there will be more than a couple tickets about running that stop.

2. Mint M&Ms are available before Christmas, which is nice. I like mint M&Ms. The only bad thing is that after Christmas they are not to be found. Fortunately M&Ms have a long shelf-life. With those facts in mind I went shopping to get a year's supply or so, figuring one bag a month should be enough (if not more than enough). This was easy enough. At the checkout I arranged the dozen bags of M&Ms, the only things I was buying, in four rows of three. I figured this would make it easier on the cashier. 3 x 4 = 12. Simple enough. Scan one bag, punch up 12, and be done. Nope. The cashier counted them out "1, 2, 3,.."

Since pharwarner also likes mint M&Ms, I repeated this a few days later. Another dozen, again laid out 3 by 4. This time a different cashier counted them by twos.

Now, I'll admit I don't do much mental arithmetic and have machinery do it instead, but what happened? 3 x 4 is not that difficult. Okkay, there is some recognition of geometry and spatial thinking involved, but still... is it that hard? Did schools stop teaching the physical meaning of multiplication? (I will note, that it was clear that it was one and only bag per position - counting to avoid accidentally undercharging might have been going on, but if that was it, it made these people look foolish.)

3. A program on the radio mentioned Sister Kenny (Not a nun, a nurse from Australia. pharwarner could better explain this better than I.) and her methods for treating polio victims. These methods where extremely different from the commonly accepted and prescribed treatments of the day (1930s,40s,50s). So were her results. But she had a hard time convincing people as she didn't have a degree. One comment seems to sum things up well. She said she met too many who could have said "I don't understand it. It's bunk" but kept on until she found someone who could have said "I don't understand it. I need to learn more."

It took her some time and travel to find this. The Sister Kenny Institute is not in Australia, as one might expect. It is in Minnesota.

Many people learn a lot in school. But I often wonder how much more would be learned if schools didn't get in the way. John Taylor Gatto, 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year, claims the answer is, "Quite a bit." He has something to say about what school really teaches.

Comments

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

I remember once a long time ago showing my grandma a picture of a five-pointed star and being surprised that she hadda count the points to be sure there were five!