Louise
----------
>From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr who-is-at uclink4.berkeley.edu>
>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Re: the calculus wars
>Date: Thu, May 20, 1999, 10:52 PM
>
> I don't know if this is of any help in this discussion, but in the area of
> "school to work" vis a vis the current situation that faces most working
> class kids...
>
> Each year the National Association of Manufacturers and various chambers of
> commerce are polled by some economists to find what the employers really
> want in new employees (we're not talking about university graduates)
> Despite all the rhetoric about basic skills being touted in educational
> circles, as in "that's what employers want most!"... Here's what the bosses
> always say. They want employees who:
>
> are responsible (arrive on time, don't need to be monitored for productivity)
>
> are ethical (don't steal or lie to the boss)
>
> are sociable (don't create dissension or ill will among fellow employees)
>
> are self motivated (don't need to be pushed, can be trusted to keep working
> when boss is not present)
>
>
> Sure they also want people who have basic language and math skills, but
> those items are way down on the list
>
> The point is that most kids in urban high schools who have some familiarity
> with the work world realize that the argument that "a basic skills
> curriculum is essential for job training" is bogus, and this "real world"
> sophistication helps them disengage from academics that much more quickly.
> Usually, these basic skills approaches are counterposed to critical
> thinking, integrated curriculum, depth vs breadth, thematic teaching, etc
> which could really turn our kids on to learning. Another instantiation of
> the reproduction of social class inequality currently at work in our
> inner-city schools, at least here in California.
>
> The instrumentalist argument for "staying in school" does not work because
> it's not true. Better to motivate our kids with an argument about
> acquiring knowledge for empowerment and to change the world
>
> Pete Farruggio
>
>
>>Graham wrote:
>>>I once had a research student who tried, in the district surrounding a high
>>>school, to discover the relationship between what happened in school and
>>>what happened in the local work-places where most of the high school
>>>graduates got jobs. He observed in the factories and offices, and observed
>>>in the high school classrooms, and tried to find similarities between the
>>>two. There were very few similarities. Most of what the workers did by way
>>>of mathematics, writing, etc., they had learned in elementary school. The
>>>high school subject that seemed to have the closest fit was history,
>>>largely because the interpretive and meaning-making activities that were
>>>required in the high school history class were closest to the interpretive
>>>and meaning-making activities that workers needed to make sense of their
>>>workplace. But that was stretching it a bit.
>>
>>Graham, in five years of observing workers (skilled and unskilled) at
>>volunteer construction sites I have yet to see a single example of someone
>>using trig methods to solve problems involving angles. I watched, for
>>example, a highly-competent professional carpenter walk a novice through
>>the process of laying out a roof truss basically as a geometry
>>construction, using a rafter square and a pencil. The carpenters that I
>>have observed rarely do anything with angles, preferring to convert things
>>like roof slopes into linear rise/run measurements.
>>
>>I don't think this means that math beyond algebra and geometry is a waste
>>of time, however. If nothing else, there is some value in knowing that
>>there is another way of solving problems, even if it requires things like
>>protractors and trig tables that might not be ready-to-hand. Further,
>>there is power in knowing about these other tools, even if you never have
>>cause to actually use them---if only to keep them from being the exclusive
>>domain of the engineers and architects on the job.
>>
>>This is not to say that the way that we currently teach things like
>>trigometry and calculus is optimal. Having students do endless drill work
>>on de-contextualized problems and memorizing formulas only to forget them
>>immediately after testing seems pretty useless. Maybe if we engaged
>>students in things like designing roof trusses in school, they would have
>>an easier time seeing learning trig as an empowering skill. ---Tim
>