Coffee and grub

[Four-Eyed Buck]

Russ, I was kinda lookin' over my shoulder too and flinchin'......Buck

[Silver Creek Slim]

I took Algebra, Geometry, Trig, and Calc. I probably use Algebra at least once a day. The others I don't use very often. I wish I would have taken welding. My dad is an ex-farmer jack-of-all-trades. I learnt a lot of manual trades from him but welding is one he didn't teach me. 

AnnieLee,
From what I saw of Will, you are doing a good job of raising him.

Slim

[Delmonico]

                                                                                                        

Kinetic energy equals mass multipled by the excelleration of gravity times two, divided by velocity.  So what a wotherless exercise till you take (bullet weight in grains, divide by 7000 to get pounds multiply that by the constant 64.4 and divide by the velocity if fps to get the kinetic energy in ft/lbs.  A somewhat usefull and interesting number but not the ultimate in comparing rounds that are fired in a gun.

Now you can call that Algabra, but I call it practical math.  Algabra is something the Wicked Witch of the West taught when I was in 7th grade.    

[Silver Creek Slim]

I must've been in a badwater school 'cuz I didn't get taught algebra 'til 9th grade. 

Slim

[Delmonico]

To para-phrase Mathew Quigley "I didn't say I didn't know how to use it, I just don't much care for it."  

Welding will teach him he needs the math to learn how to design and figger materials on what he wants to build.  Sides that I know more folks with math degrees in some other trade than I know good welders who can't find a job.

If I would have been taught to not abuse my hands and get carpal tunnel I could be making far more money as a welder.  Might not have as much fun, but that is another story.

[Joyce (AnnieLee)]

Rant Part II

When I was in eighth grade, I took Algebra from the Wicked Witch of the East. Her male relatives were my "teachers" of Analytic Geometry, Complex Variables, Linear Algebra, and Calculus III.

These are people for whom Math is easy. They love Math, it comes naturally to them. They don't see it as a tool, they love Math for the sake of its being Math.

The solutions to most math problems follows a single, step by step path, often rearranging the numbers, applying different techniques, until the answer is found.

Problem----> Technique A---->technique B----> Technique C-----> Technique D----->  on and on, to Technique W-----> Answer.

The average student needs to see the flow from A to B to C to D to E to F, the entire progression until the answer is found. They need to understand the mechanics of how math works. Once they understand it, they can practice and use it. Once they grasp the mechanics of each step, then they can possibly combine the steps, and make the path to the solution shorter. But they need to know how it works, first.

The problem with the Math lovers as Math Teachers is when they step up to the chalkboard and write:

Problem
Technique C
Technique Q
Answer.

The Student, baffled, wants to know how the teacher got from C to Q and from Q to the answer.

The Math lover replies, often with a derisive, snide, or condescending tone: "It's Obvious!"
Or:

"It's in your book!"
Or
"It's intuitive!"

Well, it may well be, for those who adore math. But it isn't for everyone else, and that doesn't make them stupid. But they are treated like they are, indeed, stupid, because their teachers cannot fathom that not everyone takes to math like a fish to water. The concept is foreign to them, so they continue to teach in the same manner and by doing so, alienate generation after generation of students and create more and more "math-phobes" who would rather put a stick in their eye than approach Algebra as an adult.

But those same "stupid" kids often excel at "practical mathematics" because the same concepts of Algebra are taught to them not by lovers of math, but by practitioners of some other, often technical subject, who often understand the value and intrinsic worth of applied math. They teach math as the tool it is meant to be.

Math lovers should be locked up in some university structure with other math lovers and *maybe* be allowed to teach neo-phyte mathophiles or stuck in a room to theorize about the nature of numbers. They should be allowed minimal contact with other humans, and be prohibited from entering a classroom of people under the age of 25.  They aren't teaching Algebra, they are creating fear, mental blocks, and math anxiety. They are hurting far more people than they are helping. 


I have no desire to smack Del with Elle, his comment about the Wicked Witch tells me he had a teacher like mine . But there are many times I wish I could have had Elle in that 8th grade classroom. It took me close to ten years to be able to approach Math with a learning mind after that one year with that woman.

