Ewww, fantasy is bad! Won't you think of the Children?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you had to pick as 6 books to be taught n school that were written after WWII, which would they be.

The Outsiders
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Handmaid's Tale
*edit to add*
Lord of the Flies
Fahrenheit 451
*end edit*

Those are just off the top of my head. If I really gave it some more thought, I'm sure I could come up with more.

Shari

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I wouldn't. As I've stated previously, I'm a great believer in the idea that classics ("moldy oldies", as you call them, Jon) should be taught in schools. Let children read modern books for pleasure in their own time.

I guess since you think that the whole purpose of a literature class is to teach cultural history, this makes sense. To me, the purpose of a literature class is to teach/discuss literature. Literature isn't confined to books that were written over 100 years ago, is it?

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

I guess since you think that the whole purpose of a literature class is to teach cultural history, this makes sense. To me, the purpose of a literature class is to teach/discuss literature. Literature isn't confined to books that were written over 100 years ago, is it?

Shari

Certainly not. Literature is being written today, but I think that time is the only factor which will tell us which literature is sufficiently culturally important to be worthy of being taught in schools. Doesn't need to be 100 years, but a few decades, certainly.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly not. Literature is being written today, but I think that time is the only factor which will tell us which literature is sufficiently culturally important to be worthy of being taught in schools. Doesn't need to be 100 years, but a few decades, certainly.

I guess literature classes in the US are different from literature classes in Great Britain, then. All of the books I mentioned in my other post are books that are being taught in US schools right now. Along with Dickens, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Mark Twain and many others.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

All of the books I mentioned in my other post are books that are being taught in US schools right now. Along with Dickens, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Mark Twain and many others.

Shari

And they're all a few decades old, which was my point. I should point out that I too read "Lord of the Flies" in school (and didn't particularly enjoy it - I liked Dickens and Shakespeare a lot more).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

On the maths, I do not care if a school teaches advanced calculus. I do think all children should at least be taught the very basics. I mean addition, subtraction, and hopefully multiplication and division.
I worked in the special population department of a college.
What broke my heart was with the exception of one student that had been labeled as special, all of them had to take remedial math when they got to the college level.
Nearly every one of these students had physical disabilities not mental ones. Because they had been labeled, they did not have to take those core curriculum (or whatever they are calling them now) tests.

I remember I was a junior in high school when they first came out with those tests. We were told on a Friday, bring 2 number 2 pencils to school on Monday. Pass or you don't graduate. There was NO teaching to the test like they do now.
And it was just the basics.

Am I good at math? No.
Am I bad at math? No.

I can do most of what you'd learn in college, but I don't know most of the more advanced definitions by heart anymore. I'm also slow when calculating. However, if you give me a sheet with the definitions (or some time to study) and some sums to do, I'll probably get all of them correct. So, I think my mediocre/slow math skills are just mediocre due to a lack of practice, just because I don't use them very often. (As a software engineer/programmer, I'm obviously very strong at logic-based math, but still not very fast.)

However in the Netherlands, we're in a real bind now.

When people apply to become a teacher, it turns out they can't do math. And I don't mean advanced calculus or university level physics; I mean basic stuff that a 12 y/o should be able to do. Like:

* Calculate 25 / 7 to two decimals without a calculator.
* 5 * -4 = -20
* X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts does Y have now? (Yes, some get that wrong by answering "1".)

There are now tests in place for people who want to become prep school teachers... they have to make the same exams a 12 y/o has to make, and they have to pass it or get remedial teaching during summer before starting classes. (At least, it was thus when I last heard of this.)

I think it's absurd that 17-19 y/o are unable to do THAT kind of math.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Am I good at math? No.
Am I bad at math? No.

I can do most of what you'd learn in college, but I don't know most of the more advanced definitions by heart anymore. I'm also slow when calculating. However, if you give me a sheet with the definitions (or some time to study) and some sums to do, I'll probably get all of them correct. So, I think my mediocre/slow math skills are just mediocre due to a lack of practice, just because I don't use them very often. (As a software engineer/programmer, I'm obviously very strong at logic-based math, but still not very fast.)

However in the Netherlands, we're in a real bind now.

When people apply to become a teacher, it turns out they can't do math. And I don't mean advanced calculus or university level physics; I mean basic stuff that a 12 y/o should be able to do. Like:

* Calculate 25 / 7 to two decimals without a calculator.
* 5 * -4 = -20
* X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts does Y have now? (Yes, some get that wrong by answering "1".)

There are now tests in place for people who want to become prep school teachers... they have to make the same exams a 12 y/o has to make, and they have to pass it or get remedial teaching during summer before starting classes. (At least, it was thus when I last heard of this.)

I think it's absurd that 17-19 y/o are unable to do THAT kind of math.

Can I have a piece for those math problems?
Can you balance a checkbook and know how much change you should get back?
That is what I mean by the basics.
That school district couldn't be bothered to even teach that.
One student I met couldn't do 7-4.
How are these students supposed to not get taken advantage of?

