I spent almost nine years in the work of designing airplanes, before getting involved in my present engineering work. I can say without a doubt that memorization, along with learning that followed that memorization, played a very large part in helping me acquire a job designing airplanes, and also, helped me design airplanes. Math is just one of the many tools necessary in that vocation.

The biggest challenge in the engineering field is making sure new engineers understand the basic concepts and are able to use the computational tools correctly and are able to judge the magnetude of things intuitively. Strong intuition is built on being able to work out rough estimates in one’s head – and that requires well practiced math skills that don’t use calculators, or programs and use common, well understood math systems as their basis.

I rue the day when some new hire engineer approaches me with some calculations performed in an alternate number system or such, and they try to convince me that this system is equally sound

Major accomplishments in large, complex business organizations and civilizations depend on a common language, be that english, math, or whatever. Introducing something that is different for the sake of checking a box next to “diversity” does nothing to support that.

Of course it isn’t. Math in lower grades is about achieving rote answers with understanding. No wonder kids can’t add 2 + 2 and get in the same neighborhood as 4.

corkie said:

#167 properly SOLVED the presented math problem.

Yes, it was solvable – the line is the solution.

I bet the Mayans didn’t know that.

They were too busy making calendars out of hub caps.

Which brings something else to mind…. If someone ever unearths a Barnes & Noble a few thousand years from now and finds the calendar rack amidst the rubble…. will they believe that North American indigents believed the world was going to end on December 31st?

http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/math_scores_in_us_hit_a_plateau

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mayan+mathematics&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=yChfS83dKJTIsAPs0pnQBA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQsAQwAw

Otherwise, get back to the basics. But Michelle Malkin is right, this really isn’t about math, it’s about political and social agendas.

On January 26th, 2010 at 12:02 pm, Southpaw said:
Now I suppose you want to hear about my base 8 calendar. 8 days in a week, 8 weeks in a month, 8 months in a year, 8 years in a decade. You might say I’m Octal obsessed. The opening of the Beijing Olympics on 08/08/08 was like, Nirvana.

You and “OctoMom” would make a cute couple.

really?

On January 26th, 2010 at 12:21 pm, spaceycakes said:
Southpaw–I’m just kidding of course…

do you have a pet octopus?

That’s funny.
Does anybody get the sense that I’m a little bit burned out on all the political stuff?
I think I have Obamanitus.