End Rant II

AnnieLee

[Four-Eyed Buck]

I had several of those too, Annie. Algebra one and Geometry. When I had Algebra Two and Trig. my Junior year, I had the other type and had no problem with them. Just didn't care for math all that much. I can do figures in my head as long as I'm not real tired still. I have a good memory for things where I see them, guess that's why I did well driving fork lifts. It involved storage areas and where stuff was placed. My first job out of school involved figuring out and supervising the loading of semi loads of roller bearings( Math!). Had to loasd them so that the load was distributed to suit the type of tractor they were going to use( twin axle or single axle). Typical twin load was about 43-44,000 lbs, a single was about 32-33,000lbs. Still wasn't running a printing press!........Buck

[Silver Creek Slim]

AnnieLee,



Slim

[Forty Rod]

I was about to raise Old Ned about not getting pics of Annie's Flannies when I went back to look for something else and LO AND BEHOLD, there it was. 

Guess I wasn't paying attention.  I'll be careful and not let that happen again.

That looks real snuggly, Annie.  I sorta prefer baby blue, but white's right, too.

[Trinity]

I never liked math much in school but always did pretty decently.  In the mean time, I have grown to appreciate the value of math and am often fascinated by certain formulae.  Sometimes I wish that I had become a Mathmetician, not for the love of math, but for the historical interest.  When they talk on the History Channel about how mathematecally exact the Egyptian pyramids are, chills run down my spine.

Sadly, I must remind myself that I have never been able to quickly calculate in my head.  I am very envious of folks who can.  What is that, right brain, left brain??  I still haven't figured out which side of the brain I am.  I'm neither artsy or mechanical.  Dang!

About languages... I think that they are immensely valuable for many reasons.  The most important:  It helps you understand your own language and a person who understands his or her own language speaks better.  Language is another thing that I wish that I had paid more attention to in school, but this time for both the practical and the historical value.  Dang, it has been said that youth is waisted on the young.  I say that education is wasted on the young!

Oh, and Slim... I didn't have Algebra until the 9th grade either.  I must say, however, that I liked my math teachers.  I never had any wicked witches of the east, west or whereever.

[Forty Rod]

I took algebra in seventh grade.  Got a D.  Mr. Welch let me take it again the next quarter to try to inprove my grade...said I could keep the best of the two on my PERMANENT RECORD. (Where's the smily for "Horror"?).

My PERMANENT RECORD shows I got a D.  Any guess what I got the second time around?  HINT: I only got one other F in my entire life, but that's another story and I'll protest that second one until I die.

Twenty five years later I was teaching junior high (now middle school) math.  Taught almost everything BUT algebra:  basic arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplication, and guzintas), plane and solid geometries, fractions, decimals, percentages, conversions, basic trig., etc.

Not bad for a social sciences/history major with minors in elementary education and military science, huh.

[Delmonico]

But can you weld?

[Forty Rod]

To be totally honest, Del, no.  I can't weld. 

Can't do much of anything else either. 

It's genetic.  I have a problem seeing. 

I can't see myself doing anything that requires me to sweat or strain.

[Trinity]

To be totally honest, Del, no.  I can't weld. 

Can't do much of anything else either. 

It's genetic.  I have a problem seeing. 

I can't see myself doing anything that requires me to sweat or strain.

Are we related??!??

[Forty Rod]

Could be,Trinity. 

Grandpa was a travellin' man.

[Joyce (AnnieLee)]

To be totally honest, Del, no.  I can't weld. 

Can't do much of anything else either. 

It's genetic.  I have a problem seeing. 

I can't see myself doing anything that requires me to sweat or strain.

Are we related??!??

I've been wondering that for weeks!



AnnieLee

[Trinity]

To be totally honest, Del, no.  I can't weld. 

Can't do much of anything else either. 

It's genetic.  I have a problem seeing. 

I can't see myself doing anything that requires me to sweat or strain.

Are we related??!??

I've been wondering that for weeks!



AnnieLee

Now Miss Annie, Ah'm just now gettin' to know mah kin.  Don' go makin fun of us already!!! 

[Joyce (AnnieLee)]

To be totally honest, Del, no.  I can't weld. 

Can't do much of anything else either. 

It's genetic.  I have a problem seeing. 

I can't see myself doing anything that requires me to sweat or strain.

Are we related??!??

I've been wondering that for weeks!



AnnieLee

Now Miss Annie, Ah'm just now gettin' to know mah kin.  Don' go makin fun of us already!!! 

I'm not making fun, just commenting that I can see that you two would be related. Heck, Slim and J.W. are my cousins, and I hardly talk to JW at all!



AnnieLee

[Delmonico]

Ya, but Lone Gunman and I are some sort of cousin on both sides of my family.

[Silver Creek Slim]

Oh, and Slim... I didn't have Algebra until the 9th grade either.  I must say, however, that I liked my math teachers.  I never had any wicked witches of the east, west or whereever.

I ain't the only one that went to a backwater school. 

Slim