I could have understood if the students had limited mental facilities, but because they were physically handicapped the school district treated them like they had no brain at all.

Then these students have to take at least 4 remedial courses in math before they even start the accredited classes. So either them or us is out more money because the school district would not teach.

Now I will give it that one of those students was virtually impossible to teach because they didn't bother to work on his speech either.
Luckily, once he got his degree (won't rant but suffice to say he was just passed there too), he found a job where he did get help with his speech.

25/7=3.57
Hey I think I managed it.
Y has two more peanuts than X.

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

* X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts does Y have now? (Yes, some get that wrong by answering "1".)

What is the correct answer to the question. The way it is written I would have to answer 1

[Gardenman]

Cinisajoy
[Q
Y has two more peanuts than X.[/QUOTE]


That is not the question that was asked. The way the question is written it is asking how many more peanuts Y has now than they had before.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

* X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts does Y have now? (Yes, some get that wrong by answering "1".)

Originally Posted by Gardenman

What is the correct answer to the question. The way it is written I would have to answer 1

That is correct. Both answers are right. The missing relation is implied, supposedly. To only have the answer '2' it should have been worded like this:

• X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts than X does Y have now?

Another thing that is really annoying when you have to explain to your teacher that you didn't cheat. Only because not all tiny steps are written down on paper means I cheated (in those math tests that didn't allow calculators).

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

That is correct. Both answers are right. The missing relation is implied, supposedly. To only have the answer '2' it should have been worded like this:

• X and Y each have 10 peanuts. X gives 1 peanut to Y. How many more peanuts than X does Y have now?

Another thing that is really annoying when you have to explain to your teacher that you didn't cheat. Only because not all tiny steps are written down on paper means I cheated (in those math tests that didn't allow calculators).

In Access once, the professor did the test in Word Perfect but printed it in word.
She was wondering why the entire class missed one question.
The answer had printed wrong.

[darryl]

It's amazing how often difficulty in solving a problem or worse, error, comes about because of missing essential information. In this case if there is any information left out it is what to compare the new number of peanuts held by Y to. The number held by X? The number previously held by Y? As is, it is arguable that when you give someone an extra peanut and ask how many more peanuts they now have, it is arguably implied that the comparison is to how many peanuts that person had before the gift, the difference then being 1. If a student answered 2 to that question it is likely that they answered on the basis of their unstated assumption that the comparison was to peanuts now held by X. Given the test is of basic Maths and not English I would count this answer as also being correct, even though the student answering did not specify this assumption.

I would also point out that our drift from the topic if it continues may take us into the realms of Politics. There are already some signs of this. Of issues of the quality and academic requirements for teachers. Of their training. Of teacher workload and "curriculum crowding", currently a topic with some media discussion in Australia, at least in New South Wales. And of course the inclusion in the curricula of politically charged issues. In Australia something called the "Safe Schools" program has been the subject of much debate. If discussion strays too deeply into these areas then ii may well end up spawning a thread in the politics and religion forums.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

What is the correct answer to the question. The way it is written I would have to answer 1

You're right, maybe the question should have been more clear As DuckieTigger said, the relation is normally left out if mentioned before, at least in Dutch. In questions such as this one, it can been better to mention it explicitly, to avoid misunderstandings and/or ambiguous meanings such as this one.

"X and Y both have 10 peanuts. X gives one peanut to Y. How many more peanuts (than X) does Y now have?"

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly not. Literature is being written today, but I think that time is the only factor which will tell us which literature is sufficiently culturally important to be worthy of being taught in schools. Doesn't need to be 100 years, but a few decades, certainly.

I have a problem with the label "literature". When is a book literature? What defines it? When at school, I had to read x "old" books (medieval to the 19th century), x pre-war books (think 19th century till 1945) and x post-war books (from 1945 till now).

Those medieval books were practically unreadable, the Dutch language has been changed a lot since the 14th century! But we had to read them nonetheless, in the original language even (written in verse, they generally don't translate well)

The second group of books, I personally mostly liked. The language looks a lot more like modern Dutch, a lot of travel stories in the bunch, which I always liked and still do. And prose, instead of verse.

The third group of books, I hated. All dramas, all heavy, all about some mental problems people had to go through. I hate drama. Clear and simple. I don't watch drama on TV, I don't read dram. But they were "literature"!

For me, whenever I see a book called "literature", I'll walk around it and won't even try it. My Dutch literature class has poisoned me against literature. Literature, in my mind, is a horrible boring book, not something you'd want children to read, unless you want them all depressed and suicidal...

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

The third group of books, I hated. All dramas, all heavy, all about some mental problems people had to go through. I hate drama. Clear and simple. I don't watch drama on TV, I don't read dram. But they were "literature"!

I hear ya Nooit meer slapen...agh. I sure slept, I can tell you. I very much liked Hersenschimmen by Bernlef, though. Very impressive book. And I actually got hooked on Hubert Lampo so much I bought all his books, and re-bought them as ebooks when they got released as epubs a few years ago.

So it wasn't all bad...