Mar 2Liked by Sane Franciscan, Righteous Music Junkie
This is a fascinating topic that has a few layers to it. As a retired NYC Math teacher I understand the importance of the subject in brain development. However, the reality is, free public educations’ existence is necessitated by job market demand. It was never intended to “lift all boats” but to fill needed positions and skills. The sad reality is, the majority of professions do not require algebra. The STEM push is not designed to bring people along, but to whittle away the chaff who cannot comprehend complex math. For brighter math students, acceleration is necessary, for everyone else, it’s a barrier. Just desiring your child to excel at math is not enough. There needs to be an innate ability that is then nurtured. Of course options should be given to those who are capable, but if you’d like to turn off students from education at an early age, push them hard in a subject where they do not have an aptitude, a willingness to work, and a home to support it. Our system rewards those with the most skill and the home to back it. There’s nothing that will change that. Giving everyone work beyond their capacity is a recipe for exactly what we have, disaffected, underclass students who understand the system has no interest in developing their innate skills whatever they are, but churning out cogs in a machine.
Another day I didn’t use Algebra is a y-shirt for a reason.
I taught Special Education High School students who were on functional levels of 3rd and 4th grade, not because of intellectual disabilities, but emotional. My curriculum demanded I taught them algebra, trinomial equations, when few of them could multiply or divide. This is a massively complex issue, not solved by demanding everyone do work above their heads.
Mar 2·edited Mar 2Liked by Sane Franciscan, Righteous Music Junkie
Great post, and thanks for all the work you did, Rob! We were so lucky our son was two years ahead of this nonsense... He did go to SFUSD elementary and middle schools, loving but low-performing atmospheres academically, and had a lot of fun, learned fluent Spanish, played soccer, got to take advantage of some of the few remaining "accelerated" classes, took ALGEBRA -- and got a perfect math SAT score. Those were the days. He's still irritated with us that he wasn't given opportunities to excel further at math, or learn coding as a kid, but in a way, he made up for lost time and is working math-related jobs today. He did not get his abilities from me -- I still struggle with the sums on grocery receipts -- he got it at school. (Although I should give his dad some credit lol.) But yes, canceling the path to Calculus (and good jobs) because it's not for absolutely everyone is ridiculous and a race-to-the-bottom mentality.
Too bad the public school system use good ppl for their indocrination for grant funding scientism which is psuedo science for their Epi De Eugenics depopulation agenda UN Agenda 2030 , the predator class death cult want the masses to cull themselves and they are pushing Communism
the predator class socially engineer the masses for their agenda and use mind control for that as something good, they are the deceivers and the masses are the decieved unfortunately , they also use conquer and divide tactics of mind control through the politricksters , propaganda through the Council on Foreign Relation Mainstream propoganda machine, early indocrinatin for communism, notice the Communist country influx of socially engineered transplants from these countries are no coincedence
Omg. Glad we left! Good on you for taking on the madness. And winning!
Nice pledge. Creative
This is a fascinating topic that has a few layers to it. As a retired NYC Math teacher I understand the importance of the subject in brain development. However, the reality is, free public educations’ existence is necessitated by job market demand. It was never intended to “lift all boats” but to fill needed positions and skills. The sad reality is, the majority of professions do not require algebra. The STEM push is not designed to bring people along, but to whittle away the chaff who cannot comprehend complex math. For brighter math students, acceleration is necessary, for everyone else, it’s a barrier. Just desiring your child to excel at math is not enough. There needs to be an innate ability that is then nurtured. Of course options should be given to those who are capable, but if you’d like to turn off students from education at an early age, push them hard in a subject where they do not have an aptitude, a willingness to work, and a home to support it. Our system rewards those with the most skill and the home to back it. There’s nothing that will change that. Giving everyone work beyond their capacity is a recipe for exactly what we have, disaffected, underclass students who understand the system has no interest in developing their innate skills whatever they are, but churning out cogs in a machine.
Another day I didn’t use Algebra is a y-shirt for a reason.
I taught Special Education High School students who were on functional levels of 3rd and 4th grade, not because of intellectual disabilities, but emotional. My curriculum demanded I taught them algebra, trinomial equations, when few of them could multiply or divide. This is a massively complex issue, not solved by demanding everyone do work above their heads.
Great post, and thanks for all the work you did, Rob! We were so lucky our son was two years ahead of this nonsense... He did go to SFUSD elementary and middle schools, loving but low-performing atmospheres academically, and had a lot of fun, learned fluent Spanish, played soccer, got to take advantage of some of the few remaining "accelerated" classes, took ALGEBRA -- and got a perfect math SAT score. Those were the days. He's still irritated with us that he wasn't given opportunities to excel further at math, or learn coding as a kid, but in a way, he made up for lost time and is working math-related jobs today. He did not get his abilities from me -- I still struggle with the sums on grocery receipts -- he got it at school. (Although I should give his dad some credit lol.) But yes, canceling the path to Calculus (and good jobs) because it's not for absolutely everyone is ridiculous and a race-to-the-bottom mentality.
Nice piece Rob! Good to see a little sanity returning to Insane Francisco re-posted by the Sane Franciscan.
Too bad the public school system use good ppl for their indocrination for grant funding scientism which is psuedo science for their Epi De Eugenics depopulation agenda UN Agenda 2030 , the predator class death cult want the masses to cull themselves and they are pushing Communism
the predator class socially engineer the masses for their agenda and use mind control for that as something good, they are the deceivers and the masses are the decieved unfortunately , they also use conquer and divide tactics of mind control through the politricksters , propaganda through the Council on Foreign Relation Mainstream propoganda machine, early indocrinatin for communism, notice the Communist country influx of socially engineered transplants from these countries are no coincedence